Police pull recruitment ad from Tinder

Police have pulled a Tinder advertising campaign which has been blamed on a ‘‘booking error’’.

Tinder is a dating app used by an estimated 8 per cent of New Zealanders.

Ads, often accompanied by videos and music, pop up intermittently between potential dating matches and provide an option to ‘‘learn more’’ or ‘‘read more’’ about what is being advertised.

This week, Stuff learned New Zealand Police was running a New Cops recruitment ad on Tinder.

The ad, titled NZ Police Recruitment, featured the latest police recruitment video and a line that read: ‘‘Have you got questions about being a cop and whether it’s right for you?’’

A ‘‘learn more’’ button took users through to the newcops.co.nz website.

But when first approached for comment, police were unaware the ad was being run on the dating app.

Police acting deputy chief executive of public affairs Jane Archibald said it was due to a booking error by their advertising agency, Ogilvy.

‘‘Earlier this year, the agency started using an automatic placement optimisation technique, on advice that this would provide the strongest results by ensuring our recruitment advertisements appeared on a range of sites, not just Facebook,’’ she said. ‘‘NZ Police were not informed of this change, nor that there was any potential for our recruitment ad to end up on Tinder.’’

She said the error had immediately been raised with the advertising agency and the Tinder advertisements would be removed.