Basically the title. Why would the ad be a waste if the clients are in London if the billboard is in London? Is this some sort of meta humor because if you say you're in London with a VPN then it means you're not? Or is it because if you're already a client then you don't need an ad? Am I being obtuse?

by carolnuts

44 comments

  4. I think you are being a bit obtuse to be honest – its just a joke that if everyone in London already uses it then they don’t need to advertise here but they’ll never know that because their privacy is so good they don’t even know who their customers are. It’s just a stupid joke that you are misunderstanding.

  5. I think the idea is that if their customers are all in London then they are wasting their time advertising to people who are already customers.

    Obviously that makes little sense since it’s hardly likely that EVERYONE in London is already a customer. But I think that’s what they are going for.

  7. Mullvad don’t keep logs

    They’re basically saying they don’t know who their customers are, they could be in London or not they wouldn’t know either way

  8. Mullvard has a very strong stance on privacy and they don’t collect much data about their users, not even their address, which is what the ad is referring to. (They can’t use your data for marketing because they never stored it)

  9. “We have no idea who our customers are” means we securely protect your data.

    “Maybe they all live in London. Well, then this ad was a waste” means maybe all their customers live in London (because they don’t know) and if so the ad was a waste.

    You my friend, are as dense as a rock

  10. I think it’s pretty funny. They are just advertising their privacy policy in a humorous manner.

  11. They are trying to say that even if a court required them to reveal the identities of their customers they couldn’t because their USP is privacy.

  12. The whole point is that it’s VPN and it works so well that they don’t know where their customers actually live as it hides their location/IP address, so they could all live in London and then they’d be pointlessly advertising to people who already use their product.

  14. >Am I being obtuse?

    Yes, but I’d say you’re more simple minded and dense

  15. Well it’s work for them, you’ve just posted their ad on here.

  16. I’m not in London – but since reading this post I’m now aware of the advert, so perhaps they are doing something right.

  17. In your defence, I was with a friend and they pointed out a mullvad advert on the tube and went, “that ad is so stupid I have no idea what it even means or what the company does”.

    Now, one could argue that Mullvad is a, “they’re only really concerned with marketing to people who would know”. This ad appeals to me because I get it, so towards me it’s good marketing.

    But billboards like this are fucking expensive, so what’s the point if they’re not using it to attract new users? It definitely does smell of, “too clever for your own good” for me.

  18. Maybe its to get people talking and post it on social media.

  20. I’m with you. They’ve confused all their customers being Londoners with all Londoners being their customers. It is badly written.

  21. Smart advertising, i like it. Bonus point for the mole wearing a hardhat.

  22. Mullvad is a VPN provider, the entire point of their service is so you can mask your location.

    The joke is that they don’t know where you are.

  23. As a Mullvad and frequent user of various VPNs I get this ad 🙂

  24. If all their customers are in London, they don’t need to advertise in London (because they already have the whole market), so that would effectively be a wasted ad.

    But because they don’t know (since they don’t track their customers), they’re advertising there, just in case they pick up new customers (but they can’t tell if it’s a good market or not because they don’t track anything).

    It’s not very hard to figure out, it takes a minute or two.

  25. Idk but I saw this one on the the as well and thought it was funny since I just bought this vpn and now am seeing ads for it

  27. Personally I think a lot of the VPN adverts are scare mongering.

    Most sites (all banks etc) are TLS encrypted to the same security level as the VPN traffic. Gone are the days when you could run a WiFi access point and grab people’s login data.

    There are three reasons to use a VPN:

    1. You’re buying illegal goods/stolen items
    2. You’re using a service which is forbidden by your internet provider (eg contraception services in a Catholic school, porn in a library)
    3. You’re trying to evade a geoblock to watch content from another region

    In reality 99.9% of it is option 3. But the VPN companies know that they’d not get away with that tag line. And they don’t want to advertise the support for the first 2.

    So they fallback on rubbish.

  30. This reminds me. I’m currently in LA for a week and BBC and Channel 4 iPlayers won’t work here meaning I can’t watch EastEnders.

    VPN here I come.

  33. Because if all of their customers lived in London, then they’re advertising to people who are already their customers. As a business you’d want your ad to reach people who are not yet your customers: i.e. you’d want to advertise in places where you don’t yet have customers, which in this metaphorical case would be *outside of London*

  34. They are saying if all their customers live in London then they don’t need to advertise there because their marketing job is already done for London.

    The joke is that they have no idea who their customers are because they don’t keep logs (but is that even true because they can’t guess your location from details you provide? e.g. payment address or account address). It’s obviously more true that they don’t know who uses their service.

  35. They don’t just not keep logs; they don’t know who their customers are. There is absolutely no way that anyone can forensically analyze who their customers are unless they know all of the nodes of the network. For payments, they do it in such a way that even if you analyzed payments, you wouldn’t be able to determine the customers. As a government, Mullvad means “mole” in Swedish, and they are based inside one of the most secure nuclear facilities in Gothenburg, an old fort that is literally indestructible. You could hit it with two or three nukes, and you’re not getting in.

  36. Mullvad is great but the number of times I’ve seen pictures of this on Reddit because someone ‘doesnt get it’ feels like these posts are part of the ad campaign

  37. Why would they want to advertise to new people in London if they have already saturated the market and all their customers are already from London. It’s wasted as spend. That’s half the joke.

    The other half is that because it’s a VPN, they don’t store user data so don’t know where their customers are based.

    It’s a clever ad but perhaps two jokes in one is a bit much when all it gets is a glance.

  38. Mullvad is one of the top vpn for privacy (if not THE top). The reason it says that if their customers are in London than the ads it’s useless is because ads are supposed to usually bring new customers in.

  39. When à VPN pretends it protects your privacy often they’re not the data are just in their servers instead of being on public clouds servers. So they sell you that your protected and anonymous when in fact you just trust this one provider for your data. They say that they don’t even collect data at all so they don’t even know their users address. That said I don’t know this particular provider.

  40. ‘We have no idea who our customers are’ would be much stronger copy

  41. They do VPNs, so you can trick your phone into thinking it’s in the US to access a US website or you are in any other country to watch streaming services or something. So basically it’s the joke that you can be anywhere and no one would know.

  42. The advert isn’t for current customers, it’s for getting new ones

  43. Explains with a VPN that you can’t track where you are so if all their customers are in London no need to advertise

  44. They are very good for privacy. No logs. Accept, even encourage crypto as payment to make sure they don’t know who you are.

    Good luck getting on reddit through them though. You get the little spy alien saying nuh-uh

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