The 2023 Social Media Summit@MIT Event Report

Christopher Graves, the keynote speaker at the 2023 Social
Media Summit@MIT, offered a revealing look under the hood
of social media marketing tools. He described the growing
danger of what he calls “personality-based marketing,” a
rising—and somewhat disturbing—approach that matches
individual personality traits to social media habits.
How Behavioral Science
Can Decode Us
Graves knows more about digital marketing than most. The
founder and president of the Ogilvy Center for Behavioral
Science, part of Ogilvy Consulting, he pointed out that
companies are now correlating users’ online behavior—
even photographs of their faces—with specific personality
characteristics. Organizations then use these sophisticated
results to build a data “genome” and deliver content aimed at
encouraging specific actions.
Personality Traits
COGNITIVE STYLE
People have a series of filters that either sharpen or distort
their beliefs, preferences, and decisions, Graves told
SMS@MIT attendees. “I can now test individuals at large
scale to better ‘decode’ them,” he added.
“When you use this for good, it could possibly lead to
rapprochement or resonance,” Graves said. “But if you use
it for ill will, it could be very malicious manipulation.”
WORLDVIEW & AFFINITIES
While marketing has long used personality-driven
techniques to find, segment, and sell to customers,
today’s AI-based approaches are far more sophisticated
and accurate. Also, where earlier approaches attempted
to change or convert ideas, today’s behavioral approaches
focus on changing behavior.
Graves said that personality inference can be done in six
distinct ways, all of which can be accelerated with AI for
pattern recognition: eye tracking, text parsing, images
(especially photos of faces), music and sound, behavior
on a mobile phone, and social engagement.
SOCIAL MEDIA
DRILLS DEEP
Olgivy’s cognitive scientist
Christopher Graves describes
sophisticated new marketing
tools to ‘decode’ online behavior
WATCH VIDEO
Christopher Graves
President & Founder, Ogilvy Center
for Behavioral Science
“Companies have
great interest in
figuring out who you
are based on your
digital footprint.”
Christopher Graves
President & Founder, Ogilvy Center for Behavioral Science
Graves described three lenses that marketers use to
gain insights into individuals: personality traits, cognitive
style, and worldview/identity. These factors come into
play when a social media platform—or a user or advertiser
on a platform—wants to persuade others to take a specific
action. People with different personalities, cognitive styles,
and worldviews will respond better or worse to different
kinds of messages.
‘Decoding’ Personality Traits
In the past, personality profiling was typically done with
surveys and tests. But today’s social media platforms can
remotely “decode” people by observing their preferences
and behavior online.
One approach claims to correlate personality types with eye
movement; another purports to do the same through your
use of language. Yet another technology claims to use a
photograph of faces to determine personality types or even,
according to one researcher, a person’s sexual orientation.
It’s not clear whether this kind of tracking is being used
now by the leading social media platforms, Graves said.
But patent applications around personal inference have
been filed by companies that include Facebook, Google,
Microsoft, and Spotify. These companies, Graves added,
“have great interest in looking at your digital footprint and
digital breadcrumbs to figure out who you really are—not
who you say you are.”
Getting to Know You
These analytics could also be used to empower AI chatbots
for good purposes. For example, in the case of vaccine
resistance, an empathetic approach might hear out the
person’s reasons for concern and then match a pro-vaccine
storyline to that person’s personality type.
Another example: People could also opt-in to use personalityinferring
chatbots to help them quit smoking. “If you know
how somebody’s wired and respectfully approach them on
their terms in ways that make sense to them, you probably
have a slightly better chance at helping them,” Graves said.
Despite the promise, personality-aware AI could make the
spread of misinformation even more pernicious. “Imagine
I’m trying to whip you up into anger, into further polarization,”
Graves said. “I will have better tools and a much more finely
nuanced understanding of your hot buttons.”
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