AdWeek

It’s not Google Glass’ nerdy aesthetics, somewhat douchey reputation or lofty price tag that will prevent a whopping 72 percent of Americans from donning the headset of the future -- it’s concerns about privacy and safety.

A new study from market research firm Toluna found that privacy worries are a major stumbling block for Google Glass, with two in five consumers citing concerns such as the potential for hackers to access private data, the ease with which others could record their actions without their knowledge and the potential for private actions to become public.

“Google Glass is not yet available on the open market, although it is clear that a high proportion of individuals have concerns about the potential impact on their privacy, said Mark Simon, Toluna’s North American managing director. “This is something Google and other tech companies using the technology should address before the product can become mainstream.”

Skype is making its case to marketers that it is hip with millennials, that highly coveted youth demographic.

Skype now counts more than 300 million users, and said it reaches 24 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds worldwide, according to advertising gm Lovina McMurchy. Mobile messaging has attracted the attention of brands and marketers who are following the users, especially youth who have embraced these communication platforms.

Companies like Microsoft and BlackBerry are eager to remind marketers of their entrenched messaging platforms. BlackBerry Messenger introduced new sponsored content opportunities on its app with 85 million users. Facebook has detected a slight drop in interest from young teens, but still more than 80 percent of US adults under 30 use the social network, according to Pew Research.

A White House survey that asks consumers for their opinion about big data and privacy may yield a few political talking points but not much meaningful or useful data, experts say.

The survey popped up on the White House's Web page complete with a video message from John Podesta, counselor to the President. Podesta has been holding meetings with a number of stakeholders in the debate, including the advertising community and, most recently, tech CEOs.

The survey asks three broad questions: "How much do you trust [a list of] institutions with your data? How much do these types of data [i.e., audio, location] collection concern you? How much do the following data practices [i.e., collection, storage] concern you?" Experts say the questions, focused on feelings of "concern" and "trust," lack context to elicit any real understanding.

"The questions are extremely broad," said Professor Joseph Turow, the associate dean for graduate studies of the Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania. "I don't know what I would do with the answers. It's hard for me to believe this is a serious survey."

Disney is under scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission for flunking the ABCs of children's online privacy laws.

The company first came under review following a complaint filed last December by the Center for Digital Democracy that alleged Marvelkids.com failed to obtain parental consent from children under 13 prior to tracking and collecting personal information about them. Although Disney made some changes in its privacy policy two days later, the CDD said in an amended complaint that the changes were "insufficient." "Disney has cavalierly disregarded some of the basic principles," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the CDD.

"The biggest kids entertainment company is thumbing its nose at kids' privacy. We expect action." Because Disney substituted its companywide policy on Marvelkids.com, the CDD suggested the FTC broaden its inquiry to include all of Disney's kids-directed sites. CDD identified three places where it says Disney did not stick to the letter of the law for children's online privacy.

First, the Marvelkids.com site does not have a direct link on the homepage to the online policy as spelled out in the FTC's guidance. Second, the CDD alleges that Disney's notification about what information third parties are collecting fails to meet the clear and prominent standard and is inaccessible because it is buried in fine print in the "persistent identifiers" section of the policy, making it "not easy to locate." Finally, the CDD also accuses Disney of allowing third parties to collect personal information for purposes other than the internal operations of the website. Forty-three different companies are listed on the website as collecting persistent identifiers.

Seventy-six percent of marketers do not utilize behavioral data in either segmentation analysis or targeting, per a Razorfish study called The State of Always-On Marketing that surveyed 685 C-suite executives.

In this so-called Big Data era, that number seems surprisingly high -- to say the least. Here are a few other findings from the Razorfish's executives-based study, which was sponsored by Adobe and compiled by an unnamed survey vendor:

• Fifty-eight percent considered themselves strong at targeting experiences to segmented groups, while only 38 percent believed they are capable of targeting prospects versus returning customers. Stein said the disparity between the numbers "makes it clear there's a disconnect between [audience] segmentation development and execution."
• Just 13 percent said their companies are pushing segmented experiences and measuring the results.
• Less than 5 percent believe they are managing experiences for an "always-on" consumer.

Broadcasters have launched a counterstrike against the Federal Communications Commission's proposal to restrict TV joint sales agreements by asking the agency to look into similar sales arrangements used by the largest pay TV providers.

The FCC is scheduled to vote at the end of March 2014 on FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal that would effectively eliminate JSAs because they would push station groups over the ownership limits in nearly 100 small markets. In comments filed with the FCC, the National Association of Broadcasters calls the "interconnect" advertising activities by cable, satellite and telephone companies "collusive."

Through NCC Media, multiple TV providers rely on one sales team to sell local and national advertising time across all the pay TV providers in a single market; NCC just recently added Dish to its lineup of pay TV inventory. So, the NAB reasoned, if the FCC is going to crack down on local market joint sales agreements between two small TV stations, shouldn't the agency also take a look at the local sales arrangements between pay TV providers?

The world of branded content has changed. Suddenly branded movies and TV shows are competing for the same marketing dollar and chunk of free time as everything else in the entertainment world.

Advertising, in many cases, is no longer a toll you pay to watch content but is taking the form of content itself. “Brands are realizing you have to hire experts” if you want to compete with pure entertainment companies, said Maker Studios’ Jason Krebs, who has worked all over the digital media ad world. “Procter & Gamble isn’t necessarily going to do some of these things themselves.”

And branded entertainment is vital. “If you want to reach millennials in the next five years, they’re going to be looking at this a lot more than at the spots and dots,” said Discovery Digital’s group operating officer Colin Decker, who notes that integrations are now the majority of the ads his company sells. These aren’t freebies that sneak in branding -- they’re competing for brain share in the golden age of television.

As a marketer, you’ve mastered location-based marketing. But what if your target consumers aren’t where they claim to be? Social ad platform 140 Proof, which uses people’s public social network activities such as their location, what they share and who they follow to target them with ads, did some research on the difference between people’s stated locations and their actual ones.

Guess what? People aren’t always where they say they are. In a concept it’s dubbed “geographic drift,” in major cities like New York and Los Angeles, there are many people who self-identify as being from those cities who actually live in a broad area around them.

140 Proof has some theories about why this is. Some have to do with convenience (New York is more recognizable than Bridgeport; commuting makes drift possible). But there’s also an aspirational, or vanity, factor. “People like to be seen in certain areas or neighborhoods,” said John Manoogian III, CTO of 140 Proof. “They’re not necessarily advertising they’re from Walnut Creek.”

There’s no standard way for marketers to evaluate where people are, though, because people can self-report their whereabouts on social networks but they also can be located automatically by things like browser-based location tagging and IP address.

In a perfect world, the Network Advertising Initiative's annual compliance report would have come out before 60 Minutes trashed the data tracking and collection on the Web for interest-based advertising.

The report details how 88 Internet ad networks like Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft comply with the organization's strict self-regulatory privacy code to ensure that consumer choices are honored and data privacy is protected. It dispels, in part, many of the myths that tracking on the Web is completely lawless and unregulated. While the 88 ad networks don't cover all of the ad networks that place advertising on the Web, the NAI's members are the largest and represent a significant portion of the marketplace.

In 2015, the report will include 100 ad networks. To comply, ad networks met very specific standards of the organization's self-regulatory code, which requires the companies to publicly post data collection and retention practices and give consumers the opportunity to opt out of tracking. Companies also agree to only use data for marketing purposes and comply restrictions with the restrictions on personally identifiable and sensitive information, such as health.

GroupM's John Montgomery is headed for the White House on March 13 along with about 20 others in the Internet advertising business, including Dick O'Brien of the 4A's and the IAB's Mike Zaneis, to talk about big data and privacy issues.

The meeting is one of a series set up by White House advisor John Podesta, who was tasked by President Barack Obama with conducting a comprehensive review of big data and privacy in the wake of the growing controversy over government surveillance.

"I'm looking at this meeting positively," said Montgomery, GroupM's chief operating officer and chairman of the 4A's media policy committee. "I'm hoping they are [going] to listen to how data is being collected for advertising and how it helps us make decisions and spur economic growth. We'll also emphasize how the ad choices program has helped us treat privacy, that we do it responsibly and have put protections in place."