Free and Empowering Ad Copy?

Think Tank #63

I saw some advertisements on the train today that made me think.

(Credit to these Redditors for the pictures—I didn’t take any of my own.)

The ads are, obviously, for a VPN service.

The point of a VPN is privacy. Mullvad VPN clearly knows its target consumer.

This is genius ad copy. Subway-riders are immune to advertisements. They’re used to being condescended to. They hate the advertisers and the products and the whole ‘establishment’ that these things represent.

Whoever came up with this ad campaign knew this. They knew they needed to get your attention in a different way. These posters read less like an advertisement for a product and more like a political statement.

“Imagine a country where the people have the right to their own beliefs, thoughts and emotions.”

“A free and open society is a society where we have the right to privacy.”

And, my personal favorite:

(Once again, image belongs to this Twitter user.)

I never thought I’d see anything like this in the New York City subway.

They (whoever ‘they’ is) want us to be cattle, don’t they? On first thought, it was shocking that anyone even allowed this.

Of course, nothing was ever explicitly stopping anyone from posting uplifting crap like this all over the subway. The subway doesn’t care. The subway isn’t out to get you—not yet, anyway. The reason why subway ads are generally soul-crushing is because they cost an obscene amount of money.

There’s no profit in empowering people. If they’re empowered, they don’t need what you’re selling. The way to make money is by breaking people down, making them feel helpless. That’s how you get them to buy your stuff.

This started to make me feel a little angry. I had gotten got, for a few seconds. Of course these stupid things aren’t just there to spread some positive message. The point of this whole ad campaign is to disarm you. Gain your trust. Make you think that the company that purchased them is on your side.

And they might be. I actually think Mullvad VPN might be kind of cool. They did what appears to be an even bigger ad campaign in Sweden that directly calls out EU policies that have been hostile to personal privacy. Check it out here.

Of course, it’s still an ad campaign. Take it with a grain of salt. If they spent millions to billions in order to plaster these things everywhere it’s only because they think that they’re going to get even more money back.

However, I’m not knocking it. It’s pretty encouraging that there are people out there making money while also spreading a good message (and performing what seems to be a useful service). Without the ‘profit motive,’ these advertisements—and VPN services as a whole—wouldn’t exist.

And it says something fairly hopeful about the cultural zeitgeist that this kind of message sells, anyway. Perhaps people aren’t as dumb as I thought.

In short, it’s kind of nice to have my desire for freedom exploited for profit. It almost feels like good ol’ capitalist America again.

(You’re welcome, Mullvad VPN, for the free advertising.)