Search

At the end of last year, we launched a faster and much improved website. As promised, we are continuing to expand the service off ered by TheLancet.com and our users can now set up tailored search alerts. The latter allow a user to be notifi ed of each new instance of Lancet content that matches personally selected keywords. Search alerts provide an opportunity not only for faster and more targeted access to our content but also for more targeted advertising. We were therefore approached by colleagues in our advertising department and asked whether we would allow drug-company advertisements that matched users’ preferred search terms to be displayed alongside the search results. Much debate surrounds the appearance of drug advertisements in medical journals—in print and, increasingly, online. All Lancet editorial decisions are made strictly and entirely independently of advertising. We have agreed that such advertising might appear. However, we have stipulated that advertising sponsors may select keywords based only on clinical specialties (eg, “oncology”) or disease conditions (eg, “breast AND cancer”)—they cannot select keywords based on a drug name or drug class. We were also concerned that there might be occasions when a user’s search alert contains only one matching article. Were an advertisement for a drug mentioned in the article to appear in the alert, the coincidence might erroneously be perceived to be a link between editorial and advertising decisions. To avoid any such misperceptions, we have also specifi ed that such advertisements may appear only if a search result contains at least three items of content. We welcome readers’ views on this new arrangement and will continue to strive to be transparent on all similar editorial policies.

Objective. —To identify trends in smoking initiation among persons aged 10 to 20 years that might reflect the impact of specific targeting of tobacco advertising to women. Design. —Data from the National Health Interview Surveys on age of initiation of smoking (survey years 1970, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1987, and 1988) were used to construct age-specific rates of smoking initiation for males and females aged 10 to 20 years from 1944 through the middle 1980s. The raw rates were smoothed to allow trends to be more easily identified. Participants. —Information from 102 626 respondents was used. Results. —In 18- to 20-year-old women, initiation rates peaked in the early 1960s and steadily declined thereafter. In girls younger than 18 years, smoking initiation increased abruptly around 1967, when tobacco advertising aimed at selling specific brands to women was introduced. This increase was particularly marked in those females who never attended college (1.7-fold higher). Initiation rates for females younger than 18 years peaked around 1973, at about the same time sales of these brands peaked. After a steep postwar (1944 to 1949) decline, initiation rates in 18-to 20-year-old men did not decrease until the middle to late 1960s. Initiation rates for boys younger than 16 years showed little change during the entire study period. Conclusions. —The tobacco advertising campaigns targeting women, which were launched in 1967, were associated with a major increase in smoking uptake that was specific to females younger than the legal age for purchasing cigarettes. (JAMA. 1994;271:608-611)

A number of applications require selecting targets for specific contents on the basis of criteria defined by the contents providers rather than selecting documents in response to user queries, as in ordinary information retrieval. We present a class of retrieval systems, called Best Bets, that generalize Information Filtering and encompass a variety of applications including editorial suggestions, promotional campaigns and targeted advertising, such as Google AdWords™. We developed techniques for implementing Best Bets systems addressing performance issues for large scale deployment as efficient query search, incremental updates and dynamic ranking.

This article examines the relationships between cultural spaces, the image-making practices of smartphone users and social media platforms. I argue that social media platforms depend on the curatorial capacities of smartphone users who observe everyday life and register it online. Social media platforms use databases and analytics to continuously assemble identities, cultural practices and social spaces in relation to one another. In addition to targeted advertising, value is created by leveraging a continuous circulation of meaning and attention. Using the example of a music festival, I examine how the production of value involves channelling the productive activity of smartphone users in material cultural spaces.

Political campaigning and the corresponding advertisement money are increasingly moving online. Some analysts claim that the U.S.~elections were partly won through a smart use of (i) targeted advertising and (ii) social media. But what type of information do politicized users consume online? And, the other way around, for a given content, e.g. a YouTube video, is it possible to predict its political audience? To address this latter question, we present a large scale study of anonymous YouTube video consumption of politicized users, where political orientation is derived from visits to "beacon pages", namely, political partisan blogs. Though our techniques are relevant for targeted political advertising, we believe that our findings are also of a wider interest.

Background Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have a reputation for being inherently difficult to deliver as planned and often face unforeseen challenges and delays, particularly in relation to organisational and governance difficulties, participant interest, constraints due to allocation of costs, local investigator interest and lengthy bureaucracy. Recruitment is often difficult and the challenges faced often impact on the cost and delivery of a successful trial within the funded period. This paper reflects upon the challenges faced in delivering a pragmatic RCT of weight loss maintenance in a community setting and suggests some potential solutions. Methods The weight loss maintenance in adults trial aimed to evaluate the impact of a 12 month, individually tailored weight maintenance intervention on BMI 3 years from randomisation. Participants were recruited primarily from participant identification centres (PICs)—GP surgeries, exercise on referral schemes and slimming world. The intervention was delivered in community settings. A recruitment strategy implementation plan was drafted to address and monitor poor recruitment. Results Delays in opening and recruitment were experienced early on. Some were beyond the control of the study team such as; disagreement over allocation of national health service costs and PIC classification as well as difficulties in securing support from research networks. That the intervention was delivered in community settings was often at the root of these issues. Key items to address at the design stage of future trials include feasibility of eligibility criteria. The most effective element of the recruitment implementation plan was to refocus sources of recruitment and target only those who could fulfil the eligibility criteria immediately. Conclusions Learnings from this trial should be kept in mind by those designing similar studies in the future. Considering potential governance, cost and research network support implications at the design stage of pragmatic trials of any community-based complex intervention is paramount. The appropriateness and viability of inclusion criteria also require careful consideration as does use of a targeted advertising strategy. Trial registration: ISRCTN35774128, 12/01/2010

This article examines the effectivity of mobile advertising in sales of mobile services. Data from 5500 Finnish customers of a multinational service provider reveal that there is a significant increase in sales to customers who were exposed to mobile advertising compared to those who were not exposed. The differences between customer segments were also discussed.

Trabajo presentado en el 87th SEA (Southern Economic Association) Annual Meeting, celebrada en Tampa, Florida, del 17 al 19 de noviembre de 2017, We study a model of advertising targeting based on information about the consumer’s likely ranking of products. With horizontally differentiated goods and costly search, ads then convey to consumers a noisy, positive signal of their unknown willingness to pay for the firms’ products. That implies a higher expected willingness to pay for a yet not sampled firm, which increases the incentives to search, but also a lower expected differentiation of the products that the consumers learn about, which reduces the incentives to search. The first effect is more important for lower search costs, and the second for larger number of products. Also, the equilibrium intensity of advertising will affect the precision of consumers’ information. Larger marginal cost of advertising results in larger endogenous segmentation and larger prices., The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-0563), grants No. ECO2014-59959-P and No. ECO2015-74328-JIN (AEI/FEDER/UE), and 2016 FBBVA grant “Innovación e Información en la Economía Digital”.

Part 4: Social Networks; International audience; Research has shown an increase in both disclosure of personal data and means to gather this data on social media such as Facebook. Little research has been done to analyze what happens with this data and how it circulates between different actors. The aim of this research is to map a subset of the Belgian social media marketing companies as a value network and how these actors use social media users’ data for marketing campaigns. The answer to this research question was obtained through expert interviews with experts from sector organizations and social media marketing companies. The consulted experts confirmed it was possible to use a myriad of personal information but their actual use was limited to age, gender, location and language. The main reasons are the unreliability of the data, legal insecurity and fear of scaring potential customers with privacy invasive questions.

Data driven technologies and the internet provide the tools to target content, products and services to different individuals at massive scale and relatively low cost in highly sophisticated ways, monitor outcomes and iterate and improve on targeting approaches in real-time. These tools - and the breadth and depth of data commonly held about people and their online behaviours - distinguish online targeting from the relatively broader kind of targeting of populations that has been used for years. The purpose of the review was to analyse the use of online targeting approaches and to make practical recommendations to the UK Government, industry and civil society for how online targeting can be conducted and governed in a way that facilitates the benefits and minimises the risks it presents. Ther definition of online targeting centres around the customisation of products and services online (including content, services standards and prices) based on data about individual users. Instances of online targeting includes online advertising and personalised social media feeds and recommendations.

Targeted advertising is not a perfect science. But it is a far better option than whatever it was that we had “way back when.” And as for matters of privacy, a tired old adage comes to mind: it’s all relative . [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Just as online sites have grown increasingly niche as interest groups continue to find each other and flourish within environments filled with like-minded users, Glam Media’s advertising empire has been launching multiple niche channels in order to better target ads within its quickly growing network. Having rolled out verticals for topics like Entertainment, Living and Family, the latest new channel in the Glam Media network is Glam Wellness, which encompasses mind-body-spirit, empowerment, and a healthy planet. Those brands related to this particular category, including Glam Wellness launch sponsor SOYJOY, can take advantage of Glam’s network in order to better target interested consumers. Glam wouldn’t be able to offer such targeting without the enormous reach it has, spanning a very wide array of female-oriented sites that participate within Glam Media’s network. Having recently raised more than $80 million, Glam is continuing to push out more verticals, further branching out its advertising network and potentially providing more quality targeting capabilities to participating brands. Aside from display ads and other basic advertising methods, Glam has recently introduced its Glam Applications Platform. We’ve also seen other branding pushes come through Glam with a more recent partnership with Flock, which features direct delivery of Glam network content to users that utilize the fashion- and entertainment-centric Flock web browser. Such partnerships allow Glam to explore various forms of unique advertising opportunities as well. ---Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Glam Launches Distributed Media PlatformGlam Reigns over iVillage as the No. 1 Network for WomenGlam Signs Google for Ad Brokerage and SearchGlam Media’s Acquisition of StyleMob RevealedGlam Media Steals Executive Talent from MySpaceGlam’s New Ad Exchange Connects Marketers, Publishers, & Ad NetworksLifetime to Use Glam’s Managed Vertical Network [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]