New Twitter Ads Shift to Suit the Weather

What’s the Latest?

Twitter and the Weather Channel have partnered in an effort to weatherize the former’s advertising. No, that doesn’t mean ads are becoming more energy efficient (or saving you money on your heating bill), but rather more weather-conscious, as Twitter will now be able to customize the ads you see based on the conditions outside. If you’ve ever felt violated by advertisers’ awareness of your current location, just wait until they know you’re caught in the rain without an umbrella: From Marketplace:

By letting advertisers know a customer is shivering or sweating, [Twitter hopes] to help the company target its products.

“Sixty degrees might be cold in Miami, which means that you want hot coffee,” says Curt Hecht, the global chief revenue officer at The Weather Channel. “Sixty degrees in Chicago means I’m getting an iced coffee, right?”

What’s the Big Idea?

Marketplace asked Oded Netzer, a marketing professor at Columbia Business School, about weather-conscious advertising. Netzer told them that ad services are now trying to take advantage of the known correlation between weather and consumption:

“If previously we used to think more about different advertising for different people, now we’re starting to think different advertising for the same people at different states of their environment — in this case weather.”

It remains to be seen if moving to a wet climate triggers an automatic increase in piña coladas ads.