Internet advertising is a strange beast. Some of the most popular ads play directly off our insecurities – that we’re fat, that we’re lonely, or that our penis is far too small. The immediate emotional response to what basically amounts to a controlled insult online can gall you into the all important “click” of the ad.

While this emotional manipulation is effective, it doesn’t give you the ability to completely half ass your campaign and still expect no one to call you on it. I saw this ad online recently.

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Seems rather benign, not unlike thousands of other ads you see every day. It’s not particularly well done, but if it didn’t make money it wouldn’t be out there. But there’s something else – I saw it, did a bit of a double take, and then looked again. The 35 pounds figure seems to be off, but more importantly, the body types of the two don’t quite seem to match up.

Wait a second, what’s that on the right side of the slimmer girl? There’s a hint of yellow on the edge of the frame. Let’s cut out the pictures of the two girls, and then flip them around and put them beside each other.

Well damn. Turns out that you just took a picture of two sisters, one slim, the other not so much, flipped it around, and then tried to pass it off as a weight loss ad. Sorry about the grey line in the middle, it’s because of the black borders around the ad cut out a little bit of the image. Next time, perhaps a bit more Photoshop work?