Dive Brief: 

• In what seems like a counterintuitive move, some brands are testing the waters with targeted ads on anonymous mobile apps like Whisper and Anomo. 
• Booking site Vegas.com has set up native-style ads on incognito platform Anomo, whenever a user uses the hashtag #vegas an ad will appear. 
• MTV, Universal Pictures and Hulu have all run campaigns on Whisper, an app where users can post secrets anonymously, which garners six billion monthly page views. 

Dive Insight: 

While it may seem unusual that advertisers would want to reach users they know nothing about, the fact is that the anonymous apps are gaining popularity. What brands may lose in targeting, they gain in user numbers. Also, the incognito nature of the apps can allow brands to experiment a bit more than they could on highly targeted platforms like Facebook. Although brands might run into measurement problems with the ads because they can't be certain who is actually seeing them.