Wednesday, July 24, 2013

How Can They Get it so Wrong?



Lately I’ve been paying more and more attention to the ads on the sides of webpages. The ones that are based on collected data from browsing history and are supposed to be tailored specifically, perfectly, to me.

Yeah… not so much. Just because I’m Alaskan doesn’t mean I’m automatically addicted to fishing, and is it really that great an idea to bombard me with pictures of the clothes I just looked at. I’ve already seen them for Pete’s sake! Why on earth would I want spend even more time looking at something I’m not going to buy?

And don’t even start me on the shoe adds they show me! Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m addicted to shoe shopping, thank you very much, and even if I were stripper shoes wouldn’t be my first choice!

Combat boots? Sure.

Stripper heels? Only if I got their tips too.


For such an advertising juggernaut I’m incredibly underwhelmed.

However, that’s not the best part. No, that’s the part where I’m a 31-39 year old single plus sized woman.

In reality, I’m a 25 year old woman with a kicking body and a committed relationship.
At least they got 1 out of 5 right? I am a woman. Congratulations!!! There are people in the world today who can look right at me, and thanks to my haircut and lack of giant breasts miss that fact entirely. “Hi, boys.” Yeah no.


Anyway, I’m not sure if I should be excited to have fooled the advertising system that has been known to predict pregnancy better than the test, or if I should be concerned that my lifestyle choices are so strange compared to my demographic’s average that I’m not even considered a part of that demographic.

So is there anyone else out there who’s managed to fry the system? Or who has as of now decided to give it a shot just to see if they can?

- Aaron

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this post! I totally get what you mean. Lately I've been bombarded by advertisements asking me if I like Asian women. I don't how they came to that conclusion. At all.

The Blogger Girlz said...

Exactly, I've been looking back over my internet history trying to figure out what I've been doing that screams either "overweight" or "30-39." Maybe it's all the rich chocolaty recipes I look at? That's my working theory. -Aaron

1000th.monkey said...

Yup, I get some pretty weird stuff too... but that's probably because of my 'Google history' for story related information.

...oddly enough, travel advertisements for Alaska keep popping up ;) guess that's what happens when you search videos on skinning polar bears and Inuit weapons...

prerna pickett said...

sometimes they get it right because of my browsing history. Which totally freaks me out. i hate that advertisers have that much personal information on me.