A few days ago I was browsing Reddit, as I usually do in my spare time, and I ran across a hilarious article. A guy decided to start a Facebook advertising campaign, but with a little twist, his target audience consisted of one person; his roommate.

When I read his blog spot, I found it very funny, but it was also genius. He used the functions available in Facebook to be able to target only his friend, but the actual ads he created also took a lot of thought. He didn’t want his friend to know that he was making these, so he made ads that made it seem like the roommate “wouldn’t feel targeted-even though he was being targeted.” He used information about his roommate that was easily found on his social media, as well as minor details that only he knew from being his roommate. In one example, he made an advertisement that mentioned his roommates ability to swallow swords, but not being able to swallow pills.

Although this was merely a prank, it shows how effective advertising can be if you know a lot about your target audience. I personally rarely notice ads, but you can bet that if they were this specific, I would notice them. I love this post because of its simplicity, and the use of humor to illustrate how powerful advertising can be, as well as the tools available to follow through with a plan like this.

If you would like to check out the full post, and how the whole plan was executed, head over to his blog post.