Niche Envy: Marketing Discrimination in the Digital Age

Niche Envy: Marketing Discrimination in the Digital Age Joseph Turow. Cambridge, MA: MIT. 2008. 225 pp. $14.95 (pb).Originally published in hardcover in 2006, this paperback version is no less useful today. The title refers to two sorts of envy, first by competitors who envy the customer base or niche that one company may possess and second by consumers who are envious of real or perceived differential treatment another consumer receives. The author thoroughly documents then generally considers the implications of the sophisticated customization of marketing based upon a particular customer's profile. This allows not only for price discrimination but also for product and service discrimination. The choice of what to offer a customer is made not by the consumer but by the marketer: "the movement of databases to the heart of marketing communication is beginning to affect the media, advertising, and society" (p. 1-2).Early chapters recount the development of advertising and marketing, especially in the second half of the twentieth century. Chapter 4 discusses the development of marketing through the Internet and the early battles between the industry and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and reviews the various patterns of Internet marketing customization such as search engine marketing (SEM) or customized messages. Chapter 5 (Rethinking Television) discusses the increased use of product placement as a response to new systems, such as TiVo, that allow consumers to skip commercials, and interactivity, in response to reality television, that encourages viewers to determine narrative through voting. This in turn leads to the consideration of interactivity in the advertising content as opposed to the program leading Turow to predict that "within 15 years customization of all sorts of commercial messages will be feasible and competitively essential" (p. 117). Turow predicts that the future of television advertising will parallel practice on the Internet.The future of media programming may also be subject to manipulation in that two viewers, depending on each other's profile, can watch the same television show or made for cable movie but see the protagonist drink a different beverage, drive a different car, wear a different designer label, etc. Chapter 6 (The Customized Store) recounts the well-known attempts by Wal-Mart to track every product, so-called basket-level analysis. Customization occurs in various service products, such as the variable wait-time customers are assigned after moving through (See also, Laura Hildner, Defusing the Threat of RFID: Protecting Consumer Privacy through Technology-Specific Legislation at the State Level, 41 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 133 [2006] and Serena G. Stein, Where Will Customers Find Privacy Protection from RFIDs? …