NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> WB '97#9: Sex in High School
ONLINE-ADS>> WB '97#9: Sex in High School
rhoy_at_tenagra.com
Wed, 18 Jun 1997 07:53:20 -0500 (CDT)
This is the ninth in a series of 10 reports from Richard Hoy
covering the Web Broadcasting '97 conference. You will receive
these reports in addition to your normal Online Ads posts/digests.
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Web Broadcasting '97 coverage
June 16, 1997 / Issue 9
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Sponsor:
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Sex in High School
session:
Agent Technology: Adding Value Through Targeting
speaker:
Jeff Einstein, Director of New Business Development
CMP Media Inc.
"Intelligent agents are like sex in high school,"
explained Steve Roth (co-founder of Thunderlizard
Productions, the conference organizer)
as he introduced Jeff Einstein.
"Everyone says they are doing it, but no one
really is."
Well, that is somewhat true. We are a far cry from
the assistants inside our computers made popular
by those AT&T commercials a few years back. But
Einstein said that virtually every significant
application will be agent driven by the
year 2000.
So what, exactly, are these essential components?
They are, according to Einstein, software programs
that act on your behalf to collect, filter, and
deliver data in a pre-configured fashion. They
are autonomous, intelligent, mobile and can
interface with other software.
Combine push and agent technology and you get
intimacy, or an environment to buy, according
to Einstein.
"Our task is not to sell, (but) rather to create
instead and environment that makes consumers
feel comfortable exercising their consumer
prerogatives; the closest thing we get in this
country to a national religion."
Einstein said that using basic demographics, one
can predict consumer behavior accurately 5 to
10 percent of the time. Use self-reported
demographic data, and your odds jump to as high as
15 percent. Study an individual's past behavior,
and your predictive ability shoots to 65 percent.
That is how the better intelligent agent systems
create the "comfortable consumer environment."
They use past behavior to predict future actions.
The search engine Infoseek, for example, uses
this form of agent technology for its UltraMatch
service. UltraMatch monitors visitor behavior,
and then segregates users into affinity groups.
These visitors are served ads related to the
affinity group in which they are placed. The idea
is to serve more targeted ads. Well, it works.
Infoseek has seen ad click-through rates overall
improve 123 percent.
And they are not alone. Both Banes & Noble and
Amazon.com will have implemented intelligent
agent technologies by the end of summer; conceivably
to make online book shopping a more intimate
experience.
Einstein pointed out that the old axiom for
advertising used to be:
"We know advertising works 50 percent of the
time, we just don't know which 50 percent."
With intelligent agents being able to track and
shape consumer behavior on a level as never seen before,
Einstein said the new advertising axiom will be:
"What worked and what didn't?"
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