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Comment by TDL | Hacker News Reader

I remember a while back that Target had to back of a similar approach when it began sending out coupons to women that they suspected (w/ apparently a high degree of accuracy) were pregnant. The main anecdote was about a father who found out his daughter was pregnant because they started to receive the coupons. Target eventually backed off this approach (at least for newly pregnant women) because many of their customers complained that the marketing campaign was creepy.

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I don't think they stopped it. Just adjusted it so the offers we're alongside random stuff (eg discounts on lawn mowers). That way people wouldn't freak out (presumably because they didn't know how much the company really knew about them)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h...

Edit: Worth posting the whole quote (just found it).

“With the pregnancy products, though, we learned that some women react badly,” the executive said. “Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy, so the baby ads looked random. We’d put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. We’d put a coupon for wineglasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance.

“And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”

Right (I forgot,) thanks for the link.

Offering alcohol to someone you know is pregnant, ugh.

Last I knew wine glasses were non-alcoholic. (From the quote) it seems they have carefully chosen not to market them alcohol directly.

You do know that the medical profession has figured out a small amount of alcohol (a drink or so) after the first trimester isn't a problem, right?

Bullshit.

You can say that as much as you would like... then go do a Google search. No one is saying to get drunk with a baby, but a glass (max) is fine.

Studies have not been able to show negative effects from moderate drinking in pregnancy. The medical community tells women not to drink because they have not been able to show that any level of drinking is "safe".

http://palatepress.com/2012/02/wine/light-drinking-during-pr...

The medical profession is positively paleolithic and incredibly patriarchal when it comes to pregnancy. There is no rational sense of weighing risks by probability, instead it's a "you can never be too safe!" attitude. My wife researched this issue heavily during pregnancy, and what really ground her gears were all the people who say "the safest option is to just not drink at all." But the fact of the matter is that these same people continued to engage in incredibly risky behavior like the wife continuing to drive during pregnancy.

Inconclusive either way is different from 'shown drinking isn't a problem'. So technically, he's right, even if a little too aggressive about it.

speaking of probability, doesn't having a drink dramatically raise the probability of having a drink again soon? isn't human behavior the least reliable piece of the metaphor, not the spotty scientific research?

People have doing it (drinking a glass once in a while, while being pregnant) for ages without any problems. It's just BS American parents who are fussy with everything.

Oh, and "BS"? Really? It's from medical science.

You missed the point. From the quote: "Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy..."

In other words, wine glasses are on par with lawn mowers as far as pregnant women are concerned. They know women aren't interested in them.

Because it's inconceivable that a pregnant woman might be buying things for someone not pregnant. Anyhow, as the others pointed out, it's part of the randomness disguise.

But this type of marketing is creepy and invasive. No one likes this because we're basically powerless to choose an alternative. My fiance is marketed tampons on Facebook during the correct time of the month. Because of things she bought on a shopper's card. Disturbing. The real impact will be when your rates on all types of insurance are affected by this data. Or when employment decisions are made.

Off-topic, but since when did Target start selling lawn mowers?

The only lawnmowers I've seen are the rotor-bladed push-powered mowers. They usually only have them in the spring when all the garden stuff is out.

Tesco was the first company to really do this right - there's a book called Scoring Points[1] that outlines this in details. By using the detailed profiles of customers, they learned that giving discounts on products customers cared about was much more valuable than just giving discounts based on vendor preference. A fan of Coca-Cola will come in to buy a Coke, but won't buy Pepsi, no matter if it's on sale or not.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Scoring-Points-Winning-Customer-Loyalt...

For those with sub to Safari, Scoring Points is available there:

my.safaribooksonline.com/book/-/9780749453381

Personalization feels like the SEO of 2013. In general, personalization is very hard in terms of "what customer wants" -- look at Amazon's "products for you." In the case of Facebook, this feels like an association algorithm based on affinity rather than personalization the way Target was doing it.

Here's a link to the Target story: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe...

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