My friend, David Berkowitz, had series of posts awhile back pontificating about the nature of a Facebook ad that called out “Hey Jew”

The ads were ultimately withdrawn, but David raised some great questions about how Facebook does its ad targeting.

Well, the other day, I had my own “what the heck?!” moment, when I saw this ad:

Now, in contrast to David (who didn’t list his religion), I do list that I am married.

It got me wondering, what was it about my profile that made Facebook think I would be interested in “intimate dating?”

Some thoughts:

1. My wife doesn’t have a Facebook profile, so while I list myself as married, Facebook doesn’t know to whom (so maybe I am dishonest)
2. Maybe they target all married men, thinking all men are scum and cheaters
3. I have a lot of single friends, so maybe I would just do them a favor by clicking on the ad and finding a suitable intimate date for them
4. I joined a Facebook group for Swingers (that’s a joke, I didn’t)

So, taking a page out of David’s playbook, I reached out to the company asking for clarity:

after 3 days…no response at all.

There are probably a lot of lessons (one of them is that sex still sells (or at least catches my eye), but that’s not news).

Another is that outrageous copy such as “Hey Jew” still gets people’s attention.

But, the third, just may be that, when you will be held publicly accountable for your advertising. If you deliver an ad that is questionable, people won’t just react in disgust/anger, etc., they will tell their friends about it.

Here’s the original screenshot: