He tried to sell ‘revolutionary’ backpacks in Hong Kong. Facebook’s response left him ‘gobsmacked’
- Facebook ads calling the Wolffepack bag ‘revolutionary’ were twice banned in Hong Kong, then immediately reinstated when the word was removed
- The social media giant blames ‘technical issues’, but the advertisers believe Facebook algorithms flagged the word as politically inflammatory
British inventor David Wolffe thought he had the perfect slogan for his new backpack, which swivelled around the user’s body to allow ease of access.
He called it the “revolutionary” backpack, a wordplay on the unique selling point, and video ads began running on Facebook around the world.
But then he and his social media team tried to advertise the “Wolffepack” in Hong Kong, in Chinese – and the result left him “gobsmacked”.
The ad was instantly banned by Facebook. The problem, said Wolffe and his social media consultant Richard Buckton, was the world “revolutionary” and its political connotations, spuriously detected by Facebook’s algorithms.
“Not in a million years” did Wolffe imagine any inflammatory political implication in the bag’s slogan. “When you’re sweating bullets as an inventor and an investor, you’re focused only on the product … you don’t imagine for a second the politics of the form of words,” he said.
