back to article Adobe: New Unified Customer Profile will personalise ads as never before

"We've emerged beyond just the company that’s known for Photoshop," claimed Adobe's Cody Crnkovich, head of platform, partners and strategy, today as he introduced AI and profiling features designed to enable marketers to deliver more creepy personalised advertising and comms. He has a point. The Adobe Experience Cloud, an …

  1. JohnFen

    Adobe is a terrible, terrible company

    But everyone already knew that Adobe is awful, no news there. But delusional?

    "“Consumers prefer a personalised experience,” Justin Merickel, VP Adobe Advertising Cloud, told to the press ahead of the summit. “When you walk into that restaurant they know the food you want to order, they know your drink."

    Not me. If I walked into a restaurant where the server doesn't recognize me from prior interactions, and that restaurant already knew, or even thought they knew, what I wanted, I would get up and walk straight back out. I don't want to give my money to creepy fucks like that.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      “Consumers prefer a personalised experience”

      Which usually means someone who listen to you, maybe give advice, but never tries to force you into buying Spam because it's the only product it has to sell...

      These people are so full of contempt about people they really think they "know better" - while they are just among the most stupid around, just they find people stupid like them who let them destroy everything slowly... a very nice world, when all your "wishes" are driven by a machine run by idiots.

      1. Chemical Bob

        Re: “Consumers prefer a personalised experience”

        "These people are so full of contempt about people..."

        No, they're worse than that. They are too stupid to realize that people are not "consumers" and that consumers are mythical.

        So when I walk into that restaurant where the wait-staff person remembers what I like to drink and brings it over right away, that isn't a "personalized" experience, its a *human* experience.

  2. alain williams Silver badge

    This is what GDPR was designed to kill

    and I hope that it just does that - stone dead, wooden stake through its heart.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    “Consumers prefer a personalized experience,”

    If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes truth. If you repeat a lie many times, people are bound to start believing it. -- PJ Goebbels

    1. fidodogbreath

      Re: “Consumers prefer a personalized experience,”

      The spyware-enabled, data-mined, location-stalked experience that Adobe is bleating about is not "personalized," it is mechanized.

      Adobe Stalker Cloud "recognizes" me the same way the HID prox reader on the door at work recognizes my fob. In internet-marketer world, though, that's a "personalized experience" which is exactly the same as having a friendly human at the door, who opens it for me because s/he recognizes me as another human person.

  4. a_yank_lurker

    Shared Data

    Sharing data between companies is very different from personalized ads/recommendations/emails from a vendor one has done business with. Amazon's onsite recommendations are based on one's purchase and search history, which is reasonable as long as the data stays with Amazon. Sharing this data with, say Target, is a major problem.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Devil

      "Amazon's onsite recommendations"

      I don't fear them, yet. They are so utterly wrong that whatever runs them can only be written by mechanical turks.

      I'll be much more scared when they'll get it right...

      1. JohnFen

        Re: "Amazon's onsite recommendations"

        At least Amazon has a strong financial reason to keep what it knows about you to itself. Unlike advertising firms like Facebook, Google, etc., letting others have access to that data would be a disadvantage to Amazon.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Shared Data

      "Amazon's onsite recommendations are based on one's purchase"

      In other words, what you don't need because you bought it last time.

    3. Vector

      Re: Shared Data

      "Amazon's onsite recommendations are based on one's purchase and search history..."

      ...And apparently, so is their ad platform. That's my only guess as to why they keep sending me ads about crap I've already bought.

  5. GrumpenKraut
    Thumb Up

    “Consumers prefer a personalized experience,”

    I totally like that!

    Let me tell you about some of my hobbies while we are at it:

    Hitting my front teeth with a hammer.

    Sticking rusty nails into my eye balls.

    Enjoyment of power drill to testicles interaction.

    Thank you, Adobe. Thank you so much.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: “Consumers prefer a personalized experience,”

      "Let me tell you about some of my hobbies while we are at it:"

      The appropriate adverts will be along shortly.

    2. mosw

      Re: “Consumers prefer a personalized experience,”

      Your spouse will now be seeing a surprising large number of power drill ads.

      At your next birthday expect to get nails and hammers from your friends and maybe even a Groupon for a local urologist.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "We've emerged beyond just the company that’s known for Photoshop"

    Into one that makes you resent having to rent Photoshop from.

  7. GrumpenKraut
    Happy

    Kudos to the author

    It's articles like this that make me a bit of a Reg fanboi.

  8. Shadow Systems

    Adobe: Nuke them from orbit, repeatedly, just to be sure.

    Then pound the glassy crater into powder, rototill in tonnes of salt per cubic nanometer, & flood the crater with napalm. Set it on fire & dance gleefully around the flames. If anything tries to crawl out of the pyre, stab it, shoot it, & nuke it again. Repeat as needed for the next billion years.

    Adobe & SCO: the companies that just refuse to die.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    So every software company is turning into a marketing one...

    .... very sad indeed.

    I'll try to spend my money into any company that still makes software which is actually meant to be used by me to achieve my aims, not to use me to achieve someone else's.

    1. JohnFen

      Re: So every software company is turning into a marketing one...

      This. The state of the industry has dropped so low that it's become impossible to trust any software at all anymore. Not all software tries to spy on you, but most does, so you have to essentially do a security audit on everything before you dare to install or run it.

      My approach to software has changed as a result. In the old days, if I saw something that looked like it might be useful, I'd gladly give it a try. Now, I avoid using any new software, or even updates to existing software, if at all possible. It's just too much work to engage in the necessary vetting.

      And, of course, if the software is "as a service" or requires the cloud, it's a nonstarter for me.

    2. fidodogbreath

      Re: So every software company is turning into a marketing one...

      I'll try to spend my money into any company that still makes software which is actually meant to be used by me to achieve my aims, not to use me to achieve someone else's.

      If you find such a company, please share it with the group.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: So every software company is turning into a marketing one...

        "If you find such a company, please share it with the group."

        Until then there's open source.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "Until then there's open source."

          Which is actually mostly funded by those same companies that are busy stealing your data to use them against you...

        2. JohnFen

          Re: So every software company is turning into a marketing one...

          Sadly, you can't assume that a piece of software is well-behaved just because it's open source, either. There's too much OSS that engages in unnecessary data collection these days, so it requires the same amount of vigilance that closed source does.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    "We've emerged beyond just the company that’s known for Photoshop,"

    "...and become a company that's known for Flash."

    1. DNTP

      Re: "beyond just the company that’s known for Photoshop,"

      "...and become a company that's known for, admittedly unintentionally, driving previous Photoshop users to download GIMP rather than join the cloud..."

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "beyond just the company that’s known for Photoshop,"

        Affinity is getting good praise these days as a PS alternative for those that have bills to pay.

  11. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    Adobe dons dirty mackintosh

    Stalks people.

    Gets its face punched in

  12. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    “Consumers prefer a personalised experience,...“When you walk into that restaurant they know the food you want to order, they know your drink."

    Actually, when I walk into a restaurant I want to read the menu and wine list and order what I want depending on what's on there, what I like and what I want to spend. Providing that, that's personalised service. The alternative sounds too much like foisting on to me what the restaurant wants to sell.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I would think that personalized service at a restaurant would be more subtle. Instead of knowing the food and drink you want to order, it would know the food and drink that you'd never want to order. Have a distaste for cilantro, hot spices, and red wines that are high in tannins? We'll move those foods to the back of the menu.

      The only place I frequent where such a simple customer preference system might work is my barbershop, given that I tend to have the same haircut for half the year.

    2. Marcus000

      “Consumers prefer a personalised experience,...“When you walk into that restaurant they know the food you want to order, they know your drink."

      I go to a restaurant to try different dishes/drinks. If I wanted the same food/drink I could go to McD's.

      I understand that prisoners get a 'personalised experience'.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "I go to a restaurant to try different dishes/drinks. "

        Right, if I went to the same restaurant to eat/drink the same things over and over I'd start to think I have a very poor and empty life.

        But these are probably the kind of people who order over and over the same expensive food/brands at the same expensive fashionable venues, only to show off and only because they imitate/follow someone else, without a clue about what they are really eating and drinking.

        And many places know very well how to take advantage of such gullible people...

      2. fidodogbreath

        I understand that prisoners get a 'personalised experience'.

        +1 Marcus. I laughed out loud at that one.

  13. Diogenes

    Adobe cannot keep its own accounts in order

    I somehow have ended up with 4 adobe accounts - 2 were deliberate (one was my private email from when I was a teaching student, the other is work as I have a work licence) 2 others were accidents. Trying to combine the CC cloud licence currently on account C , together with adobe education exchange 'badges' on accounts a & b is impossible, and I have to ring them delete account d aaaaaararrrrrgggggggggg

  14. td97402

    What Does Targetted Advertising Do Again?

    *** Pardon whilst I check the ads on this page ***

    Oh, I see, apparently advertising products I’ve already purchased elsewhere.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fuck you Adobe!

    We pay hundreds to use their POS Acrobat software because of some specific things and it is phenomenally shite

    I pay you hundreds for the privilege of using your pish software then you won't work unless I not only register but create individual accounts on the enterprise then you change the process every fucking version at the same time as you play "hide the function".

    You're so fucking bad you almost make Microsoft look competent.

    1. fidodogbreath

      I'm still limping along with an aging and increasingly creaky copy of Creative Suite 6, because Creative Cloud is blindingly expensive and an enormous PITA.

      Looking ahead to when CS6 will no longer work, Adobe's rapacious CC pricing seems to be creating opportunities for others. There are several very decent cross-platform, multi-layer photo editors out there now at a range of price points -- especially if you don't need PhotoShop's more obscure features. I've also been impressed with the downloadable version of Gravit Designer as a simpler but capable alternative to Illustrator.

      1. TVU Silver badge

        "Looking ahead to when CS6 will no longer work, Adobe's rapacious CC pricing seems to be creating opportunities for others"

        That is precisely why Serif's Affinity software is doing so well these days. They've gone for those disenchanted Adobe customers who resent paying a monthly e̶x̶t̶o̶r̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ rent and who still want to pay a one cost for their software.

  16. ecofeco Silver badge

    Fuck adobe straight to hell

    Fuck everything about adobe.

    Do not install this shitware unless you absolutely have to.

    I have just had a recent unpleasant experience. I had no idea how bad it had become. This company needs to die.

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