“It is one of the great marvels of life that, across languages, culture and history, it is possible, with sufficient knowledge, effort and insight, to truly understand the meanings of other peoples emotions and mental states”
- Richard A. Shweder
Yes it is a marvel. Who of us hasn’t travel to another country, struggled with language but seemed able to communicate in any case using gestures, facial expressions and the like. Emotions are universal. Everyone expresses anger and joy the same way.
Most targeting techniques cannot do this but they should.
There is a profound shortcoming of behavioral targeting. Namely - that the data is old. In all decisions information that is new is more valuable than information that is old. Click histories, demographics, and purchase histories are stable and good but not a current understanding of human emotion at the time an ad is to be selected and placed next to content.
But an excellent proxy is what consumers are reading.
In fact for several years now there have been many efforts to “detect sentiment” by analyzing what is written. But sentiment pales by comparison to the richness and variety of human emotions. It is relatively easy to detect what is “positive” or “negative”. But much harder to detect the difference between joy and success - universally positive emotions.
This deep understanding of emotions is a hallmark of what we at ADmantX have created the last several years. A rich portrait of human emotions during content consumption, and done fast enough to influence the selection and placement of online ads. Just what they taught in ad school - “know the consumer, know them in the moment, so you can serve them well”.
Semantic processing of content generates the sufficient knowledge, effort and insight to supplement the hole in behavioral targeting. Use it well and gain for your customers.
