A woman changes her relationship status to “engaged,” and ads for bridesmaid dresses and cake decorators suddenly pack the ad space next to her profile.
For advertisers, that is the beauty of tailored advertising: making ads as relevant as possible through the interactive power of the Internet. In recent years, the burgeoning online social media industry has kicked ad tailoring up a notch and put the traditional advertising of the TV world into a tailspin.
And college students are charging into a field sizzling with new opportunities.
For the past two years, Justin Williams, a 2010 UCLA graduate and former director of the Bruin Advertising and Marketing Team, has operated his own advertising company called sketchbookLA. He ran advertising campaigns for the company that released the movie “Notorious,” as well as nonprofit organizations.
But on July 1, Williams will launch a revamped website and a new outlook for sketchbookLA, based primarily in online social media.
“That’s where everything is headed ““ if you look at the trends in online social media, it’s like a wild ride,” Williams said.
And being only 22 years old has given him an advantage.
“We’re the ones in the industry leading this online social media revolution ““ the people literally running client social media campaigns are 22, 24,” Williams said. “We’ve grown up with this.”
A chart issued by the Pew Research Center in January 2009 shows that 67 percent of adults aged 18-33 use social networking sites, 2 percent higher than teenagers and a full 31 percent higher than adults aged 33-44, the next biggest online age group.
Williams already has a few clients lined up: a yoga studio, a yoga instructor and a professor releasing a book entitled “The Art of Living.” He is interested in lifestyle improvement, and said that the capability of the Internet to tailor ads offers the best venue for helping such companies reach a specific audience.
Corinne Crockett, a 2010 UCLA graduate and former Daily Bruin TV producer who taught a spring seminar on business strategies for journalism in the digital age, said social media is not the first sphere to use ad tailoring. In 1998 Goto.com became one of the first companies to successfully use search data for marketing purposes, she said.
“In a general sense, search engine marketing has been going on since the late ’90s,” Crockett said in an e-mail. “Facebook and Google are innovators in the field of ad tailoring because they are taking it to the next level.”
The success of ad tailoring in social media has grabbed the attention of other, older forms of media long accustomed to traditional methods.
In May, online TV provider Hulu unveiled a package of new features, including a feature called Ad Tailor.
The feature allows viewers to make decisions about the length, frequency and content of ads while watching a TV show, according to the web site. With Ad Tailor, a box shows up in the corner of a commercial asking, “Is this ad relevant to you?” and the option of selecting “yes” or “no.”
Hulu cannot yet reach the level of tailoring available to social media, Crockett said. But the new feature constitutes a successful platform for a merger between traditional and new media ““ and that may set the tone for the future of advertising.
Without a TV in her dorm room last year, second-year English student Ashley Daum used Hulu to catch up on “The Bachelorette,” “The Hills” and “Glee.” She said her online viewing amounts to four to eight hours a week.
Although she does not identify herself as a heavy user, Daum noticed the advertising changes on Hulu right away.
In general, she appreciates the ability to personalize her ad experience.
“I’m not interested in car insurance in contrast to perfume,” Daum said.
According to the Pew chart, 72 percent of adults aged 18-33 watch videos online ““ at least 15 percent higher than any other age group.
With the right technology, advertisers can strike gold.
“If you tailor ads to your liking, you’re less likely to skip,” said Karla Liu, a recent graduate who was a member of the Bruin Advertising and Marketing Team for three years and was last year’s director.
Tailoring also has potential for backlash, especially when it comes to privacy concerns.
In a focus group, Liu heard a girl say that she “hated” Facebook advertisements. She found weight-loss ads in particular to be too intrusive and gender-targeted.
Tim Groeling, an associate professor of communication studies and the faculty mentor in the seminar course that Crockett taught, said “narrow-casting,” or designing content to reach a specific group, has that negative side. Advertisers might be able to deliver their messages more efficiently, but could find it tougher to move people who are uninterested or hostile to the product, he said.
“I can see where it can be on the verge of (invading) privacy,” said second-year psychology student Krishna Kumar. “But Facebook is as private as you make it.”
Liu, who currently works for a Los Angeles advertising company, said advertisers do have to tread carefully.
But that cycle of give and take, she added, is part of the business.
On the contrary, Williams said he frequently feels invaded by “traditional” advertising, as in when he opens up a magazine to a full-page advertisement for women’s underwear.
“There’s this balance you have to play (as an advertiser) with not having privacy invaded, but also people not wanting ads all over the place that aren’t relevant to them,” Williams said.