<i>"In other words, if they can't use data to generate enough personalized content to target people, maybe they can use data to generate vanilla people within a smaller set of emotional states. Once you have a set of vanilla people, then your American Apparel ads will work on them without customization."</i><p>This point of view is a bit ahistorical. Madison Avenue's success during the latter part of the 20th century (and still today) lies in exactly producing 'vanilla' people, with brand new 'vanilla' insecurities, that broadcast media can then target to sell them mass produced 'solutions'.<p>However, I still find the prospect of advertisers doing so more efficiently at scale in today's fragmented media environment (which has been making things more difficult for them for a while) rather disturbing.<p>Incidentally, this sort of manipulative A/B experiment is a key element of a plot point at the beginning of Vernor Vinge's 'Rainbows End': <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End</a>
I say they go full Brave New World and start burying all the negative content, and show only things that make people happy.<p>Or A/B testing. Show only depressing stuff to some people, and nice stuff to all their friends, to see how they deal with the disconnect.<p>The potential is limitless.