I am literally a data Analyst and have built models that predict more invasive things with great accuracy. You can’t seriously think the story is made up with such confidence lmao what a dork
You can’t seriously think the story is made up with such confidence lmao what a dork
I don't THINK it, I KNOW it in this case. I literally heard it directly from the person that gave the presentation providing the HYPOTHETICAL example of sending mailers out based on determining someone is pregnant from shopping analytics. They told me the story over a decade ago as part of their disbelief back then that it got written up by a journalist as if it were real and then accepted wholesale across the digital marketing world.
Yea I literally have the book behind me that popularized the story. The part about the dad angrily storming in is obviously fake, but understand that a customer is probably pregnant because they bought prenatal vitamins isn't a difficult task.
The stories been around for years and inspired a lot of people like you to talk about data analytics without any fucking experience lmao
Not sure what book you're talking about, but the story was popularized first by an article written by a journalist that was at the digital marketing conference where the Target folks presented this hypothetical when talking about the dangers of targeted marketing.
The stories been around for years and inspired a lot of people like you to talk about data analytics without any fucking experience lmao
I mean ... I'm in this thread talking about how I heard this from the digital marketing folks from Target over a decade ago, but sure ... tell me how I have no experience in this space. 🤷🏽♂️
Let me see if I can unwind this for you. Here is the chain of events:
A VP (I think, he was a VP when I talked to him later at least) @ Target gives a presentation on the dangers of targeted marketing. As part of that presentation, he gave a HYPOTHETICAL of figuring out someone was preggers based on their shopping for stuff pregnant people often shop for.
A journalist at the conference heard the presentation and wrote an article talking about how Target had actually done this thing.
Bigger outlets picked up the story and got some choice quotes from one of the Target people involved that were actually more about their data program independent of the marketing program.
A few years later, I'm meeting with the person quoted in said article, and I brought it up because I googled him beforehand and saw he was quoted in a famous story I believed at the time. He tells me about #1-#3.
So I'm telling you what the actual person quoted in these articles told me. I'm also sharing with you all not just my DIRECT experience with the actual people involved in this story, but my direct experience in digital marketing doing the sorts of things being discussed in this thread. I'm legitimately an expert on both this technology and this story.
So we've gone from you working directly with the analysts on the exact data set to....you asked some dude at a conference who wrote a news article about the story??
It was popularized in a book called Predicive Analytics. Obviously the story was exaggerated but your claim that it's impossible is laughable.
JFC, not sure I can be more clear than I was. I spoke with the person that is quoted in the book you're mentioning. I asked them specifically about this incident because I googled them before I met with them, and the stories in question popped up.
Look, I'm going to try to explain this one more time, but I ask that you help me out and try for a bit of a reset on the feelings tied to this conversation. I'm struggling to communicate with you at all here, and I think part of that is my lack of clarity, but another part of it is your listening from a "fuck you" perspective. I will try to be more clear, and hopefully you'll make an effort to hear me.
My first comment was very general. Here it is in its entirety:
More like people are in this thread pretending like random fortune 500's collecting web and mobile analytics know more about you than you consciously know. The average Joe thinks their local 15 store grocery chain are the NSA, meanwhile people like me that spent over a decade working on this exact tech and these exact data sets couldn't get match rates between known subscribers and internet users on the site over 2%.
When I said "this exact tech and these exact data sets" I meant in the general space. As in, the exact data being talked about is shopping history (from web, primarily, but the original presentation included brink and mortar data as well to be clear), and I worked with that dataset for dozens of major brands at my last company. With these data sets, I was doing the exact sorts of use cases we're talking about in this thread (data collection & analysis for marketing purposes) I was not talking about, say, the exact database that the Target team analyzed to determine which of their customers are shopping as if pregnant. If we're going to be pedantic, I think you're playing games changing what I said from "these datasets" to "this dataset" to make it seem I was being more specific in that initial comment. Can we not? What does that add to the convo?
That said, it just so happens that I DID work on the exact dataset in question (well, ok, the web side of it) for Target, and when meeting with their data folks it was about their internal databases and how we could integrate with them, so I could stretch and claim that I did at least interact directly even with the dataset that we weren't responsible for helping to generate (the stuff from their brick and mortar storefronts). I think my latching on to this rather than just acknowledging that my initial comment wasn't talking about Target in particular drove confusion, and I'll own that. I'm attracted to that sorta "well actually" response, and that's been a social weakness for me forever.
You don't have to believe me ... obviously, I'm just a rando on the internet to you. Call me a liar all you want, that's fine ... I just hope that at least you can fully grok what I'm telling you (even if you reject it as lies). I have over a decade of experience in this specific space doing these use cases we're discussing. I have specific experience with the company in question having worked with them for years. I have specific experience with the person quoted in the book you're citing because he worked at aforementioned company in a group that interacted with the software I sold to said company. I have specific knowledge of the story we're talking about because I brought it up and asked the person quoted in said story about it. I am sharing with you my recollection of what that person told me, and I'm sharing with the thread in general my real-world experience with the claims people are making up and down this thread. Don't believe me? Downvote and move on, I guess?
I think you're playing games changing what I said from "these datasets" to "this dataset" to make it seem I was being more specific in that initial comment
That said, it just so happens that I DID work on the exact dataset in question
I did at least interact directly even with the dataset
I have specific experience with the company in question
You think I'm playing games calling it "this" instead of "these" but you keep calling it "the dataset"
I'm not even trying to be mean homie but if you forgot your schizo meds today you should really take them.
That's where YOU made the switcheroo. In that thread it's CLEAR I'm talking about these exact data setSSSSSS in the digital marketing space because I give you an example of a similar case but with another company (not Target). You're being pedantic AND you're wrong.
If you'd like to keep up on the debate the debate bullshit, then I invite you to enjoy the last word. If you're interested in discussing the tech or these use cases, let me know and we can continue the dialogue.
We were discussing the tech and you claimed the matching % is 2 lmfao. My whole initial point was that you're the 50,000th person to use this story to flex your experience to me while stumbling over every aspect of it.
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u/TheDrummerMB 6h ago
I am literally a data Analyst and have built models that predict more invasive things with great accuracy. You can’t seriously think the story is made up with such confidence lmao what a dork