low five: badvertisements

Is there anything worse in life than advertisements? It's the business-world equivalent of a cardboard beggar's sign, except far more sophisticated and impossible to escape. Take watching TV, for example. You sit down to enjoy your DVR'd Mad Men (oh, a show about advertising. Awesome!) so you can skip commercials. But you can't figure out who that character is on the screen until he starts talking about Gillette razors. Oh, cool, Gillette made their commercial look just like the TV show it's interrupting so I wouldn't fast forward through it. Bastards! Well, for every savvy marketing exec, there is someone responsible for the utter shit that is presented below.


#5 - Joe Camel cigarettes 

Camels - the playboys of
the animal kingdom

Aren’t ad campaigns supposed to show how a certain product will make you more attractive/healthier/better in general? Well Camel cigarettes must not have gotten the message because they decide to use one of the ugliest animals on earth to sell their death sticks. It’s not like camels are known for their sexual prowess or suaveness, so why make Joe a camel? His nose looks like what I imagine a squid penis would look like. And today, he probably has had a tracheotomy and his camel hump removed because it was malignant.

I can almost see how this campaign could succeed. The reader spends so much time trying to figure out what was going through the marketing coordinator’s mind when these atrocities were printed that the next time someone asks about cigarettes, Joe Camel will be the first thing to come to mind. The problem is, I’m pretty sure it’s not humanly possible to utter the words “Give me the pack with that cool camel in a tux doing all those manly things”. It’s just too shameful, the body just won’t allow it to happen.

#4 - Quizno rats 

Maybe it's just the Chernobyl version
of Ratatouille?

Is there a less logical choice for spokes-thing for a sandwich franchise than a pair of what appear to be rats? Actually, I can’t even tell if they are rats. They look more mangled and riddled with more diseases than your standard rat. They have human-ish mouths half-filled with crooked teeth and their ears look genetically mutated. And I’m going to take dining advice from these things?

If you want to sell sandwiches, find a guy who used to be fat, give him some low-fat food for free, and start pimping the “Quiznos Diet”. Don’t take the practice-carcasses of an amateur taxidermist and use them as the center of an ad campaign. It’s not cute or endearing. Even with the pirate hat. This is probably the quality of work that Don Draper was cranking out in the latest season, when he was constantly drunk and busy looking for new whores.

#3 - Abercrombie and Fitch 

Exactly as I remember high school.
Also, I love the shirt on the guy to the left.

Usually, when you are trying to sell clothing, you show the consumer what it is they should buy. Abercrombie marketing thinks outside the box; showing almost-naked models in the middle of a forest will almost certainly sell more button-ups and fur-lined hoodies. It definitely will NOT make average American teenagers feel self-conscious about their bodies.

I know this is going to sound like a rant straight from the Tyra Banks show, but there is too much emphasis on body-image in American society, and Abercrombie is one of the worst offenders. Like, I could have chiseled pecks and abs if my JOB was to eat right and work out twice a day. But I chose to have a real career so I don’t get paid to take off my shirt. Which makes me think that if these models are supposed to represent actual Abercrombie customers, they must be the douchiest, most spoiled people on Earth. Just look at them in their black and white photographs, thinking they are artistic and their lives are full of meaning. Hey Abercrombie, why don’t you just do what every other clothing retailer does and put your models in the clothes you want to sell? Is that too logical?

#2 - Kars for Kids 

"Here little boy, have my mint
condition classic car. "

To be honest, I have never heard this radio commercial all the way through. I turn it off as soon as I hear the tune. But from what I have heard of it, the commercial makes zero sense. So there are a bunch of kids singing “one-eight-seven-seven-cars-for-kids. Kay-ay-are-ess-cars-for-kids”. But these kids sound like they are in elementary school and have no business getting behind the wheel of a car. Why would anyone donate them a car instead of selling it.

But wait, it gets weirder. The same verse is sung AGAIN by a sex-offender. Or someone with the voice of a sex-offender. Either way, not someone I would want petitioning people to help kids. If anything, it sounds like this guy would rather offer these car-less kids a ride, and maybe some candy, in the back of his utility van. And one more thing, “CARS” is not spelled with a ‘K’. Are you telling me there is some other car-donation network that already took “Cars for Kids”?  Doubtful. And whether it’s a “k’ or ‘C’, it’s still alliteration.

#1 - Cleft palate babies 

BOOM you didn't think I'd put a
picture of one in here, did you?

Seriously the worst ads ever. It's not even like something is being advertised here. Or can I buy a destroyed lip? I know I can’t be alone when I admit that, when perusing a TIME magazine during my morning bathroom routine, I’ll flip the page and see one of these snarling babies staring me in the eye and my whole day is tainted. My life becomes a horror movie; I’ll be driving or cooking or something, and this image of a mangled mouth suddenly paralyzes me. Just thinking about cleft palates sends a shiver through my body. It looks like the clown from SAW took a can-opener to someone’s mouth, and you never know when a picture of the aftermath is waiting on the next page.

So here’s the main question – Why does this gross malady need to be advertised to the world? Is it some kind of sick joke? Americans can just go to a hospital and get that shit fixed. If you live in some third world nation, I’m supposed to choose weird-looking mouths as my donation of choice? I think I’ll stick with hunger or AIDS, as they kill millions of people each year. And for the cost of a full-page ad in TIME, how many lips could’ve been fixed? Probably all the ones that we are tricked into looking at. 

So ad execs, get your shit together. I could do your job; I've seen enough commercials to know which ones work and which ones suck. Apparently you have all lost touch with reality while sailing around the world on your yachts made of platinum and lined with Panda fur. If you're gonna bombard us with ads everywhere we go, at least make them creative and funny. 

If you're not too put off by my bitterness, read my latest high five here. And if you have a Digg or StumpleUpon account (which you should), share my witticisms!