stupid advertising

[markem]

This ad has bothered me ever since I first saw it. Have to rant and thought it worth a potential chuckle here.

This picture is used as a teaser to get you to click on an ad. The text of the teaser is "Stop overpaying. Calculate your new home insurance rate." It seems that the pic is designed to make you think that you are smart if you have the blue umbrella. You can be the blue umbrella person, if only you do what they tell you.



Now, let's consider how an umbrella works. I think that we can all agree that it works by shunting any falling rain off to the side. So in this case, the rain runs off the blue umbrella and onto the black umbrellas next to it (I assume that the black umbrellas represent the great unwashed masses). Now, look closely. Based on what we know of umbrellas, the water hitting the black umbrellas, including the water shunted from the blue umbrella, will most likely be shunted back under the blue umbrella and onto the "smart" person with the blue umbrella, causing them to get even more wet that if they hadn't an umbrella to begin with.

Now, let's consider that the advertising company knows this but uses it anyway. What does that say about the people who click on the link in the teaser ad? In any event, I think that the people using the black umbrellas tend to be drier than the person using the blue one.