“Hey Slut! Want A Free IUD?” Penn Medicine Pilots New Targeted Ads

In a campaign to get more volunteers for medical research on intrauterine devices (IUDs), Penn Medicine is going in a new marketing direction, specifically asking sluts if they want a free IUD.

“We had a meeting and asked ourselves: what demographic cohort would most likely want a free IUD? The obvious answer was, of course, sluts. So why not target our marketing to sluts?” said Sally Jacobson, the head of the marketing team hired by Penn Medicine. 

Jacobson referenced the increasing prevalence of targeted marketing on social media and the efficacy of that strategy. Their studies have found that sluts are concentrated on certain social media platforms. Jacobson commented that while ten years ago sluts were most highly concentrated on Facebook, the cohort has now migrated to other sites.

“In conducting this research, we’ve seen a lot of success in focusing our ads on Twitter and Instagram, which statistically have the highest proportion of sluts compared to other social media platforms,” noted Jacobson. Specifically, Jacobson cited Instagram’s photo-centric layout and Twitter’s policy allowing nude photos as major draws for sluts, a group that likes to post photos of themselves — sometimes even while nude.

“Depending on the results of this strategy,” she added, “Penn Medicine is open to also marketing to whores.”