scientific method?

I really, really don't get it. Certain web sites seem especially prone to presenting what seem to me to be incredibly stupid ads. I can't tell which of the premises of these I find most craptastic. It might be the "Obama says...." ads with totally unrelated animated gifs on them, of a dog in a car window, or a woman talking, or this one, with a woman jogging. The ads always say that President Obama has said something about mothers going to college, or people refinancing their houses, or about reducing debt. (Nothing he's actually said, of course.)



So, what is it that makes advertisers think that having the irrelevant gif files and irrelevant reference to Obama saying something he never said would have a positive effect on their website traffic or their businesss? Have they studied this marketing ploy and drawn the conclusion that the real big money in whatever loan scam they're running is going to come from people who are, for reasons perhaps best plumbed by psychiatric medicine, motivated positively by the two women dancing crazily in an office gif? Or are they looking for people who are incapable of stopping themselves from clicking on animated gifs whenever their eyes are caught by them? Is that a good market?

I've already vented about the ads that look like links to news stories that appear on news sites. Most of them are auto fill-in scripts that put together fake headlines about the mom in [insert name of central city of metro statistical area estimated to be in region of user based on (a) IP address of browser, (b) ISP account info stored in cookie, (c) zip code stored in cookie, or (d) zip code of registered owner of IP address of site] who [(a) lost (b) earns (c) whitened her teeth] [insert (a) 47 lbs, (b) 6 lbs of fat, (c) 43 lbs, (d) $63/hr] [insert (a) following this one simple rule, (b) on the internet, (c) with this one simple secret, (d) acai berry juice, (e) herbal V 1agra!!!!!!].

Generally, they are as relevant to your own life as all the following:



Now, see, they lost me here. They needed an animated gif of somebody buying coffee and a donut, whereupon I would, of course, immediately click on the ad.

On the other hand, as idiotic as these are as advertisements, as poorly as I think they reflect on the level of creativity and initiative (and, one imagines, also profitability) of internet advertising, they operate as a rather fine index of the average American's lifestyle.