Putney’s New Jetport for the Elite

Don’t you just love ‘personalized’ ads? I came across this one today and it made me laugh. It’s for reduced-price private personal planes in [location] and that location is Putney, VT.

Just look at the gorgeous plane parked in [Putney]. It certainly looks like [Putney] to all of us who live around here, right? [Putney] is where we always go in our private cars to catch personal planes at reduced prices! These advertisers sure do know us and [Putney] quite well. Why, I think the woman in the ad is probably heading to Yellow Barn or the Co-op.

Not only is the whole idea funny, and the clip art silly, but why on earth would any ad company think I would be interested in private plane rental? Their data is messed up. I haven’t flown anywhere since before the turn of the century. (The last time I flew, I walked to the gate with cash, bought a ticket, and walked aboard. That long ago.)

It’s kind of interesting to me that there are many, many ad companies and data gathering outfits out there trying to guess who were are and what we want based on collections of clicks and tracking methods. None of them seem to ask open and honestly for accurate data from any of us. None ask us to correct the information they have stored. They prefer to use “sneaky data” that is often only partially correct – such as above where they guessed correctly that I was in the vicinity of southern Vermont but that’s it. They seem to have missed on my age, income, and actual interests.