That is the exact moment when it dawned on me- people out there still grossly misunderstand the role of businesses, consumers and advertising that's supposed to connect them. I feel like I have to throw my two cents in, get it out of my system so to speak, because it has been getting quite frustrating. I'll share why I care, what the misunderstanding is, and what can be achieved by resolving that misunderstanding.
First, let's make something clear. I understand the advantage I have by being in a recession-proof, war-proof and disaster-proof industry; I don't deny that for a second. However, I would say that due to Backpage and other similar ad sites, people in this industry have been early adopters of online advertising and different features that each website, not just Backpage, offered to us. As for many other industries, traditional offline advertising has always been poorly targeted and prohibitively expensive for smaller businesses, startups and entrepreneurs. This, in turn, lead to the rise of gigantic retail, restaurant and other chains that have traditionally dominated the ad space. The problem is, they all resemble each other, play it safe, and often offer good deals by sacrificing quality, diversity and other qualities of great products and services. While their scale and market dominance do help us save money on many things we need in life, they create a huge problem. The problem is that even a person who is cheap, is cheap on average. Put it another way, you may be looking to save money on most goods and services you consume, but there are a few things over which you're not price sensitive and you don't care if you pay more, as long as you get what you want and it makes you happy and satisfied. Let's look at a few examples. If burgers are your thing, McDonald's won't do it for you. If you like chocolate dipped fried chicken, Popeye's or KFC won't do it for you. If you like a jean jacket that won't fall apart in a year or two, Walmart won't do it for you. Those who will, however, are companies that are not competing on price. They are smaller, they risk more than the big guys, and they want you to know that they exist, but their marketing budget cannot compete with the big guys for traditional ad space. Sure, they can try going for it, but if it doesn't work they'll get crushed before they get profitable, and you'll never get to have what they can provide. Facebook, Google, Pinterest and now Reddit ads have changed that forever, almost completely leveling the playing field so that companies can compete equally and almost everyone can afford to advertise and reach their target audience. In addition, Facebook for example rewards you for excellent customer base targeting via the Relevance score system, and I'm pretty sure other platforms have something like that as well. A great ad going to the right consumers is therefore more valuable than anything else, so a well-placed Facebook ad for an out of this world burger can reach you better than a McDonald's ad, if burgers are your thing and you're not price sensitive about them. That, in its essence, is what you want.
Now, we come to the misunderstanding part. First, the appetizer. As long as your legal name and address are not attached to your preferences, interests and shopping habits, nobody is spying on you as an individual, and nobody is giving away to third party companies all those details about you as an individual, together with your name and where you live. You're in a group of people, and only Facebook and your friends know who you are and what you're about. Yep, Facebook knows but hey you're the one putting details on there, so you give it as little or as much knowledge as you volunteer to do. Look at it this way- it's no different from your local supermarket- seriously! How do you think they figure out what to carry at your local supermarket, in what quantities and so on? Why do you think some stores have more kosher, while others have more halal products, and other supermarkets have neither? They analyze details about demographics, spending habits and trends of the customers who shop there as a group, not as individuals. So, they don't have individual customers' profiles with names and addresses; they just crunch group data! So, before you go ahead and complain about Facebook, you might want to start with your local supermarket because they've been tracking shoppers way before Facebook came to exist. So, what's with all this tracking that "evil" businesses do? Now, we come to the meat and potatoes of the misunderstanding. North American societies may be more individualistic versus typically collective Asian societies, but remember this- you do not live in a bubble! We like individualism and privacy, but all that means is that people will give you more space to do your own thing and will turn a blind eye to your personal matters- to a point, but not completely. A society does not exist without some level of interaction, making some personal details public, and people needing to know who you are, what you do and what you're into so they know what they can count on when they deal with you. To think that you can go through life as a a total and complete secret to everyone, everywhere, and never care to share details about you so others know what you're good for, and never asking others to share what they're good for (excuse my crudeness), is utterly unrealistic. You go through this every single day in every aspect of your life, so for those who find all of this new and shocking I'd have to wonder why this was invisible to them thus far in life.
Once you understand this, you understand your power in a modern Western consumer society. A person with a paycheck in their hand is godlike, sitting on a throne and all the businesses out there want to know what that person wants so they can compete for that person's money, satisfaction and repeat business. As consumers, we have the power to make or break businesses. If we decide to cut spending, we can slow down a country's entire economy. When we feel more confident about spending, we boost it. As such, we should want companies to know what we are into now, and what we may be into in the future, we hold all the cards. This doesn't put us in a vulnerable position- not in the slightest. Advertising personalized to your life and needs becomes something more interesting, useful and beneficial. In fact, if we all took it seriously, we could also put some effort into telling all of these ad platforms what we don't like and don't want in terms of goods and services advertised to us (you can do that for sure with Facebook ads you see on and off the platform)- it's equally important and beneficial as telling them what we like.
Therefore, as you can see, we as consumers are far from powerless, and telling businesses what we want in a nearly anonymous way takes the guesswork out of the business to consumer relationship. Also, and this I like most of all, it removes arrogance and the feeling of superiority from companies, no matter how big they get. Delicious, isn't it? :)