Interviewee: Professor Annet Aris, Adjunct Professor of Strategy, INSEAD

Q: Is there any merit in peer to peer advertising?
A: Yes. Marketers will strive to identify people who are influencers and establish relationships. These influencers will then convince consumers that certain products are the best. Just as there are endorsement by celebrities, endorsement by reputed influencers will be on the rise.
Q: What are the risks in peer to peer advertising?
A: Consumer data will be exposed over the internet so in a way each individual consumer’s data will be available for advertisers but given the popularity of sites such as Facebook, data will be hidden in the huge mass of information that millions of individual consumers upload such as photos and scraps. So in a way, individual data will be less important too.
Also, downside risk for advertisers is very enormous on the digital media. So adv agencies are worried and careful about contents on sites such as YouTube. In traditional advertising media, such as television, agencies have control as to which time slots to target or avoid and which channels should air particular advertisements but in digital advertisement this is difficult to control.

Q: What will the unfolding of the peer to peer advertising lead to?
A: It will result in more information driven advertisement. Consumers will have much better information – so advertising will solely focus on data. Advertising will be less about telling beautiful story and more about quality improvements. People will stick even more to brands as world is getting too fragmented – too confusing. So consumers will find solace in brands.

Q: What is the privacy issue plays its role in future targeting advertising?
A: There are three key points: 1. How much benefit people can have. If the convenience is there and do help people, people will be very likely to accept it. 2. The device (platform) for targeting advertising is very important issue. More private device is better for targeting advertising. Let us say, for example: if you get some specific and personal information, such as body hair removal wax ad shown in the PC which is used by family, it not likely to be popular. But it is shown in your mobile, it is perfect fine and helpful. 3. People do feel ok if their data processed by machine, such as google engine process your search behavior and push some advertising. People don’t like their information was used by people.

Q: Do you see a future in which consumers are actively asking for data privacy?
A: Yes. The signs are evident even today. There is already a law in Netherlands whereby spamming is prohibited. An agreement from consumers will be needed in order to target them with ads. Dutch post boxes have ‘No No ‘and ‘No yes’ stickers. Consumers have a choice of using either of them. ‘No No’ stickers mean that the consumer shall receive no advertising in their mails and no free newspaper. ‘No yes’ stickers mean that the consumer shall receive no advertising in their mails but shall receive free newspaper. There is already a ‘Do not disturb’ call list for tele-marketers. Video on Demand (VOD) plays free videos with advertisements. At the same time consumers can pay for watching these videos but without advertising. In the near future, there will be regulations in place and people will be educated as to how cookies help a website to remember you but at the same time it relays your information. Consumers will demand a choice in controlling this. This will result in web sites having easier mechanism of conveying privacy information to consumers. Hence consumers will be able to make a more conscious trade - off.