Odd photo in ad for house refinance

I was reading an article in USA Today about how many US states will soon require people to obtain a doctor's prescription for cold and allergy medicine containing pseudoephedrine when I noticed this ad for a home mortgage refinancing service. The photo is odd. Maybe this was the advertiser's intention, as it caught my attention. I am curious about the origins of the photo. Anyone familiar with its provenance?

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Talia

Oh man, I HATE those dancing figure ads. Make me want to throw my computer out the window.
efergus3

I hope everyone knows that controlling pseudoephedrine in the US is a joke. Nothing more than a way for politicians to get their names in the papers. The number of US meth labs HAS dropped. The number of meth users has NOT. Instead, what was a minor industry in Mexico is now a major one. And even more dollars are flowing to the drug lords. Oh, thank you great and wonderful people’s servants. For nothing.
- Ambiguity
  
  Off topic to the original post, but “…a doctor’s prescription for cold and allergy medicine containing pseudoephedrine” is a good thing! We need to stamp out the Maker/DIY ethic whenever we can (it’s always better to buy than build), and importing all of our meth from Mexico keeps the poor drug lords off food-stamps, and has the added benefit of destabilizing Mexico, so the US doesn’t have to worry about invasion from the South!
  
  Shine on your crazy drug warriors! We salute you!
Anonymous

It’s so anomalous that it gets your attention. I can’t think of any other connection between that photo and refinancing one’s house.
efergus3

http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking09/Mexico_Meth_Sales.html
someguyyouvenevermet

Speaking of strange ads what is with the disgusting Mc Donalds ads smeared all over boingboing? Not just at the top and the side but even between the posts.
- Witteveen
  
  I second that. Disgusting and disturbing: BB, do you really HAVE to do this?
  - ommzms
    
    Perhaps it’s the roseate glow generated upon the site by the pink slime imbued throughout the advertised product.
Anonymous

It’s hideously poor marketing. I’m compelled to run away from that image as promptly as possible, not to follow it.
oscar

Comment #2 has it. I found the same thing when I ran it through Tineye. It’s a brilliant (and likely unintentional) uncanny valley effect – the picture is so weird we can’t help but be drawn to it. However, those ads seem so scammy and suspect I would never click on one.
opitrone

The Outlaw Vern, best movie reviews on the internet, recently noticed this too.

http://outlawvern.com/2010/01/02/the-mystery-of-bearded-harold/
JonStewartMill

You get ads on your web pages? For pity’s sake, why?
Anonymous

Adds are getting sufficiently attention getting that I think I’m going to have to block them, despite the fact that I’ve always though of it as sort of cheating. My mental ad blocker always prevents me from reading any text, regardless of how distracting the add is, but action and strange pictures do siphon off a bit of my attention. The ad shown is a bit that way. The drop-ad on this site was a better example. I have no idea what is was for, but it made the text jump around.
sardonicbastard

I also used TinEye to find where that came from a while back. Of course that image is NOTHING compared to this banner ad that I received a while back:

http://share.3wheel.net/images/misc/weird_banner_screenshot.png
ill lich

I’ve been seeing this a lot– there are a couple of pics of bearded guys with the monobrow on ads for refinancing– don’t know what to make of them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60259311@N00/4322542913/in/photostream/
kmoser

Remember, when you say you “hate” those ads or they “drive you crazy”, that’s music to a marketer’s ears. What really irks them is when you say you’re “indifferent” to an ad.
Anonymous

this is from the same ad series all using “hairy guys”. Probably the result of some direct marketing cross-testing. The same method Google is so proud of using in their user experience testing.
defacebook

I don’t know… looks like a bass player in a math rock band.
Drew

I’ve closed browser windows to avoid looking at that guy.

Just like I almost closed this page when that obtrusive McDonald’s ad expanded and shrunk itself, shifting around all the rest of the page in the process.
Anonymous

Definitely an element of anti-Obama psych-ops in this campaign. Obama’s name featured prominently next to bizarre, scary portraits? I suppose all is fair now that the “Supreme” Court has decided to allow unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns, but it does remind me Joseph Goebbels propaganda campaign against Jews in the 1920′s and 1930′s.
AirPillo

The FDA has a lot of gall continuing to try and limit the availability of pseudoephedrine while at the same time being fully aware that the active ingredient in the “reformulated” alternatives is essentially inert when ingested orally.

Reformulated decongestants that you aren’t harassed for purchasing are effectively a placebo.
neward

Thanks for posting about this, Mark; that guy has been stuck in my head like a catchy song I can’t forget.

I searched to see if anyone blogged about this interesting looking fellow with the large horn-rimmed glasses, beard, and serious underbite a week ago and couldn’t find anything. The photo is both hilarious looking and effective at getting your attention.
Anonymous

THANK YOU! That photo has been particularly vexing to me. Those stupid photos and silhouettes are so obnoxious…but apparently effective.
Zuhaib

I have seen a lot of ads like that, mostly on facebook but other places too. I guess they use an image pool now for ads just to keep them “fresh” also just to catch your eye.

Also on the topic of ads, when did Boing Boing add those “drop down” ads that take over you viewing page. When I first came to this story I had a McD ad grow like triple size and forced my browser to the top of the page.
- jungletek
  
  Who cares when they added them? Just block them. As has been suggested before, there are plenty of plugins to do so for several browsers.
  I prefer Opera, which happens to have its’ own built-in blocker. I don’t see ads I don’t want to. If it bothers you, do something about it.
  
  On topic: That picture has been bugging me for weeks.
  - Zuhaib
    
    At risk of getting OT, but that has never stopped anyone int he past, I actually feel bad about using ad blockers.
    
    I was a long time Ad Blocker Add on user in FF but then I thought about how I have google adsense on my blog (tho I rarely get any money) and I understand that I get many sites free because of ads. So I dont mind getting them, but, some just go over the top. Maybe I just need to block those.
Anonymous

It reminds me of these: http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2010/01/upside_downy_fa.php
merreborn

Weird imagery for the sake of getting your attention is pretty much par for the course, when it comes to online mortgage advertising.

There’s even a blog about it.

http://lowermybillswatch.blogspot.com/
Anonymous

I’ve often wondered about such pictures–and the little flash animations of women/aliens dancing; the ponytailed women jogging, etc. Someone is spending a lot of money to cover the web with these–are they the result of painstaking research on what draws eyeballs, or is it a guy in a cubicle saying, “That looks odd”, and going with it?

Anyone know?
gobo

It’s a Vetta stock photo from iStockphoto.com. Looks like they bought exclusive rights to it, but here’s another of the same guy with even worse fake teeth:

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-8130861-ugly-guy.php
Marketecture

Haha, I’ve seen this ad and picture on many websites. I agree that it’s an odd photo, but my eye is drawn to it every time.
Anonymous

I work for LowerMyBills, and it’s just your basic direct marketing. In this case, the tired old internet meme is pretty accurate:
1. Grab attention with a crazy picture or animation
2. Deliver a short, impactful call-to-action while you have their attention.
3. Profit!
wetzel

I’ve been noticing a several similar ones with scurvy looking fellows and they always mention how you can benefit from some plan of Obama’s. Because it obviously isn’t positive modeling, I have been suspecting it was some kind of campaign of propaganda using conventional advertising whose real intent is to drive up Obama’s negatives, below the conscious and legal radar as it were. Or maybe it’s just about getting attention.
Gutierrez

I wonder if the stock photo world is as fast paced and competitive as the B-roll world.
mellowknees

To me it looks like a photochopped conglomeration of many faces. I also noticed this weird picture a few months ago and saved it. Looking at it up close, none of the facial features match at all. I think that there are different pieces of different people making up the head, eyes/glasses, nose, and mouth. And they’ve all been tweaked slightly to be weird and out of proportion. It’s probably a psychological trick to get you to look at the ad (i.e. if it looks weird, humans will stare at it).
Anonymous

It’s funny, I am super familiar with that photo from Facebook or something, but never even looked at the content, because I automatically think that if it is an ad on FB I am not interested.
Anonymous

I’m very upset about the pseudoephedrine’s restriction. Here in Mexico they banned it from medicine, because it was being used to make drugs. So we just cross the border and bought better cold remedies in the US, and now we can’t even do that, so we have to be sick 3 more days with less effective medicine.
IronEdithKidd

I find it odd that Mark has a subscription to a paywalled publication.

Can we get a synopsis on how certain state governments are going to further criminalize contracting the common cold?
fxq

Believe me, all people today look like that when they have to refinance their home.
JacobDavis

I’ve seen that same exact text on ads all over the place with different pictures. Something makes me think they’re automatically generated with rotating stock photos. Weird as it might be, it’s far less intrusive and annoying than the ads in which the silhouettes are dancing around.
hallpass

It’s simply part of the advertising strategy. Get you to look at the photo, read the message, try to reconcile one with the other and perhaps click for more information.

They’ve been using the same strategy for online mortgage refis for at least five years. At the beginning, it was all animated .GIFs of a dancing silouhette.

Later, they started using lofi video of Youtube-style funnies.

These ads have all the credibility of a “Free Candy” van.
pentomino

Bonus points if your ugly dude ad says “Obama urges moms to ___”.