Have you heard that the Facebook guy, Mark Zuckerberg, is worth $1.5 billion at the ripe old age of 23? There’s a reason for it. Facebook is one of the few Internet sites that is able to specifically target marketing. If you want to run an ad, you can ask that it be run specifically for females between the age of 25-30 that like reading and are located in the Raleigh area, for example. Since you fill out your interests, age, gender, location, relationship status, etc. on your profile, these ads can be strategically placed in the viewing of prospective clients.
That’s what worries me about the ads that I get. They seem to have me pegged (mostly). I get a lot of advertisements for dating sites (one was even specifically targeted for people 25 and up!) and travel opportunities. Other ads, well, I just don’t know about.
Here are a few:
“Cause of belly fat” with a picture of man’s six-pack. Even if I were to say, want to lose some of my belly fat, I don’t want my stomach to look like THAT. I get lots of more targeted ads for weight loss (one I saw today said simply, “You fat?”) which makes me wonder, has Facebook figured out my BMI based on the pictures I have on there? I’d really rather not know!
“Bald hair creme” with a picture of the top of a bald man’s head. Um, I’m not a man, and I have plenty of hair. Shouldn’t this ad have been targeted to someone else?
I get the same “Meet 5 guys” ad that I talked about before, but I actually got one that had pictures on it…of FOUR guys. Is the fifth supposed guy so anxious to meet me too ugly to include his picture?
On the dating topic, one of the more pointed ads advertised “find your husband.” I wish it were that easy!
One I got this morning was just strange. It was for Jansport, the backpack company: “Wherever you go please take us with you.” Nope, I like my old backpack of a competitive brand just fine don’t travel without it. If I brought you along too you’d probably just get in a fight when I wasn’t looking. Plus I’d have to carry one on the front, which would just be suspicious as I go through security.
Another totally random ad was for Philadelphia real estate. I live in North Carolina, why would I buy a house in Philadelphia?
What funny ads have you seen online?