Equal treatment ads can backfire, study finds

"A new study published in Marketing Science has found that some of the most widely considered online advertising safety and fairness policies may actually boost ad platform revenues while improving fairness outcomes. The policies at the center of the study are around ads that are designed to help ensure that women, minorities and other protected classes are not disproportionately excluded from job, education and financial opportunities. The study, "Is Fair Advertising Good for Platforms?" by Di Yuan of Auburn University, Manmohan Aseri of the University of Maryland and Tridas Mukhopadhyay of Carnegie Mellon University, investigated whether policies intended to equalize exposure to economic-opportunity advertisements help or hurt ad platforms financially."

"Contrary to industry assumptions, the researchers found that when platforms implement an Equal Exposure with Equal Treatment (EET) policy that requires equal per-capita ad exposure across demographic groups, competition among advertisers intensifies, increasing the total number of dollars spent on advertising. Empirical reporting has shown that protected groups such as women and minorities are less likely to encounter job, housing or financial opportunity ads online."

"Case in point is the female demographic. Because women are a highly sought-after consumer marketing demographic, it costs more online to target them with consumer advertising. But when trying to target women as a demographic for economic-opportunity advertising, it is more expensive to reach them with economic opportunity ads, so as a result they are less likely to be as exposed to those kinds of ads. Economic-opportunity advertisers (like employers or universities), by contrast to consumer marketing brands, value all users equally but cannot simply outbid specialized retailers to ensure that women see their ads. "This asymmetric valuation creates a systematic disparity," said co-author Aseri. "Retailer"

Equal Exposure with Equal Treatment (EET) policies require equal per-capita ad exposure across demographic groups. Implementing EET intensifies competition among advertisers, which raises total advertiser spending and platform revenue while increasing fairness in exposure to economic-opportunity ads. Protected groups such as women and minorities currently receive less exposure to job, housing, and financial opportunity advertisements because consumer advertisers often outbid economic-opportunity advertisers for certain demographics. Economic-opportunity advertisers value all users equally but cannot outbid specialized retailers, producing systematic disparities in who sees opportunity-related ads.

Read at Phys