Are Web ads watching you watch TV?

[Janx]

I watched Puppy Bowl X last night.

I didn't surf or google anything last night (and certainly not about Puppy Bowl, dogs, or cars)

It showed the car commercial with the dogs driving.

Now I hop over to ENWorld, and I see the same car company's ad with dogs driving the car.

Coincidence?

Or is my DVR selling my viewing preferences to Google?

I really miss the days of dumb ads. When I come to EN World, I want to see RPG ads.

When I go to Pron World, I want to see Pron ads. And so on.

 

[Kramodlog]

I do not pay attention to ads.

 

[Morrus]

My guess is that your TV networks and Google are targeting you in similar ways - geographically, perhaps? A company launching a large campaign covering TV, print, radio, is going to show up a lot of you're in their targeted demographic.

 

[Janx]

I do not pay attention to ads.

In a certain sense, I don't either. I don't click on them.

I don't think I've ever bought any of the products displayed in them except by pure coincidence or that's so common what else was I gonna buy (ex. an iPhone or Cascade dish detergent.)

 

[Janx]

My guess is that your TV networks and Google are targeting you in similar ways - geographically, perhaps? A company launching a large campaign covering TV, print, radio, is going to show up a lot of you're in their targeted demographic.

Could be. As I hadn't seen the dogs in cars commercial except on Animal Planet, it seemed more like a special commercial they did for that channel (animal themed, like the channel), than regular disemination.

And it is not implausible that the cable companies SHOULD be documenting what shows I watch, so they can sell the data to Nielson's (why be a Nielson family when the DVR knows what everybody watches).