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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

Here's a theory: after your conversation with your friends, one of your friends checked out the Campari product on the web, and from there FB deduced that you might also be interested.

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And here's another theory: you were already targeted by the Campari ad before, but you were not consciously aware of it. This triggered the conversation with your friends.

Facebook knew he was interested in Campari, so they put Campari on menu in his local restaurant? That's smart!

That's amusing, but at the same time it could make an excellent business idea - restaurants could tailor their menu based on the preferences of people who're booked to eat there. If you knew that a group of people who all really like sea bass are arriving at 6pm a restaurant could put a high-profit sea bass special on the menu knowing that those people are likely to order it. The customers are happier because they get their preferred dishes and the restaurant is happy because it makes them more money.

Please. no.

They could also change the pricing. Because they know you'll be more interested to try an expensive steak ($3 more than your neighbor pays).

You'll also find that same steak tastes better now.

No, rather Campari started a multi-channel(?) campaign that included Facebook ads as one channel, and (various) 'real-life' channels to prime OP to talk about Campari 'randomly'. Could be anything from hired 'stooges' to tv ads to billboards to a new item on a menu.

Or, one of your friends had previously been targeted for Campari ads; FB knew you were with your friend, and now serves you some ads it knows would be appropriate for your friend.

or facebook knew you were at a restaurant that served it

searches for "Campari" are 1000x normal in this geographic area

> Following day I open my FB feed and something weird happened - there was a Campari ad...

facebook knows where I was yesterday

why not both?

I don't think even facebook can necessarily reveal "the reason" an ad is shown because there are probably several reasons (combined) which lead to each story and ad in your feed.

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