Bait and Switch

Southwest Airlines' March Facebook campaign is currently promoting $59 one-way flights. Except, I can't fly out from a major metro area to another major metro area for that price. And while $93/flight is a good price, it's not even close to the sweet FB deal. This is a good way to tick off customers who aren't loyal to the brand. What's worse is that the landing page that houses this offer has the cities in alphabetical order; a logical way to default sort it, but the flight prices are so not on "sale" for most one-way flights. I feel like I've been misled, again, by a deceptive sponsored ad.

The sponsored ad starts pretty well with all the right components in it that communicate brand, offer, and a call-to-action.

Sponsored Ad screenshot, 2013-03-08

And then, after the hook (click-through), the experience quickly nosedives into the ground.

Landing page mirrors the FB-pushed ad. Good right? Keep scrolling down...

You think you are going to get a good deal, until you can't actually find a deal for your metro area. Seattle, for example:

If Southwest had used regional ad targeting on FB,
I would not have been pitched this offer.
Maybe? One could only hope social media ad tech advances to this level.