A Great Entrepreneur & Targeted Advertising Hell: A Spanx Story
I am obsessed with understanding Entrepreneurs’ stories. From the household names such as Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX to the lesser-known Gordon Segal of Crate & Barrel, I eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff. Books, magazines, podcasts, product launches — you name it, I’ve found Entrepreneurs’ stories there. But this hunger for inspiration has gotten me into trouble.
As a student of entrepreneurship, I know that it is important to consider all industries and all products. This includes products I will never use, let alone have any interest in. Women’s underwear is one such product. But being committed to my craft, as I certainly am, I ventured forth head held high into a realm of lace and spandex to learn the great rags-to-riches tale of Miss Sara Blakely.
It’s an amazing story, really. She wanted to be lawyer, but essentially failed the LSAT. As a pick-me-up, she went to audition to be a character at Disney World and got denied her choice. So finally she turned to selling fax machines door-to-door. After saving $5,000 — her whole life savings at that point — she started Spanx in 2000. After countless rejections, one North Carolina manufacturer took her on. His reason? He had two daughters of his own. Well, 12 years and a lot of hard work later, she became the youngest self-made female billionaire.
For the uninitiated (men) Spanx are “shaping briefs and leggings” for women. To translate that for those unfamiliar with these terms (men), Spanx get rid of underwear lines and make stomachs and butts look better.
So why am I telling you all this?
1) It’s an amazing story, and you should learn about it. Great starter link:
2) I am very much not the target market for women’s shaping briefs.
3) After poking around http://www.spanx.com/ a little too much, I was the victim of targeted advertising for 6 months.
A brief note on how targeted advertising works
The wonderful invention that is targeted advertising works by leveraging cookies.
No, not those: these cookies. Basically, third-party cookies track where a website’s users go to, what actions they take, and what products they view. This information is then used to direct advertising algorithms on what ads to serve each user — known as targeted advertising. In theory this is supposed to be more relevant to each individual user than a one-size-fits-all ad like in TV advertising. However, in practice some shortcomings include:
1) Not knowing that a product has been purchased and continuing to send ads
2) Not knowing when a product matches nothing about a user’s demographic
So here I was, a budding 21-year-old fresh from the grip of legally forced sobriety, and I was now confronted with the emasculation of my Internet experience by women’s underwear ads. I know what you are thinking: most men would be just fine having mostly-naked women plastered across their screens. But first, you don’t know me. And second, these were not those women — Spanx are known for coverage.
So suffice to say, theses weren’t exactly the images most men have in mind when they think of women’s underwear. There’s a whole discussion to be had about men being pigs, but I’ll save that one for later.
So for six months I put up with these ads. They were fairly easy to brush off if they cropped up while I was doing homework. It’s amazing what someone can get used to as being ‘normal’! This sense of complacency caused me to forget to clear out my cache of cookies, which would’ve ended the slight annoyance. But alas, this oversight led to slightly more awkward events when other people were present.
You have not suffered the full brunt of targeted advertising until you have an ad for Spanx pop up when the woman you’re crushing sees them as you’re trying to find directions to that ‘great Thai place you were telling her about.’ And saving face in that situation by explaining the story about why you love the founder of the company is not as believable as you might think…
So the moral of the story here is to follow your passions through every venue available to you. BUT don’t forget to clear out your cookies if you have a date coming up. Because I can assure you, there is no good explanation for single men knowing what shaping briefs are.
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