24/7 Real Media and Mindset Media Join Hands to Read Minds

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Its new partnership with Mindset Media will, in a sense, allow 24/7 Real Media to offer advertisers a glimpse into the heads of prospective customers.

Mindset Media uses clues from Web browser activity to enable psychographic targeting of online advertisements. The deal with Mindset announced today makes 24/7 Real Media the first media network to deploy such parameters for ad deployment, according to the companies.

Mindset Media's proprietary system yields clues about Web users' personality traits based on their online activity. These traits are of high interest to most brand advertisers, said Jim Meyer, Mindset Media's CEO and co-founder.

As an example, he said Procter & Gamble knows there are differences between the people (primarily young women) who like its Pampers diapers and those who prefer its Luvs brand. Meyer said his company's psychographic targeting, combined with other more customary methods of online behavioral targeting, might decide which brand of diaper gets advertised to a particular Web surfer.

The approach might seem intrusive to some. Especially when, as WPP-owned 24/7 Real Media noted in announcing the Mindset Media deal, it can be used to direct ads based on "20 different elements of personality including creativity, assertiveness, self-esteem and spontaneity." However, Meyer points out no personally-identifiable information is involved. Mindset is a member of the Network Advertising Initiative, an association of firms engaged in behavioral targeting.

Ari Bluman, 24/7's SVP for North America, said the partnership with Mindset Media will take his company's targeting ability to a new level.

"We're bringing together a very unique targeting filter," said Bluman. "We're talking the language of traditional brands that have a wealth of experience in the offline world, and allowing them to bring it online."

The executives would not name specific advertisers that have signed on for the new "Mindset Buys" the technology allows 24/7 Real Media to offer. 24/7 says its network reaches 150 million unique viewers monthly across more than 1,500 sites.