This book is to capture the impact of consumer behavior on the marketer’s ability to learn more about customers’
purchases in order to plan, develop, and implement a strategy with greater
precision. For nearly one hundred years, marketers purchased advertising
space within information and entertainment content produced by print and
broadcast media. In the past, marketers used the media’s audience profiles
in deciding where to place “one size fits all” ads. Today, dynamic ad servers customize ads based on consumers’ browsing online and other data, and marketers closely monitor consumers’ contacts and discussions on the
internet. Marketers that once purchased advertising space in selected magazines and TV sitcoms now purchase space for their messages through ad exchanges and use predictive analytics that assess the effectiveness of
their ads. Instead of targeting large segments, marketers are bidding on
impression, which enables them to use their resources most effectively
via real-time bidding.
Other forms of reaching consumers include native advertising, crosschannel marketing campaigns, consumer-generated advertising, and new media platforms, such as mobile and app advertising. Nevertheless, the loss of privacy has become a key social concern, and we have analyzed this matter and other ethical issues—
such as the impact of extensive viewing of screens on children—in our chapter on social
responsibility.