1/ @eric_seufert this challenge/dynamic is not a new one and actually predates digital! I recently read (skimmed, really) "The Hidden Persuaders," a book about psychographic marketing published in 1957. https://twitter.com/eric_seufert/status/1308091052784521218

2/ A relevant passage from the book, exploring the challenges in generating NET NEW demand using only statistical methods:

"Marketers repeatedly suffered grievous losses in campaigns that by all the rules of logic should have succeeded."

3/ Customer surveys and focus groups were (are) the deterministic behavioral data of their day. But even as far back as 1957 when "The Hidden Persuaders" was published, it was apparent that using observations of consumers as a basis for GROWTH was futile.

4/ To wit: "...what people might tell interviewers had only a remote bearing on how the people would actually behave in a buying situation..."

5/ Takeaway: logic and determinism can never fully explain or —most importantly— PREDICT actual human behavior. Hence overly data-driven digital advertising remains stuck at the bottom of the funnel, despite massive efforts to expand its influence up-funnel into brand-building.

6/ And by "bottom of the funnel," I mean demand FULFILLMENT as you point out, as opposed to demand CREATION, which happens further up the funnel. @Grace_Kite had great thoughts on that a few weeks ago: https://twitter.com/Myles_Younger/status/1301102032942559233?s=20

7/ Anyway...great thread @eric_seufert. Ever since reading "The Hidden Persuaders" about a month ago, I had been wanting to note that passage's relationship to modern-day behavioral targeting. Your thread hit on some great points as to WHY behavioral targeting is the way it is.

8/ The book in question. Overall it's fairly dated because most of its ideas are now simply common practice, but being from 1957 it does provide a good perspective on how & why advertising never really changes. https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Persuaders-Vance-Packard/dp/B006DO9H1A/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=hidden+persuaders&qid=1600718997&sr=8-2