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How Companies Learn Your Secrets
Hugh Pickens writes "For decades, Target has collected vast amounts of data on every person who regularly walks into one of its stores. Now the NY Times Magazine reports on how companies like Target identify those unique moments in consumers' lives when their shopping habits become particularly flexible and the right advertisement or coupon can cause them to begin spending in new ways. Among life events, none are more important than the arrival of a baby, and new parents are a retailer's holy grail. In 2002, marketers at Target asked statisticians to answer an odd question: 'If we wanted to figure out if a customer is pregnant, even if she didn't want us to know, can you do that?' Specifically, the marketers said they wanted to send specially designed ads to women in their second trimester, which is when most expectant mothers begin buying all sorts of new things, like prenatal vitamins and maternity clothing. 'We knew that if we could identify them in their second trimester, there's a good chance we could capture them for years,' says statistician Andrew Pole. 'As soon as we get them buying diapers from us, they're going to start buying everything else too.' As Pole's computers crawled through the data, he was able to identify about 25 products that, when analyzed together, allowed him to assign each shopper a 'pregnancy prediction' score and he soon had a list of tens of thousands of women who were most likely pregnant. About a year after Pole created his pregnancy-prediction model, a man walked into a Target outside Minneapolis and demanded to see the manager. He was clutching coupons that had been sent to his daughter, and he was angry. 'My daughter got this in the mail!' he said. 'She's still in high school, and you're sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?' The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again but the father was somewhat abashed. 'It turns out there's been some activities in my house I haven't been completely aware of. She's due in August. I owe you an apology.'"
Sounds like a typical holywood movie premis.
My daddy knows WHY I'm preggers. HE DID IT!
According to our systems your girlfriend is very likely to become pregnant soon....
But we're waiting till we get married.
But not terribly surprising.
Given the opportunity, marketers will be more observant of the goings-on in a household than, say, the father of the house.
Hell, I am the father of the house, and most stuff that happens catches me by surprise. So I can sympathize with the father mentioned at the end of TFS.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Lying with statistics is an art, but it appears that once in a while they can be useful. This really is an impressive use of statistics.
Back when retailers had a more personal connection to their clients, it was also not uncommon for a shopkeeper to notice that a customer was pregnant and stock something specifically for her. Personalization has always existed; this is a more of a comeback than something completely new.
The flipside is that a shopkeeper also had a personal connection to the mother. Target has no such connection to Customer#9810957065409. This takes the personalization away from 'cozy' toward 'creepy'. It's like the uncanny valley of interactions.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
How to tell they're in the 2nd trimester?
Track who buys what by Credit Card #. If 3 months after buying a lot of vaseline and thigh highs their buying trends switch towards buying stretch pants and "hot-dogs and ice cream" together... ... and their husband starts buying the vaseline instead... and ear plugs.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
To look for criminals, or people who have a high probability of committing criminal acts.
Sounds like a bad joke you get forwarded 20 times in your email.
For some reason my girlfriend started getting advertisements and coupons for baby stuff for a while after her sister (in another state) had a baby. Perhaps we tripped some uninformed algorithm with gift purchases, but we gave the free formula to her sister and those have all stopped eventually. The biggest pain was the Highlights subscription we never signed up for, which eventually went to collections (for $25!) after we ignored it.
don't link to paywalls.
I thought these guys where thinkers and provided nothing useful to our everyday life...
I am not sure if the story is really true or not, but it stopped being believable when it said "the manager called again after a few days to apologize". Really? He remembers the person who had come in a few days earlier complaining about (targeted, yes, but still) mass-mailed coupons? And he calls them to apologize again?
It would be nice to see managers like that at the stores I shop at.
I really hate being marketed to. I don't want Doriotos because they sponser a football bowl, I don't want a Merc because they own the Superdome...but it must work, otherwise there wouldn't be billions of dollars spent every year on such things.
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Coincidentally, the FBI now lists as suspicious activity making purchases with cash.
Almost all forums have rules against personal attacks. You'd commonly be banned for posting someone else's "IRL" (in real life) information. Yet here we see corporations doing exactly that for nothing more than profit. Data-mining like this is the beginning of an assault on our right to be "secure in our persons" and enjoy privacy.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
Good Data is just that.. and it can make solid predictions. It's clear transparency is good for markets (e.g., stock markets, Etc.) but is it good for people? My own take is data mining and tracking isn't evil; if you do business with a company you should assume, for better or worse, that they will try to understand and learn about you. If you don't wish that to happen, you need to pay in cash, not give them your zip code and avoid reward clubs, etc.
http://www.hawknest.com/
Female customers who have recently 1) purchased a pregnancy test kit, 2) stopped buying tampons, and 3) purchased morning sickness remedies such as Saltine crackers.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
I'm impressed the father came back to the store manager and admitted his error. Takes guts.
So they are analizing what kind of products a customer buys, and if they are products associated with pregnancy then they market them even more products associated with pregnancy. Seems like that without all that funny little anecdotes about pregnancy prediction, this is just the same algorithm everyone else uses: offering a customer the types of products they have bought in the past. Also, a pregnant woman in the second trimester is quite easy to detect by the good old method of looking at her.
We get out of the house/basement/apartment so rarely that by the time they have enough statistics on us, we'll be long dead.
Reminds me of the tv shows Person of Interest and Numb3rs.. Amazing how much effort goes into targeted advertising rather than solving real problems.
She had a hysterectomy before we started dating... But starting when her eldest turned 11 every time she got a good coupon for pads or tampons and they were also on sale, she'd stock up. With the current stockpile both girls will be married and contemplating on a second kid by the time they run out of supplies.
Better at noticing your kid isn't just fat than you are!
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
People often forget there client card at my super market (AH) and I happily lend them mine. Must give them some interesting stats.
The problem is that marketeers really think this matter. Lets examine this particular case for just how idiotic it is.
Target profiles its EXISTING customers to be able to bombard them with coupons for products these same customers already pass everyday... Can win these customers for live? YOU ALREADY GOT THEM! And now instead of them buying the products they already seen at full price, you are reducing the price for no good reason.
TV shows just how desperate marketeers are to prove they matter, the program you are watching interrupted by ads, for the program you were trying to watch followed by overlays of the next program, so please stay tuned... I would if you didn't ruin the program with all this begging. It is like going to a restaurant and having the chef come over after every bite to ask if you are enjoying yourself.
Marketing doesn't sell products, marketing sells marketing. I am not saying ads don't work but rather that the constant overloading of ads, does not work. Check this for yourself, if an adblock takes longer then it used to, do you continue watching? Once ads were singular, to short to flick away. But the "going to the toilet" during the advertising is now a way of life and has been for decades. And here poor advertisers are trying to sell their products to viewers who are studying their toilet door.
Myself? I barely bother with TV anymore. If for some masochistic reason I want to see what happens, I download it and get rid of ads altogether. I have ad block installed and ghostery. NOT because I mind being tracked so much but because I just can't stand the interuptions and delays that slow ads and scripts cause.
This Target campaign targets existing customers into buy stuff they have to buy anyway and ignores new customers altogether... BRILLIANT. I know how effective it is, some marketeers and statisticians got payed big bugs. Mission accomplished. Any actual new customers that make up for the costs and potential lawsuits? (Oh you just wait till they get it wrong or target a woman who had an abortion, or didn't want her family to know or had a miscarriage).
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Absolutely detestable. And common. This type of thing is precisely why I take great pains to avoid being tracked, online and off. Pay cash, don't use affinity cards, block all online ads, javascript, etc., and avoid doing business with companies that use these types of methods.
Maybe this is what AARP has been doing. They've been sending me invitations to join their organization for years, ever since I was in my 20's. Undoubtedly their data mining algorithms determined that I would one day reach retirement age, so they are doing everything they can to "capture" me now!
I'm a rather young man and I only seem to get things in the mail from the AARP, AAA and Medicare Providers. Maybe it was that sweatervest I bought.
I'm convinced that Walmart does this kind of data mining too. As soon as I walk into the store, their computer systems identify me, figure out what I'm about to buy, and make SURE that item is already sold out!
Now I just want to try to get Target to think I'm pregnant when I'm not. OMG WHAT DO I HAVE TO BUY? Reverse (perverse?) marketing!
When I no longer need to press 1 for English every time, every single time, when I use the same ATM card, at the same terminal, then call me. Until then, I say piffle. Piffle Piffle Piffle.
Really, the ATM card asking if I want English or French, there is no excuse for that. LOL! What, the banks didn't each make a billion dollars last quarter? Can't afford and IF statement?
Judging the 'Reccommendeds' by youtube, all this tech does is put you into one of about maybe 10 boxes. It is frightening to see what Youtube thinks I am.
And if the advertiser has enough money, everybody gets the ad anyways. All the small fish trying to economise ad dollars by targetting get blown right out of the eyeball space by the big money.
If they algorithms had any of these brains, they would see I never click and never buy and the websites would not display any ads and save the advertisers money.
Frickin' Snake Oil. But hey, I got nothing against selling snake oil. The almighty buck is my god too. Why else do sheep have fleece?
Marketing doesn't sell products, marketing sells marketing. I am not saying ads don't work but rather that the constant overloading of ads, does not work.
Some does, and some doesn't, but I'll admit when they print off one of those $0.50 off Pizza Hut coupons, I stop and buy one because it gives me an excuse to do so. They know my weakness! STOP THE COUPONS!
The marketing campaign tries to get customers to buy new different products based on their past purchases. They want to identify pregnant women so they can encourage them to buy products at Target once they have a baby, instead of the customer shopping at a competitor for their baby needs.
Target figured out that people change their shopping habits the most when they had a baby, so it provides them with the biggest opportunity to win over customers. Knowing that someone is pregnant is marketing gold. The methods are based of research and the evidence is supported in Target's sales. It isn't just a bunch of BS.
It is true that some poorly implemented loyalty programs just turn into price-discounting programs. Good loyalty programs increase the marginal revenue per customer. Sophisticated algorithms target customers with offers and measure response and effectiveness. This works. IBM, Oracle, and TIBCO and others in the Fortune 100 sell software that does, this. It costs 8 figures, and it works.
It works best on people like you because you think you are getting a discount!
Lets have a fictional person called Phil (a victim) and Bob (the guy posting the info) for the purpose of this post.
If Bob posts Phil's name, address, and phone number in a message board without Phil's permission, there is most likely some kind of hostile intent. This usually happens when Phil has managed to make Bob angry for some stupid reason (flame war, abortion debate, maybe Phil is just being a jackass here. Who knows? The reason is not relevant). So Bob gets Phil's info and posts it online in that message board. Why does Bob do this?
Most likely, Bob is hoping someone will go to Phil's house and beat him up. Or break a few windows. Maybe Bob just wants someone to take a crap in a paper bag, light it on fire, and throw it on Phils porch. The intent is to make it easy for all of Phils enemies to harass or inflict harm on Phil.
Target or Walmart do not have any hostile intent. They just want to sell you stuff. They gather and analyze data, and the only objective harm thaty they would intentionally cause is filling your mail box with unwanted spam. I would agree that doing so should earn someone a kick in the nuts anyway, but it is only annoying, not dangerous. In many cases they are using info they gathered themselves for their own benefit. It could also be argued that what they are doing is of mutual benefit: Walmart gets Phil to buy stuff, Phil will have a chance to buy something he wants.
The only problem for Phil is when access to that data is then sold, shared , or illegally accessed by those whose interests may run against him. There needs to be legal protections in place for Phil, and Walmart needs to be held responsible for any harm that comes of them keeping that database.
END COMMUNICATION
If for some masochistic reason I want to see what happens, I download it and get rid of ads altogether.
I too believe that watching television is an incredibly painful experience. But there is some good content out there, and I pay Netflix $8 a month to watch it ad-free. I seriously think Netflix is easier and more convenient than TPB. Eventually, I suspect that significant price hikes and/or advertisements will make their way into Netflix, but until that happens I think Netflix is superior.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
I'm not sure that targeted advertisement really bothers me that much. I have to say, my ads in GMail have been spot on more than a few times. Compared to the mind-numbing mass-appeal aim of television advertising, I guess that targeted ads really don't bother me that much.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
It's usually not the store that does it (alone). I worked data storage for a company that pulls customer buying information from grocery stores, retail outlets, large financial institutions, well, just about from everyone. Major banks foward them your credit card sweeps about the same time it shows up on your online statement. Last I was there, roughly three years ago, they had 87 ASSUMED data fields on over 30 million consumers, which were extrememly accurate. 12 employees to support a 7 TB oracle RAC.
I got a 2 for one sale on magic silver bullets but only if you call now!
My wife started receiving baby "catalogues" and brochures for baby products from a large-ish chain pharmacy-type store in Canada (Shoppers Drug Mart) shortly after she got pregnant too. It definitely was creepy. It was before we told anyone. This was 6 years ago.
In this case, I figured they somehow mined the data from us using the store rewards card. It never occurred to me that an algorithm of *loosely related* products could predict the due date as well. And I'm a programmer.
We don't use that rewards card anymore.
Just like the old buy three things to weird out the cashier game buy stupid things from time to time to mess up the algorithms
. I'm buying Condoms, Dungeons and Dragons and Adult diapers.
thkeir parting
But this article says nothing about TV. It is about complex targeted (pun!) marketing, not generic TV adds that everyone sees. You did not read and/or comprehend the article.
My mother was bedridden for a few weeks after having surgery. I was doing her shopping during this time and for a while even after she wasn't on bed rest. After about 3 months of this I started getting targeted adverts for feminine products. Needless to say, my fiance was confused when she came home to find them addressed to me and not her.
... even if she didn't (herself) know that she was pregnant! I thought maybe Target had pheromone/hormone sniffers or hidden ultra-sound scanners.
Now THAT would be creepy!
I just think it's 50 cents off a $15 purchase I never would have made. I still don't want to spend the $14.50. It's like buying stuff in a grocery store just because it's on sale, I won't buy something I don't need just because the price is lower. That's idiotic.
On a side note, I also don't buy the slightly cheaper store brand just to save money. It's inferior quality, and once sales drop for the good quality brands, they stop ordering it and it disappears from shelves, and guess what? They just raise the price for the store brand since there's nothing else to compete. I don't want those oily cheeses, tasteless water-filled low-grade canned products, or disgusting modified/replacement ingredient everything else.
Twinstiq, game news
They really need to come up with a solution for more intelligent advertising. I for one would gladly opt into providing some central database with my basic demo/interest data, so when I turn on the TV I don't have to see Tampax and Viagra commercials.
Lying with statistics is an art, but it appears that once in a while they can be useful.
How is this "lying"? Seems to mee they are spot on.
That isn't what he said at all.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Is this really news to most people?? Of course big companies that sell stuff analyze what their customers purchase. Why wouldn't they? The only problem I have with this story is that it's probably only the very tip of the iceberg of what kind and how much data companies have about us.
giggity
I've become suspicious of the google search results as well...
I suspect they sprinkle results with links that are designed to learn more about you.
So the next time you get a "WTF, how is that related to my search?" take note...
of course.. the more you look for a "glitch in the Matrix" the more likely you are to find one.
: TV shows just how desperate marketeers are to prove they matter, the program you are watching interrupted by ads, for the program you were trying to watch followed by overlays of the next program, so please stay tuned... I would if you didn't ruin the program with all this begging.
A few weeks ago the network had an ad half way through House that you could watch the pilot of some other show "Right Now" on their web page. It repeated "right now". I had to pause the TiVo to laugh about it with my wife. Of course with TiVo I could do it with out missing anything but encouraging someone to leave the show they are on if funny.
Target or Walmart do not have any hostile intent. They just want to sell you stuff.
Yeah, buts let's just parse out the term "sell" a bit. They want you give them the maximum amount of your money in exchange for the least amount of value. Its not about finding out what you need/want, because they could just ask you that. Its about manipulating your perception of your own desires so that you "want" to buy as much as possible of the highest margin possible goods.
Not hostile?
Personally, I consider using my information to try and sell me a bunch of shit I don't want to be hostile intent.
Wasn't there a court case not too long ago, where it was decided one did not have to have criminal intent to be convicted of a crime?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
This is why I oppose targeted advertising.
As if walmarted advertising is any better.
Manipulation of perception solely for selling luxury* items is one thing. And I'm opposed to that idea. OTOH, what Target, et al are doing here is anticipating what you will buy, regardless of where you might buy it from, and sending incentives to shop with them. Is this manipulating your perception? yes. If you lose the battle of will, does this have adverse effect on you? very likely not.
*Loosely defined as things you can do without without adversely affecting your lifestyle. e.g. $100 watch vs $20 watch.
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"Detestable" is Comcast sending me mail at least once a week for the last three years, despite the fact that I don't watch TV, have no use for their services, and have never responded to anything they sent.
You're posting this on Slashdot. Slashdot is on the Internet. Comcast sells access to the Internet. Is there a reason why you have no use for Xfinity Internet?
On the other hand if you do not want the stuff then don't buy it. I would like it if a store sent me coupons for stuff that I want to buy. How do they do that and not send me coupons for stuff I don't want to buy? They data mine and try to figure out my purchase tendancies. So by data mining they are sending fewer useless coupons and more useful coupons. Sure they get it wrong sometimes. Just because I buy a lot of diapers does not mean that I have kids; it could mean that I am giving them to a single mothers' support group. Data mining is not an exact science it just reveales tendancies.
When reasonably well off people have a baby coming, they drop $500 to $2000 in supplies, furniture and clothes. Some do more. And they do it all at once, probably at the one place they're most happy with, in two or three trips. We spent maybe $1000 on Amazon. Before that, I had spent maybe $50 there in my life. I'm sure Target would have preferred that cash bomb landed in their store.
So, they're aiming the easiest, fattest targets. It's creepy, but it's not stupid.
I thought charges like "negligence" and "reckless endangerment" were already crimes where the perpetrator didn't need to have criminal intent. That's sort of the point of having those charges along with "abuse" and "assault" - in the former the perpetrator should have known what they were doing was wrong (but didn't) while in the latter the perpetrator clearly knew it was wrong.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Fine. Go ahead. Take all the pains you want. The marketers don't care, any more than the spammers care when you filter their spam. It's all about the numbers, and if they can get their sales up that's all they care about. If they can't sell JohnFen anything then JoeFen's or MaryFen's money is just as good. They won't waste any time trying to track you or any other specific person, just the great mass of people who don't care or don't mind being marketed to.
The intent is to make it easy for all of Phils enemies to harass or inflict harm on Phil. Target or Walmart do not have any hostile intent. They just want to sell you stuff. ... it is only annoying, not dangerous.
So when someone goes around telling facts (or lies) about you, it's OK so long as there's no "hostile intent"? That's ridiculous. People "outing" gay people may intend harm, but many times they think it's best for the person and the community. Their intent doesn't make it OK.
Arguing that "it is only annoying, not dangerous" is just a lack of imagination.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
I see aspects of this at my company often, because the people you annoy out of being customers are not accounted for. You don't know when someone doesn't buy something nececarily or when they would have bought something anyway. You only know they bought it through x ad.
Consider all the effort it takes to design systems like this, to hire employees to use and maintain them, to purchase the equipment, to pay for data centers, etc.
The answer is, not much at all.
Computing power and disk are cheap. This isn't even a complex problem. The per-item costs of a system like this are probably on the order of hundredths of a cent.
You've already got to track all your products for inventory and revenue tracking purposes; attaching a "who bought this" token is a tiny addition once the rest of that is already in place.
paintball
What a wonderful, mature, high-minded reason to bring a child into the world...
There's no such thing; their reason is as good as any. Pretty much everyone who brings a new person into this world does so for their own selfish reasons.
Historically, this was to ensure that there would be someone on Earth who felt obligated to you and would support you when you could no longer work for a living. In many poorer countries, this is still the primary driver. Among wealthier people, the most common goal is to have someone to whom you can indoctrinate with your beliefs and/or pass on your property.
Manipulation of perception solely for selling luxury* items is one thing. And I'm opposed to that idea. OTOH, what Target, et al are doing here is anticipating what you will buy, regardless of where you might buy it from, and sending incentives to shop with them. Is this manipulating your perception? yes. If you lose the battle of will, does this have adverse effect on you? very likely not.
You argue as though Target is solely in the business of stocking things that you a) really need and b) will provide for those needs while providing you with the maximum value. Neither is true. This is about figuring out what pavlovian stimuli they can use to empty your bank account into theirs.
On the other hand if you do not want the stuff then don't buy it. I would like it if a store sent me coupons for stuff that I want to buy. How do they do that and not send me coupons for stuff I don't want to buy? They data mine and try to figure out my purchase tendancies. So by data mining they are sending fewer useless coupons and more useful coupons. Sure they get it wrong sometimes. Just because I buy a lot of diapers does not mean that I have kids; it could mean that I am giving them to a single mothers' support group. Data mining is not an exact science it just reveales tendancies.
Advertisers are working as hard as they can to manipulate your "wants" to their advantage at the expense of a) their competitors but also b) your ability to control your spending habits.
Not quite. They want the maximum amount of your money for the least amount of their expense. That doesn't equal the least amount of value. Value is only relevant to a person/thing doing the valuing, and "you" and "they" may have quite different valuations for the items you buy. That's how trade actually works, after all.
Big Brother, meet Really Insanely Huge Brother.
Seriously, if you have ever said one word against government surveilance, you should be out there in a protest march.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I think that, anyone here who has a kid knows that... if you're shopping at target for baby shit, you're an idiot. So it's safe to assume that Target is not only going after pregnant women... they're going after STUPID pregnant women.
Anyone with half a brain is buying diapers and wipes at the Cosco by the pallet if possible.
Their algorithm is likely:
Customer has been buying condoms weekly for a year... did not this week +10%
Customer bought 3 pints of icecream +5%
Customer used the restroom 4 times while they were in the store +40%
(we're thinking she's carrying the payload sir....)
Customer just bought Season 3 of "Jearsy Shore"!!!!
JACKPOT! Launch the ad campaign private! GO! GO! GO!
People often forget there client card at my super market (AH) and I happily lend them mine. Must give them some interesting stats.
Many years ago, at the Chaos Communications Camp in Berlin, I suggested that people trade their customer cards at random every once in a while, to mess up the profiling.
Unfortunately, back then the whole thing was only starting, and too few people had matching cards to make much of a difference. Maybe someone should re-launch that idea.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Target or Walmart do not have any hostile intent. They just want to sell you stuff.
That's not violent, but it is hostile. They want to take advantage of me, to my detriment and their profit. Whatever term you put on it, I'd call it hostile (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hostile, definition 1c).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Re: "...some marketeers and statisticians got payed big bugs."
Well now, I couldn't think of a nicer compensation program for a better group of people!
...it should also be made illegal....It's blatant co-opting of an individuals own faculties.
I believe your founding fathers would have supported Fox's right to bullshit. You are still the sole guardian of your own mental faculties, you are the only person who can decide what you believe and who you trust. Fortunately bullshit detection is not a genetic trait, it is a skill that can be taught. Self-skepticisim is an essential part of that skill, the simple fact that you recognise you're just as susceptible to bullshit as everyone else already gives you some degree of immunity to it, and it's certainly preferable to yet another war on a ubiquitous social problem that inevitably ends up attacking society rather than the problem.
In other words, read my sig.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Why shouldn't this kind of activity be considered stalking? Maybe they don't physically pursue somebody but they sure are trying to see everything that a person does without their knowledge.
They don't send you coupons for stuff you want to buy, they send it for stuff they want you to buy.
Too bad it's total bullshit.
The manager of a Target store has no power over who gets what ads, that's from corporate.
Also, even if he did, there's no reason the manager would call back. How'd he get the phone number again?
Like I said, the story is cute, but almost certainly came from Reader's Digest, NOT real life.
Sorry to shit all over your parade.
You inability to resist manipulation is your problem and not the advertisers. Take responsibility for your actions and stop whining "they made me buy it". As with every purchase everyone should ask themselves "do I need this?" If the answer is no then don't buy it. It is your choice.
You could've stopped at the second line. Your assumption that particular cases matter is all wrong.
They don't care about flukes, wrong data, etc. It's not whether YOU used the coupons or whatever. It's the whatever-percentage-they-did-get-right that matters.
Because with 0 info or wrong info, the ads would just be another ad (aka business as usual). But whoever IS a hit, that's where the money is.
I've felt the same way about TV ever since I was a child. It's not that I don't like the shows/movies aired, it's that 25% of the time you are watching TV, your watching advertising. That's not a made up number, look up the running time of your TV shows, divide it against the time allotted on the channel schedule.
It started to sicken me during the turn of the century, the sheer amount of pop-up adverts and embedded banner adverts that appeared when the internet started to become as common as cable/satellite TV service. I still remember visiting the various blacklisting sites (primarily easylist), downloading the newest host file every week just to keep up with the advertisements. Thankfully now there is adblock, spybot, and the like to make it easier.
But now we're facing a new tech that's maturing well enough to become easy to use. It's software that when video/image is ran through it, identifies walls, shirts, pants, and pretty much any surface uniform enough to store an advertisement. The same software allows just dragging and dropping what you want onto those surfaces, or automating that by providing it a list to cycle through. This does not bode well, it's enough to drive any sane person omish.
Target profiles its EXISTING customers to be able to bombard them with coupons for products these same customers already pass everyday... Can win these customers for live? YOU ALREADY GOT THEM! And now instead of them buying the products they already seen at full price, you are reducing the price for no good reason.
While Target does wind up selling some things at a discount, they're probably not simply discounting all of the things they already buy but a selected subset. If they're smart, they discount a few low margin items that are typically bought along with other, higher margin items; hoping when you come in you'll also buy those items. The coupon is designed to get you back into the store to start the buying process; with the discount the lure.
This is nothing new. I had a friend that used to manage a McDonald's when he was a college student. He had free burger or fries coupons to give out, generally as a 'we're sorry for the problem, here's a freebie to make it up to you" thing. Why burgers or fires - because virtually all customer who got a coupon wound up buying a drink and also a burger or fries (depending on the coupon) - but the drink's margin covered the freebie so it was a net money maker for them and made the customer more loyal. As a side note, he ate a lot of free burgers and fries (when not working) while putting himself through college.
This Target campaign targets existing customers into buy stuff they have to buy anyway and ignores new customers altogether... BRILLIANT. I know how effective it is, some marketeers and statisticians got payed big bugs. Mission accomplished. Any actual new customers that make up for the costs and potential lawsuits? (Oh you just wait till they get it wrong or target a woman who had an abortion, or didn't want her family to know or had a miscarriage).
Per the summary (TFA is behind NYT wall) one goal is to turn the casual shopper into a long term customer. If they walk through your door chances are they fit your customer profile - this helps keep bringing them back. In essence, they're targeting a pre-selected audience that is already disposed to shopping with Target. Mass marketing to selected demographics builds awareness an this builds loyalty.
As for lawsuits, as long as they follow laws regarding how info is collected and used, they should be pretty safe from losing them. I would venture to guess, in the US, their customer data would be considered theirs and not require consent to use.
Wal-Mart appears to take this a step further with Wal-Mart branded pre-paid VISA (or is th MC) cards - not only do they get your float, they get to build a very detailed database of buying habits at Wal-Mart and elsewhere.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I don't think brick and mortars are allowed to store CC#s at all.
You haven't tried to return (or even exchange, which is what I was doing) something at Target without a receipt lately, have you? If you give them your CC they will look it up for you...
(lovely that this site tries to goad you into registering by calling you an anonymous coward if you don't sign in - kind of ironic in a thread about big brother data mining, like slashdot isn't a company and they don't already have my IP address and haven't already dropped a cookie into my browser)
I can come up with a few starting with the most obvious, women between 15 to 55 who buy all their Meds from target pharmacy's but no longer buy birth control product. They likely also look for things that women who have become pregnant either start buying or stop buying like tampon, larger and looser cloths... This is the danger of all those big database that the digital age created they know more about you than you do about yourself.