Salacious ads are proliferating online. Here are the backstories on some of those teaser photos.

Lately I’ve noticed an increase in suggestive sexual advertising on this website (Tech-media-tainment) and others such as tech news site 9to5Mac.
The ads feature provocative photos of attractive women with teaser descriptions in classic clickbait fashion. Using my online detective skills (namely reverse image search tools), I’ve uncovered the backstories on some of those pictures.

Actress in super short skirt

One ad is titled “Make Sure You Are Alone Before You See These (sic) Actress Without Any Pants.”
The photo with the ad appears to be an altered image of actress and singer-songwriter Aly Michalka on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on April 25, 2011.
The image in the ad shows her with a shorter skirt than in photos from the show. (Getty Images from the show: here and here.)

Video gamer Danielle Mackey

Another ad shows video game vlogger Danielle Mackey and is wrongly titled “Teachers in bikini leaves nothing to imagination.” The poor grammar is a sign of foreign involvement in the ad.

Hot teachers are hot subject

These ads seem to have a fixation on sexy teachers wearing inappropriate outfits.
For instance, one titled “Teacher flaunts shocking curves in transparent outfit photos.” That ad used photos of different women with the same headline. The pictures showed sexy models and apparently porn actresses.
I could find one image for sale on eBay as “Sexy Girl Big Busty Female Teacher,” but the model is not identified.

Sexy country girls another fetish

Based on the advertisements, sexy country girls are another fetish. One ad titled “Country girls leave nothing to imagination” used a photo of English broadcaster and journalist Kate Garraway.

Nip slips always an attention grabber

Another ad titled “These marriage photos are a feast for your eyeballs” used a photo of a woman wearing a wedding gown with her breast exposed.

MILFs as clickbait

A popular subject for these clickbait advertisements is mature women with large breasts, aka MILFs. Several ads use photos of model named Deauxma, pronounced “Doe-may.”

Drug companies have the weirdest product mascots

A few years ago, I did an article on disgusting product mascots from TV commercials. Most were from pharmaceutical companies that wanted to grab people’s attention. They included mascots like Gut Guy, Digger and Mr. Mucus.
After seeing a new mascot for dry-eye treatment Xiidra, I decided it was time for an update. Drug company Novartis debuted the unnamed inflammatory creature in July for Xiidra. In ads, the creature causes people’s achy, burning, itchy eyes. (See article by Fierce Pharma.)

Another weird mascot is named Irritabelle. She is the “irritable (bowel) sidekick” in ads for Viberzi, a drug for the treatment of IBS-D (Irritable Bowel Syndrome With Diarrhea). The drug is from Allergan, a unit of AbbVie. (See article by Pharma Marketing Blog.)

Finally, there’s the Cologuard box mascot for the Cologuard at-home screening test for colon cancer. In ads, he follows people around and tries to convince them to take a poo test. Cologuard is from Exact Sciences.

Related article:

The 6 most disgusting product mascots from TV commercials (Oct. 17, 2015)

Meet Iuliia Ciari, the stunning redhead behind a host of online ads

You’ve probably seen her face in your travels online. She’s hard to miss with her fiery red hair, piercing blue-gray eyes, fun freckles and warm smile.
Her name is Iuliia Ciari. She is a Russian-speaking model who has worked a fair bit with photographer Maksim “Max” Petrov, who has an eye for pretty women.
I first wrote about Ciari in 2017 when I noted that her face was being used to sell everything from online dating services to mystery novels. At the time, I emailed Petrov for information on the unknown woman he only identified as “Julia,” but he didn’t respond.
I didn’t pursue it further and let readers of Tech-media-tainment solve the mystery.
Last month, a reader was able to identify the model as Iuliia Ciari. She also has gone by Iuliia Kurdina (a maiden name perhaps?). The reader found her by examining Petrov’s social media connections.
Her picture is still be used in online advertisements and clickbait articles. They include recent ads for online dating, cosmetics and beauty treatments.
She is on Instagram and has an inactive Facebook account.

Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic likely a business killer

The Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has been deadly for thousands of people, but it also likely will kill many businesses.
Government orders have closed movie theaters, bars, restaurants, sports and entertainment venues as well as retail stores deemed non-essential. Millions of workers have lost their jobs as a result.
VIP Cinema Holdings, which makes reclining seats for movie theaters, is shutting down for good after economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic made a proposed restructuring impossible, the Wall Street Journal reported March 30.
Media companies that rely on advertising have been hammered as companies pull back on ad spending.
BuzzFeed News described the Covid-19 pandemic as “a media extinction event.” The report said the decline in advertising revenue will see a spate of newspaper closures.
And many technology startups have seen business and funding dry up amid the crisis, which has rocked Wall Street and likely has pushed the U.S. into recession. Like the dot-com crash of 2000, only the strong will survive. Large tech firms will pick up intellectual property and engineering talent on the cheap during the downturn ahead.
Last week, satellite internet startup OneWeb filed for bankruptcy protection and cut most of its staff, after failing to secure new funding from investors including its biggest backer SoftBank. OneWeb, which previously had raised $3.4 billion, said it would seek a sale after filing for Chapter 11 relief, the Financial Times reported.
North, a maker of augmented-reality glasses that counts Intel and Amazon.com as investors, is looking for a buyer as it runs low on cash, Bloomberg reported. Rival AR headset maker Magic Leap also is looking for a buyer, it said.
E-scooter rental startup Bird last week laid off about 30% of its employees amid uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, TechCrunch reported. Rival Lime also is struggling, it said.
Driverless truck startup Starsky Robotics this month announced that it is shutting down and selling off its assets.
Among technology services I use, I worry that photo-hosting site Flickr might go under.
In December, the chief executive of Flickr owner SmugMug sent an email to users warning that the business was losing money and needed a boost in paying subscribers, the Verge reported.
“Flickr — the world’s most-beloved, money-losing business — still needs your help,” CEO Don MacAskill said. “We cannot continue to operate it at a loss as we’ve been doing.”
Things are probably even worse for Flickr today.

Photo: Covid-19 coronavirus. (AJC1 via Creative Commons)

Who is this stunning redhead? Model, author, dental hygienist?

One of my hobbies is tracking down the origins of photos used with clickbait articles and online advertisements.
A few weeks ago, I saw a photo of an attractive woman with red hair, blue eyes and lots of freckles and tried to figure out who she was.
Long story short: I was not successful.
I’m now hoping that I can solve the mystery by posting this article and seeking feedback. (Feel free to reply in the moderated comments section below or by emailing me.)
The first time I saw this redhead’s photo was with a sponsored link by Taboola titled “5 online dating sites that actually work.”
Doing image searches I was able to find the photo and others from possibly three photo shoots. Those photos were at one time available on stock image services like Shutterstock and Fotolia.
Her photos have really gotten around online. She has been used to promote dental hygiene, dermatology, cosmetics and online dating.
Her photo is even used on the author page for a mystery writer named M.C. Grant on Amazon.com. Grant has written three books about the “action-packed adventures of Dixie Flynn, a wise-cracking reporter for San Francisco’s top alternative weekly.”
But unlike hardnosed reporter Dixie Flynn I was unable to crack the case of the stunning redhead.
A photographer named Alexis Zimmermann, based in Strasbourg, France, included one of the redhead’s photos on his website. But he told me via email that he did not take that photo, but obtained it through a stock photo service.
Another artist, Raidenphotos on DeviantArt, did some touchup work on the picture, but is not the originator of the photo.
Max Petrov, a photographer in Samara, Russia, included three photos of the woman on his website. He identifies her as Julia, but provides no details.
I reached out to Petrov, but he has yet to respond.
Can anyone solve this mystery?

April 25, 2020, update: The model's name is Iuliia Ciari. See comments below.

Follow-up article: Meet Iuliia Ciari, the stunning redhead behind a host of online ads

Pregnant Disney princesses

New Zealand-based Hotmilk Lingerie created a photo series showing pregnant fairytale princesses to advertise its maternity lingerie.
The ad campaign by Sarah Cooper Studio featured photos by Tony Drayton. The series included depictions of at least five pregnant fairytale ladies. They included Cinderella, Rapunzel, Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.
While many people know these characters best from movies by Walt Disney, they are in the public domain and free to use by anyone for any purpose. (See article by Lucire.)

Yahoo: A supporter of lying clickbait articles

Until now, my articles on lying clickbait have focused on the content promotion services that use the technique, such as Taboola and Revcontent.
Today, I’m going to focus on a sponsor of lying clickbait: Yahoo.
Yahoo is pretty desperate to increase its advertising revenue, so it has turned to unscrupulous content marketing services to goose its numbers.
Yahoo Finance has cluttered up its news feed with cheap ads for herbal medicines, get rich quick schemes, and “proven” ways to attract women. It also added sponsored content using lying clickbait photos.
One promoted article titled “Rebel Wilson Looks Amazing After Losing Weight” used a Photoshopped picture of the actress made to look thin.
The doctored photo is part of a series of photos done by groups on Facebook and Reddit that digitally slim down plus-sized celebrities. The Facebook group is called Project Harpoon and the Reddit subpage is called Thinner Beauty. (See article by the Daily Mail.)

Another promoted article titled “Images of the Titanic Taken by Passenger’s Camera” used a photo from the 1943 German propaganda film “Titanic.”
The sponsored post claims, “Rare Photos from Inside the Titanic Revealed to the World for the First Time.”
Hardly. (See articles on the 1943 film on Wikipedia and IMDb.)

Yahoo also has used some lying clickbait seen elsewhere, such as Erik Estrada and Bruno Mars in a post titled “Celebrity Kids Who Could Impersonate Their Parents.”

And just for illustration purposes, here are some sponsored ads Yahoo has been running in its news feeds.

Ad avoidance trend threatens news media, TV industries

When advertising becomes intrusive, consumers will find ways to avoid it.
The more ads are packed into a television broadcast, the more people will opt to skip them with DVRs and by subscribing to commercial-free services like Netflix.
The cramming of ads and Web trackers on news and information websites has led to the rise of ad-blocking technology.
Consumers today are pushing back against advertising because ads have gone from benign to annoying. And the TV and online news industries are worried.
The television industry has responded with more product placements in shows (Pepsi on “Empire”) and live events where viewers are more likely to watch live and sit through the commercials (“The Wiz Live” on NBC).
Advertiser-supported websites are responding to the rise in ad-blocking software with more native advertising (ads disguised as articles) and blocking access to their sites when people are using ad blockers.
I can understand the appeal of ad-blocking software. I’ve tried out Ghostery on my Firefox and Chrome browsers and was shocked by how many applications websites run in the background. These programs slow down page load times and track your activities online.
Most news websites run about 30 to 50 web trackers. The worst offender I’ve seen so far is Dictionary.com, which used 101 tracking apps. (See screenshot below.)
Ghostery is not a perfect solution to ad blocking because it often blocks web functionality that I want to use, such as social media share buttons.
News websites and other ad-supported web services are understandably concerned.
Advertising pays for their web services and keeps them free for consumers. So consumers using ad-blocking software are breaking an implied contract to allow ads in return for free services like online news and email.
Publishers need to respond to the ad-blocking threat by making advertising less intrusive. They need to eliminate the pain points associated with pervasive advertising and web tracking that drove people to block ads in the first place.

Related reading:

The ethics of modern web ad-blocking (Marco.org; Aug. 11, 2015)

Ad Blocking’s Unintended Consequences (Harvard Business Review; Aug. 12, 2015)

It’s the End of the Line for the Ad-Supported Web (Dylan Tweney; Sept. 18, 2015)

Ad Blockers and the Nuisance at the Heart of the Modern Web (New York Times: Aug. 19, 2015)

The Ad Industry Is Finally Promising To Make Online Ads Less Terrible (The Huffington Post; Oct. 16, 2015)

Ad-block surge challenges digital publishers (Reflections of a Newsosaur; Nov. 12, 2015)

Photos: Joy of Tech comic on ad blockers; screenshot of Dictionary.com and Ghostery app.

The 6 most disgusting product mascots from TV commercials

Television advertisers will do practically anything to grab the attention of viewers these days. That includes nauseating them with gross product mascots in TV ads.
Pharmaceutical companies are the worst offenders. The latest example is the Xifaxan mascot, an anthropomorphized bundle of pink intestines.
The character is named Gut Guy. I learned that from a legal notice on the Xifaxan website. “The Gut Guy design character is a copyright and trademark of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. or its affiliates,” the notice says.
What follows is a list of revolting product mascots used by companies in TV ads.

The Gut Guy

Valeant uses the Gut Guy to promote its Xifaxan treatment for irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea, or IBS-D. It is a disorder of the large intestine (colon), and it affects more than 10 million Americans, about twice as many women as men.
The Gut Guy doesn’t talk. He’s just a knot of rubbery intestines who looks irritated.

Digger

Digger the Dermatophyte is the cartoon mascot for Lamisil, a tablet from Novartis that combats nail fungus infection.
In one TV ad, Digger pops open a toenail like a car hatchback, and dives in to spread his infection. The ad was much talked about for its high gross-out factor. Digger is a repulsive yellow spiky creature with sharp claws.

Jublia toes

Jublia’s anthropomorphic, festering toenails caused an uproar during this year’s Super Bowl. The ad for Valeant’s Jublia was voted among the worst during the big game. Jublia is a topical solution designed to treat onychomycosis, a fungal infection of toe nails.

Mr. Mucus

Mr. Mucus is the slimy green mascot for Mucinex, a chest congestion expectorant from Reckitt Benckiser Group. In ads, the use of Mucinex sends the snotty creature packing.

Myrbetriq bladder

Myrbetriq is a prescription medicine for adults used to treat overactive bladder with symptoms of urgency, frequency and leakage. The drug from Astellas Pharma features a sad, puffy anthropomorphic bladder who follows OAB sufferers around.

Residue, the Ghost of Meals Past

Residue, the Ghost of Meals Past, is a sticky, rotten, oily mess that lingers on pans and cookie tins even after cleaning. The message from ads for Pam cooking spray, a product of ConAgra Foods, is that you won’t have Residue if you use its product.

Sponsored content, aka native advertising, sparks controversy

The use of sponsored content or native advertising appears to be growing. While it provides a new revenue stream for media companies, it also could be damaging their reputations.
Native advertising is online advertising that looks like a regular article on a website, but is actually written by an advertiser to promote their product.
A recent survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that a third of news consumers in the U.S. and U.K. feel tricked or let down by sponsored content or native ads.
Half of news consumers surveyed grudgingly accept sponsored content because they understand that it helps provide them with free news. But more than a quarter think less of the news outlet that publishes native ads, Poynter reported last month.
New media outlets like BuzzFeed, Gawker Media, Huffington Post and Atlantic Media have aggressively pursued native ads. Old media like the New York Times and Washington Post also have gotten in the game.
Even the satirical news website The Onion runs sponsored content. But at least they do so with a sense of humor and an in-your-face attitude.
“Commerce is the blood that feeds the black heart of avarice. Enjoy this #sponsored content,” the Onion tweeted with a weblink earlier this month.

Art: Joy of Tech comic lampooning native ads.