In the news

I saw two references to a recent article in The New York Times and subject struck me as interesting enough to actually go and read it. "How Companies Learn Your Secrets" uses Target's effort to identify its pregnant customers, Target coyly refers to them as 'guests', to talk about habit forming. It's fascinating to read about "the loop of cue, routine, reward" and how one can form or break a habit by identifying each stage and consciously acting to reinforce or change it. Large companies had learned about these behavioral patterns some years ago and have been using them to affect our shopping routines ever since. What I found most interesting, though, was that it's assumed that customers would react negatively if they found out about this practice. Basically, it's taken as a given that people would take offense at the spying and lash out, i.e. not buy the product or stop frequenting a store caught in this behavior.

I must be a complete freak but I like the idea of being profiled as long as it's to our mutual benefit. For instance, if a store after studying my buying habits starts offering me coupons for the exact products I always buy or, better yet, figures out the frequency with which I run out of certain products, packs them up, delivers them to my door and (hell, why not, since we are in a full dream mode at this point) comes and unpacks them, I will remain loyal to the day they go out of business. And I am very easy to profile, I always buy exact same things. If a particular store doesn't have my preferred items, I would go out of my way to another store instead of buying a substitute. If General Mills ever stops making my favorite cereal, I will probably have a nervous breakdown. The problem I have is with the stores that go the other route instead. Take for instance Stop&Shop. They do figure out what you buy and then give you coupons for those things but of different brands in - vain, in my case, - hopes that you might give them a try. It might even be more pernicious than that and they pretend to give you discounts knowing full well they are useless and will not be used. Completely annoying either way.

So, yeah, as long as it makes my life easier, I am all for behavioral profiling, they don't even have to put lawn mowers in my ad booklets. Of course, there is no conveniently situated Target around here.