People who love sports...

What's your segment?

As a big gadget geek, I am very excited about my recent purchase of a cool new training tool called Total Body X-Bike by Trixter. What I like most about this in-door bike is it most closely mimics the natural movements of riding outdoors. (I can hear the gasps and see the eye rolls of avid cyclists out there, but trust me, it’s true.)

You see, as we continue to gain momentum at Active Athlete, the demands on my time have continued to climb and my window for working out has substantially narrowed. So I was looking for an effective fitness tool that would allow me to engage in cycling when it suited my schedule, which were odd hours to say the least. This bike also served as a time management tool, per se, to help me get in the best workout and in the least amount of time.

Mixing recreation with business, I connected with Trixter’s VP of Sales & Marketing. It was interesting to hear his perspective of his target market – “the home-fitness market.” As someone who loves to jump on my road bike and go for 1-4 hour rides wherever the roads in and around San Francisco take me, I never actually considered myself to fall within this category. But there I was, outdoorsy but time-crunched.

This brought me full circle, back to thinking of all the behavioral targeting discussions in which I was able to participate at the recent OMMA Conference in Hollywood, as well as similar discussions I’ve had with advertising agencies.

Interestingly, regardless of which target segment people are talking about, the defined segment varies a considerable amount. In fact, the definitions are often so narrow in focus that, in my opinion, certain valuable groups of individuals are being excluded from demographics in which they may otherwise be included. This means advertisers are missing opportunities to capitalize on the true target segment as a whole.

For example, Snapple wants to reach “healthy lifestyle athletes” but not “jocks.” As another example, Soy Joy, a 100% natural snack bar that I love, wants to reach “women who live a healthy lifestyle”, but who are not necessarily “athletes,” so as to avoid the perception of competing with “performance bars.” It seems that we might be missing some low hanging fruit (or snack bars!) if we contextually target to consumers as opposed to really leveraging their behaviors.

In order to reach any true target segment, it’s important to consider the consumer’s complete lifestyle, rather than trying to fit them into a small, specifically defined box.

I believe I represent a typical consumer that’s smack within our demo target at Active Athlete. I’m an active 38 year old who participates in various endurance and other sporting events each year. I have a passion for my sport and its corresponding gear, and I travel several times annually as part of my active lifestyle.

Would Trixster, Snapple or SoyJoy consider me or any one of the other eight million like-minded Active Athletes within our network, as too “hard core” and exclude us from their respective targeted campaigns? I hope not.

In addition to being an Active Athlete, I’m tech lover, vegetarian and dog owner – arguably a marketer’s dream come true, especially if the marketer happens to be an exercise bike, beverage or snack bar company.

It would be a shame to let Active Athletes fall through the cracks into the dark abyss of missed opportunities if they don’t fit neatly within advertisers’ and agencies’ preconceived notions of their target markets.

Although behavioral targeting is without a doubt of huge value to the advertiser, the value proposition is only realized to its fullest potential if we are careful not to be too narrow-minded in our focus and we consider any consumer’s complete lifestyle in order to determine relevance and the potential effectiveness of any campaign.

What's your target?

This past week I participated on a panel on behavioral targeting at the Online Media, Marketing and Advertising (“OMMA”) Conference in Hollywood, CA. It was interesting to see the difference in the perspectives of marketers, agencies and publishers, as each addressed behavioral targeting and their own methodology for creating what they believe to be the “secret sauce.” Despite the different perspectives, most companies offering behavioral targeting have one thing in common: they are “horizontal” in nature and primarily focused on reach. Although I agree that it’s important to have reach in order to achieve sizeable behavioral targets, the data gathered across most horizontal networks is most often transactional and contextually irrelevant to a user’s lifestyle. Behavioral targeting efforts are best optimized across vertical networks where the data gathered is by far richer and more relevant than that within its horizontal counterparts. The value of vertically-focused behavioral targeting, which has the benefit of looking at transactional data, user declared data and behavioral data sets over a longer period of time is huge. Take for example the value of gathering data about users who plan to participate in particular sporting events, at specific destinations, at certain times of the year. At Active Athlete Media, we refer to these users as “Racers.” With this knowledge, we’re able to target ads that are most relevant to these Racers (i.e. gear, travel, lodging, etc.). And knowing the date of the sporting event allows us to initiate this targeting 6-12 months before the big day. For example, to Racers identified as registrants of the 2007 Paris Marathon, which takes place in March, we can start targeting ads for the best running shoes, the most competitive air and ground travel, and the most conveniently located hotels in Paris, anywhere from March to September of 2006. Consider just how powerful this data is and how it affords vertically-focused, behavioral targeting companies the opportunity to connect with users at the right place and time.