Abstract
In the data rich world that we live in, it is difficult to be a participant of the digital society without generating a digital footprint. Convenience is often a hallmark of digital media use, and the currency used is paid through data tracking and algorithms. Who such technology serves and how it is molding society are questions that should be raised. A contemporary of Marshall McLuhan once wrote, “We shape our tools, thereafter our tools shape us” (Culkin, 1967, p. 70) and this deeply mirrors some of the evolution of technology of advertising in the media today and its impact on society.
This book by Lee McGuigan, assistant professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina, examines the commodification of the American audience in the advertising industry. It is subtly brilliant by retracing the steps of data-driven surveillance that we today know as advertising technology (adtech). In this historical journey through the 20th century, we witness the growth of advertising and the marriage of information technology, and capitalistic impulses by advertisers seeking to maximize their ad dollars efficiently.
McGuigan recounts this advertising tale that reflects the need by advertisers for innovation and desire for efficiency to reach their audience. Yet on a quest for optimization, there was a distinct lack of questions pertaining to value, ethics and meaning when considering the audience. The commodification of the audience is a criticism of how advertising lacks a heart and soul. This echoes what Andrew Essex wrote in 2017, that advertising has only gotten increasingly gotten worse over time: by creating less value for society and a lot more digital junk mail.
McGuigan does a masterful job in showing us how we are living in a world dominated by data and algorithms. What we experience today is the result of efficiency and the commodification of the American audience. The book does this in a meaningful way, by chronologically regaling the tale of modern advertising.
Chapter 1 focuses on the integration of adtech in digital advertising. Using algorithms to collect data through behavioral and programmatic advertising, these metrics are meant to represent insights about consumer behavior. Yet organizations constantly gamble with such data points, to seek optimization. Yet, advertisers miss the fundamentals of what adtech truly represents, a system that commodifies the American public.
Chapter 2 provides a sleek historical account of the evolution of advertising agencies from the 1910s as a progressive scientific field influenced by mathematics, distribution, and consumer access yet by the late 1950s, it became a force dominated by creatives: think John Draper in Mad Men. To create a balance, the goal drove the industry to create evidence that audiences were paying attention and offer metrics to back that up. This is what is called Operations Research (OR) and Management Science (MS), a precursor to adtech today.
Chapter 3 and 4 are twin chapters that look at the long-standing goal of optimization: the art of management information and predictions. This continues from Chapter 2 with use of computational processes in early computers used in simulations to predict future scenarios based on past data. The OR/MS framework became more widely adopted and led the reliance of information technology as benchmarking costs and results. The quantification of the OR/MS can be seen in the media buying space where ad dollars are allocated based on the information networks provided about the markets. These highly complex computations are often delegated to algorithms to find the ideal solutions based on the goals of the advertiser. Given that advertisers seek the optimum ad spend, the reliance of OR/MS grew and ultimately led to the growth of the adtech industry.
Chapter 5 details the early days of spot advertising in broadcast media and the efficiencies provided by automation to calculate the best use of ad dollars. As information technologies evolved, and the process of media buying became more complex, the automation of many parts of the media industry into its early programmatic forms provided a more efficient and clear way for ad buying and selling based on metrics.
Chapter 6 highlights the introduction of addressable advertising via the cable channel service as the advent of the gateway to direct marketing. Instead of reaching a wide audience in spot advertising, advertisers were now able reach a “precision market” to have direct response from their consumers. This was quickly overtaken by the rise of the internet where websites were able to utilize addressable advertising to the user through the web interface.
Chapter 7 introduces the concept of “shoppability” as an affordance in advertising that is centered around the consumer. It combines the ease of purchase through systemic marketing and entertainment. Interactive media through tracking creates windows of possibility to attract consumer attention by showing itself to the consumer through their digital devices at different points of the advertising life cycle.
Chapter 8 looks at the twin roles of attribution and accountability in the role of adtech at present. Even though big data is available, questions linger if such data they can accurately predict consumer behavior. Metrics such as return on investment is questioned if they represent consumer attitudes and behavior. Meanwhile, tech giants rely on such metrics to conduct business. The value placed on such metrics may not be clear indicators of consumer behavior but rather what is valued by organizations.
Finally, the book concludes with a warning as to the dangers of surveillance and the rise of discrimination based on what organizations value as important within the data. The importance of looking at adtech rules and regulations within the advertising ecosystem is one that needs attention and redressed.
As a reader, I believe that Selling the American People strongly challenges the ethical responsibility of the adtech industry to consider alternatives to serve society rather than having the sole purpose of creating the most efficient tool and metrics for advertisers. It also raises awareness of this issue for the reader and may serve as a call to arms for those that want to see change. What started as a drive for efficiency for advertisers to consistently predict human behavior has led to system that codifies human behavior into data for advertiser—hence the aptly named title for this book. Advertising, a US$360 billion dollar industry, represents an immense economic value in the United States and is driven by captalism. If left unchecked, and the growth of automation in artificial intelligence technologies continues to proliferate the media without many regulations, it can be a dizzying worry to consider what the future may hold. Values and ethics are therefore important to be brought into the discussion as to what society should expect as adtech evolves, and the importance of how the American people should be treated as an audience to be served rather than data to be exploited.
