Edible Apple

Bloomberg today takes a look at how Apple is leveraging the buying habits of iTunes users to help advertisers deliver targeted ads to iPhone users.

Relying on the music, videos and apps that customers are downloading from its iTunes, App Store and iBooks helps Apple sketch a behavioral profile that can be paired with appropriate promotional messages. On its website, Apple says its “standard targeting options” include demographics, application preferences, music passions, movie genre interests, television genre interests and location.

The report highlights an ad campaign for Dove Men+Care soap which will use iTunes buying habits to zero in on married men “who are in their late 30s and have children.”

“Apple then overlays that with the iTunes information and targets quite well and quite surgically,” said Rob Candelino, marketing director at Unilever, based in London and Rotterdam.

Apple doesn’t share information on individuals, Candelino said. Instead, Unilever can choose to advertise in certain “buckets” of applications, such as those on news or entertainment, based on characteristics of its users.