This data stuff’s just a load of rubbish…

We’re a long way off a Minority Report-style future of perfectly targeted outdoor ads says Dominic Mills – and that future looks even further away after the plug was pulled last week on what could have been a very interesting experiment…

Sorry to disappoint anyone who read the headline this week and hoped for a rant about big data. It is in fact a story about a clever media idea gone spectacularly wrong, and it’s an indication of how easily privacy campaigners will jump on to anything that looks like a threat, particularly when it comes to mobile.

So let that be a warning to everyone in the ad business dreaming up brilliant wheezes to crack (finally) the mobile advertising conundrum or get some action into the digital out-of-home sector.

You may have seen the headlines about out-of-home operator Renew running into trouble with the City of London Corporation for capturing smartphone data with its rubbish bins.

Renew, it turns out, supplies the City with bomb-proof rubbish bins that also have screens (who knew, eh?) and in return is allowed to sell ads on those screens, a bit like the Clear Channel/JC Decaux bus-shelter models.

The difference, however, is that in June Renew equipped some of its bins with the ability to read the Media Access Code (MAC) addresses of any wi-fi enabled smartphones in the vicinity as part of a week-long test project.

This was never a secret – you can read Renew’s explanation of what it was doing here in capturing that MAC data.

Nevertheless, it was enough to cause outrage, with the likes of Big Brother Watch quick to jump on the hysteria bandwagon.

Assuming (always a big one) the data could be joined up, Renew would be able to tell how long that phone owner spent in the vicinity, where he/she went, which shops/pubs/restaurants they went into, and what ads they saw.

Renew’s aim was simple: get that data and exploit it with existing or new advertisers to sell more relevant, targeted messages to its affluent City audience.

It would also allow it to measure footfall by each site by precise time and thus charge accordingly. Given that the bins cost something like £30,000 each, it’s hardly surprising that Renew needs to find ways to make them more lucrative.

Anyway, it sounds like a move towards more accurate, as opposed to vague, wing-and-a-prayer style location-based advertising.

Does that sound intrusive? On one level, yes-ish.

But since the data was anonymised and aggregated (in other words they would have thousands of MACs but not know whose they were), it’s hardly a proper threat to personal liberty – or at least any more than the thousands of CCTV cameras in the City.

Even so, it was enough to get Renew’s landlords, the City Corporation, jumping on its high horse and issuing it with a cease-and-desist order and reporting it to the Information Commissioner’s office.

Daft, really, isn’t it? After all, the data Renew was collecting was significantly less personal than that those titans of tech – Google, Apple, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on – collect. And, of course, they actually know – as in name, age and all that stuff – who you are.

So where does this leave us? It’s clear that we’re years off a Minority Report-type future of personalised poster sites.

Equally, it’s clear that this is a step backwards for those that want to marry mobile with out-of-home: however careful the use of data might be in this sort of context, just the mere mention of it is enough to produce a backlash.

And it’s probably a step backwards for mobile too, at least in its proper sense – i.e. depending on where you are.

I suspect that what the industry has to do is to find a way to take the population with it, or to provide some kind of value exchange – i.e. in return for allowing you to access some of my data, you will provide me with these benefits.

Renew’s problem, unlike those with Facebook, LinkedIn et al, is that there was no obvious value exchange. It took the data, without people’s permission, and gave nothing back.

Digital mags: I’m feeling optimistic

I always smile when I read about magazine bosses saying what really matters is “reach and influence” at the time of the ABCs. It’s code for: ‘bloody hell, this print business is tough so let’s talk about other stuff instead.’

But this time, it looks as though they actually have something to say, as opposed to platitudinous wishful-thinking. And the focus is on digital editions.

According to the PPA, who’ve combined print ABCs and digi-mag stats, the number of titles with digital editions covered by this Jan-June 2013 reporting period has increased from 61 to 86, and total digital sales by 65% – from 179,000 to 294,000.

Now, we’re clearly a long way off being able to say that the magazine business can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but these figures suggest two things: one, that publishers are starting to get to grips with tablet editions and two, that there is an appetite among consumers to pay for digital editions.

Meanwhile, tablet penetration continues to rise, and at around 25% is clearly now being taken up by mainstream Britain. That gives further cause for optimism.

But it won’t be plain sailing. Peter Houston, David Hepworth and others have noted the failure of digital-only titles like tech. and Tap!.

If they can’t succeed, say the pessimists, what hope has anyone else got? It is, of course, a mistake to blame the medium or means or delivery, when there could have been (and were) a myriad of other problems. Every time a print title closed, did that mean print was useless? Definitely not.

Equally, if you look at the sales figures of the individual digital titles, you will see that some are down significantly at a time when you might expect them to be up – like Cosmopolitan, for example, where digital sales are down 25% versus a decline of (only!) 15% for the print.

But there are enough showing double and triple-digit percentage increases, albeit off a low base, to encourage optimism. But it’s clear that we are many ABC reporting periods off that point where digital overtakes print.

And then, somewhat counter-intuitively, there’s the one sector that always shows most resilience: children’s. This time round total circulations rose 1.3% to 2.3 million. Who knew there were 2.3 million children out there reading print magazines.

As you might expect, the sector is highly TV-dependent (CBeebies/Peppa Pig and so on), and fickle. But what I find fascinating is that some, like Moshi Monsters (227,000, up 34%), transcend their online roots and exist successfully in print.

In fact not one of the children’s titles has a digital offshoot, which I find surprising.

Notwithstanding that, regardless of whether it is digital or print, the magazine sector needs to find ways of hanging on to those younger readers. Alas, I fear, it will struggle.