#tumblradsdecoded

[thatgamefromthatad]

Tumblr Ads Decoded

I had a good Christmas but now that the festivities have died down I felt like effing around and going down some more ad-related rabbit holes. I usually focus on mobile game ads but while I’m working on my mobile game review backlog I have some explanations of other bizarre Tumblr ads I’ve come across in my travels. Enjoy:

Note: These are all ads I saw in screenshots from other users so I haven’t clicked on any of these ads myself and can only go from what’s included in the screenshots. I can’t guarantee where these ads actually lead if you click on them. 

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This ad apparently comes from SoGoodly, a website that compiles various viral stories, clickbait and listicles including “life hacks.” There doesn’t actually seem to be any tips specifically about putting vinegar-soaked bread in the garbage on their website. 

However, the image from the ad comes from a video by Household Hacker on YouTube called “10 Awesome Vinegar Life Hacks you should know,” which explains that leaving vinegar-soaked bread in your garbage can overnight can eliminate lingering odors (don’t know if that’s true or not but that’s what Household Hacker said in their video, which was posted in 2013, and has nearly 24 million views). 

Apparently another site called Gloriousa, similar to SoGoodly in its clickbaity-ness, has also been promoting a similar ad that advises leaving a vinegar-soaked piece of bread in the garage, which links to a 92-page list of “life hacks” that doesn’t even include this particular tip, according to Snopes.

Conclusion: This is clickbait, likely with the goal of generating ad revenue.

What does it mean?: Leaving vinegar-soaked bread in your garbage can overnight can allegedly eliminate lingering odors.

Another one from SoGoodly. Photo comes from a Good Housekeeping article from 2014 titled “16 Smart Ways to Use Rubber Bands” and says putting a rubber band around the doorknob makes it easier to open doors in specific situations such as when unloading groceries or trying to open doors at night without waking up anyone in your household. Not sure if this tip actually appears on SoGoodly’s website because it doesn’t feel worth it to click through several ad-filled pages just to find out, but a few long listicles came up when I searched “rubber band.” 

Conclusion: This is clickbait, likely with the goal of generating ad revenue. 

What does it mean?: Putting a rubber band around a doorknob like this apparently makes it easier to open the door hands-free and quietly. 

SoGoodly strikes again. The source of this photograph is the July 2012 issue of the TOILETPAPER art photography magazine - you can actually buy a reproduction of this bitten soap from them too (WARNING: bright colors and flashing/moving images on their website) link to magazine issue/link to soap merch

Again, not going to struggle through thousands of pages of ads to find this so-called “life hack” on SoGoodly but according to another health-themed listicle/”life hack” website called The Healthy, sleeping with soap can provide magnesium which relieves leg cramping/restless legs at night. Apparently Dr. Oz also said sleeping with lavender soap can help you relax at night, according to The Healthy. Don’t know if any of that is true but that’s what the “life hack” claim is. 

Conclusion: This is clickbait, likely with the goal of generating ad revenue. 

What does it mean?: Sleeping with a bar of soap in bed can allegedly relieve nocturnal leg cramps and help you feel more relaxed, presumably through some sort of aromatherapy effect. 

This ad apparently comes from Game of Glam, another very clickbaity website mostly focused on celebrity news, which hasn’t been updated since September. Couldn’t find this article on their site but there’s an article called “Celebrities Who Died and You Didn’t Even Notice” on a website called BeliefNet, which appears to have religious themes and mostly posts listicles. However, there aren’t 22 celebrities on that list and the man in the photo is not one of the celebrities mentioned. Also, the man in the photo isn’t dead.

The man shown here is actor Shemar Moore (left), best known for playing Derek Morgan on “Criminal Minds” and Malcolm Winters on “The Young and the Restless” from 1994 to 2005 (before Darius McCrary took over the role). He is still alive.

I had never seen either show so I did a reverse image search and initially thought the man was Kristoff St. John, who played Moore’s on-screen brother Neil Winters, due to the fact that this photo was on a Pinterest board titled “Young & Restless - Winters Family” and St. John did in fact die in 2019. However, I later realized that it is actually the woman in the photo, actress Michelle Thomas, who sadly died from a rare form of cancer in 1998 at age 30. Michelle Thomas played Callie Rogers, Malcolm Winters’ ex-fiancée, until her death, when the role was recast with Siena Goines. Thomas is better known for her roles as Justine Phillips on “The Cosby Show” and Myra Monkhouse on “Family Matters.”

Conclusion: This is clickbait, likely with the goal of generating ad revenue. 

What does it mean?: The man in the photo is actor Shemar Moore, who is still alive, but the woman in the photo, actress Michelle Thomas, died in 1998. The use of he/him pronouns in the ad is deceptive.

I’m sorry but I searched and searched and searched for meaning in this one and came up with nothing, absolutely zilch, no clues, no leads except one person who said the link led to the Chinese search engine Baidu. I was able to find the source of the image - it’s a Backyard Discovery Timber Cove Swing Set, which you can buy for $1,798 at Sam’s Club. I also found an uncropped version of the photo, but that’s all. This one is truly a mystery. 

Conclusion: Some mysteries are better left unsolved. 

What does it mean?: Only God Himself will ever know. 

Please let me know if you read and enjoyed this and if there are any other Tumblr ads or general internet mysteries I should look into. :) Thank you!

[thatgamefromthatad]

Seen this ad? (Tumblr Ads Decoded - “This Simple Morning Ritual Changed My Life”)

(You can skip to the bottom to just read the conclusion if you’re not interested in the investigation part!)

Disclaimer: This is an ad I saw in screenshots from other users so I haven’t clicked on this ad myself and can only go from what’s included in the screenshots. I can’t guarantee where this ad actually leads to if you click on it.

The first thing I did to investigate this ad was check the link, mybeautifulbestself.com, which is not a registered domain. The next thing I did was search for the exact text of the ad, first the main headline part and then the description part underneath.

The headline part linked to a Medium article that started out in a similar way with “From 154 kilograms to 59. I’m sixty-three ... Three years ago, I could never have imagined hiking.” This ultimately led to a link for a “metabolism boosting” supplement called CarboFix. (I don’t endorse any products mentioned in this post btw in fact I tend to assume weight loss stuff like this is a scam.)

By searching the “I’m down from 248 to 135, and life at 61 has honestly never been better” part, I found a Facebook page called Healthy Choice Daily, which is running several ads with different random pictures and the same exact description as the Tumblr ad. The ads link to a page on the Healthy Choice Daily website, which then links to a video on the website for Meticore, another “metabolism boosting” supplement.

I tried to sit through the video for as long as I could and I toughed it out for maybe 20-25 minutes before I decided I wasn’t going to get much more from it other than the fact that this is all an ad for Meticore, which was apparently created after some guy from North Carolina got a heart attack from being too obese and some mysterious doctor from Madagascar decided he was going to give this one patient the magical secret to weight loss known only to the Malagasy people which is made from plants that only grow in Madagascar or something like that (yes that’s what the video was actually about there was even a line like “you are the first Westerner to know this secret” lmao.)

So my best guess would be that the Tumblr ad links to Meticore but that doesn’t explain the vinegar bread foot part. I did a reverse image search and the earliest result was from spam site Boredom Therapy but I couldn’t confirm that was the original source. Then I noticed the little logo in the bottom right corner of the full image, cropped it down to just the logo and found out it was the old logo for LittleThings, another spammy “lifestyle” site. I found the bread foot image on the LittleThings website from an article titled “Wrap Your Feet In Bread and Saran Wrap To Naturally Remove Yucky Corns and Calluses” that was published in 2016, and the photo was credited to “Celine Haeberly for LittleThings.” Haeberly seems to be a stock image/freelance photographer so it’s not a stretch to say this is probably is in fact the original source of the photo (and definitely the source of the Tumblr ad version since you can see the top of the LittleThings logo still visible in the screenshot).

According to the LittleThings article, placing half a slice of stale bread soaked in apple cider vinegar onto your foot can help get rid of large calluses that go across the heel or ball of your foot. The article recommends using plastic wrap to wrap the bread onto your foot, cover with a sock and leave it on overnight to soften the callus. I have no idea if this actually works but according to HealthLine the acid content in apple cider vinegar does supposedly soften calluses. Take that for what you will.

Conclusion: From the other examples of ads with this same exact text that I found on Facebook, my best estimate is that this ad links to the site for Meticore, which is a weight loss supplement. The “Simple Morning Ritual” is just taking the supplement each morning. The image comes from a completely unrelated article about using bread soaked in apple cider vinegar and wrapped onto your foot with plastic wrap to soften big calluses.

What does it mean? Assuming this is ad is for Meticore, it means Meticore is using completely unrelated eye-catching images to get people to click and view its weird sales pitch video about the secret solution for weight loss that your doctors have been hiding from you or whatever. Or it could just be another ad for a “life hack” site like the ones I’ve covered before, and is just using the Meticore ad text for some reason (maybe even a combination where Meticore’s press releases are published on a life hack site).

You can find all my other non-mobile-game-related Tumblr ad investigations here! Thanks for reading! 🥳

[thatgamefromthatad]

Tumblr Ads Decoded - “Sweaty in Bed”

This is an ad for Sheex, a company that sells sheets and other bedding designed to be breathable and keep you cool and dry.

Disclaimer: I never personally saw this ad in the wild so I can only go off of screenshots and comments from other people who have seen this ad. I can’t independently verify what happens if you click this ad.

I started my research on this ad by trying a reverse image search on a screenshot of both the full ad and a cropped version without the text. Neither search yielded any results other than screenshots from people who were served the ad, and I never found the stock image or other photo shoot images corresponding with this ad (not even the same bedroom setting or models).

Next I simply searched “‘sweaty in bed’ ad” and the first result that came up was a commercial for Sheex. (Note: I don’t recommend searching “sweaty in bed” in Google as the second result that comes up is porn.)

This wasn’t enough evidence to say that this ad with the same phrase was definitely for Sheex because the commercial didn’t contain any of the same exact imagery. So I searched “sheex” on Tumblr and found three users who had actually clicked the ad saying it was for Sheex.

Given all that information I think it’s safe to say that the “Sweaty in Bed” ad is an ad for Sheex.

The Bottom Line: The “Sweaty in Bed” ad is an ad for Sheex, a brand of bedding that is designed to be breathable, cooling and moisture-wicking, thus providing a solution for being “sweaty in bed for all the wrong reasons,” as stated in the TV commercial.

What does it mean? I’m not exactly sure, it kind of seems like this wasn’t meant to be the full ad but it was prematurely launched somehow. I was thinking maybe it was intentional, enticing people to click with a bit of mystery, but I personally think a premature launch is the more likely option (given other ads I’ve seen people post about that just say “test” or other nonsense). I doubt the ad was intentionally made absurd to encourage people to intentionally screenshot it and spread it around given that the brand name is not included in the ad image.

I’m thinking I’ll keep posting these “Tumblr Ads Decoded” bits here on this blog unless I start feeling like they should be on their own separate blog. I’ll also probably start implementing a tagging system so people can easily find this specific content on my blog (I’ll probably just use #tumblradsdecoded).

In the meantime, you can read my previous deep dive into the “Wise Civilian & Wise Cop” ad and my previous “Tumblr Ads Decoded” post that covers a handful of other common strange ads on this site.)

Thanks for reading!!! 🥳