Here’s the Pitch Deck for ‘Active Listening’ Ad Targeting - Media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) says it can target adverts based on what potential customers said out loud near device microphones, and explicitly points to Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Bing as CMG partners

404 Media previously reported Cox Media Group (CMG) was advertising a service that claimed to target ads based on what potential customers said near device microphones. Now, here is the pitch deck CMG sent to prospective companies. Google has kicked CMG off its Partner Program in response.​

Joseph Cox · Aug 26, 2024 at 8:51 AM


Image: 404 Media.

Media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) says it can target adverts based on what potential customers said out loud near device microphones, and explicitly points to Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Bing as CMG partners, according to a CMG presentation obtained by 404 Media.

The slide deck provides more information, and raises more questions, about CMG’s advertised capability which it calls Active Listening. In December, 404 Media first reported on Active Listening’s existence using pitches from CMG’s website before the company deleted that information. The presentation, which the company has sent to at least one company it was courting to buy its Active Listening services, shows how CMG was marketing the product to companies who may want to target potential customers based on data allegedly sourced from device microphones. Google has kicked CMG from its advertising Partners Program after 404 Media asked Google for comment on the slide deck.

“The power of voice (and our devices’ microphones),” the slide deck starts. “Smart devices capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations. Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers. We use AI to collect this data from 470+ sources to improve campaign deployment, targeting and performance.”

The deck does not say where CMG allegedly sources this voice data, be that a particular brand of smart TV, a smart speaker, or smartphone loaded with a particular app. It says that once it has used the voice data to identify an audience that is “ready-to-buy,” CMG builds a list of those audience members and uploads it to ad platforms to then target advertisements. It says for $100 a day, CMG can target people in a 10-mile radius, or $200 a day for a 20-mile radius.

The deck claims CMG partners with Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Specifically, it says CMG is a Google Premier Partner, which means they are in the top three percent of participating advertisers in a given country; that CMG was Amazon Advertising’s first media partner; and that it was one of the first media companies to become a Facebook marketing partner. Presumably the slide is talking about advertising in general in this context, and not necessarily the Active Listening product specifically.

Another slide specifically says CMG’s capability targets “Google/Bing” with the list of potential customers.





Google told 404 Media in a statement that “All advertisers must comply with all applicable laws and regulations as well as our Google Ads policies, and when we identify ads or advertisers that violate these policies, we will take appropriate action.” The company said it had removed CMG from the Partners Program after a Google review.

Amazon told 404 Media in a statement that “Amazon Ads has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so.” The company added that if it becomes aware that a partner is in violation of its marketing guidelines, it may take what it sees as appropriate action.

Meta said it cannot comment on specific advertiser accounts, but said that advertisers need to have the necessary rights to use any data as part of their campaigns. After Google removed CMG, Meta told 404 Media that it is looking into whether CMG violated the company's terms and conditions, and said it will take action if it believes it is necessary.

Press relations representatives for Microsoft said in an email that the company “has nothing to share at this time,” and did not respond when asked if it planned to take any action like Google did.

Another slide lays out “next steps” for companies who are interested in using CMG’s voice data product. That includes a series of internal and client meetings in the lead up to an advertising campaign launch.

When 404 Media originally reported on Active Listening in December, CMG’s website said “What would it mean for your business if you could target potential clients who are actively discussing their need for your services in their day-to-day conversations? No, it's not a Black Mirror episode—it's Voice Data, and CMG has the capabilities to use it to your business advantage.” CMG deleted this page from its website following publication of our piece.

404 Media also reported that employees of MindSift, a tiny New Hampshire-based company, boasted on their own podcast about targeting advertisements by listening to peoples’ everyday conversations through microphones in their smart speakers. After publication of that piece, MindSift’s social media went dormant and the company wiped mentions of the voice data capability from their Instagram page.

DocumentCloud (Archive)

Source (Archive)

 

[LurkTrawl]

I wonder about how this 'yeah the phone is obviously listening' interacts with confidential workplaces?

I love how this shit has been known and documented for years yet the DoJ, the DHS, not even the FCC have put a stop to such an obvious and complete threat to 'national security'.

Half of D.C. is literally in bed with chinks though so I guess it ultimately doesn't matter.

You can turn off all sensors on your Android phones in the developer settings. You're welcome.

You saying this with assumedly full confidence is the kind of humor I needed for the rest of my day. Thanks.

 

[Otterly]

What’s never mentioned is how it only listens to conversation. If it was as simple as ‘all verbal input nearby’ then you’d be served ads based on what it hears from TV, which would then serve more ads, which then trigger more ads
It ONLY serves ads based on what the actual humans speaking near it
I have been saying for years to people that they listen and been mocked, but they absolutely do. You can try it out - have a conversation about something g you would never normally talk about and make sure you don’t have any text input into anything g about it - you WILL get served ads about private submarine trips, horse shampoo or whatever weird niche shot you’re talking about. But put it to listen to the TV, and you won’t.

 

[Safir]

It's why they make it hard to pull away from social media like Facebook, Youtube, XTwitter, etc., the sounds, colors, layout and more is literally designed through use of human behavioral science to appeal to the dopamine centers in the brain and novelty seeking and to make uou crave them so as to keep you on as possible so you view tons of ads while scrolling, watching and more.

I don't want to do a "not like other girls" skit but I find Facebook, Youtube, XTwitter, etc disgusting.
Youtube's interface gets in the way of video, and autoplay is annoying.
Facebook has gross stickers.
Xitter is not badly designed on principle (threads in reverse chronological order) but the presentation is the worst it could be.

Instagram is a murder scene that was rotting for three days, I can't believe expensive brands, which pay millions for graphic design (which is sometimes terrible on purpose, yes), allow themselves to be thusly mispresented; if my primary school Wilderness Lore reports were this badly formatted, I'd be disowned.

Instagram Stories is where the "story" post format comes from. It's well-designed for a specific purpose: to quickly sort through mountains of trash. Worse, it has been adopted by apps such as banks. You have three seconds to read an important alert about tax returns! But you get more time if you quickly cover half of the screen with your finger! lololololol! nigger.

Apparently everything on TikTok is gross, even the fluffy animals. (Mom follows big cat youtubers and sends me fluffy animal videos off Youtube Shorts sometimes, and some of them are copied from TikTok and use retarded music and the cockslap caption effect.)

The two sites I did spend a lot of time on are/were Wikipedia (still a good source for things like historical timelines) and the old pre-woke Cracked, but it's not like there's some special trick to either, just mildly amusing parahistorical articles long enough to be interesting but short enough to read one before someone comes along to rattle the wagie cagie.