Ad Nonsense

What’s Prius floating in the sky?

Is it a large mashed potato ball? Or humans in sheep costumes velcroed together and hung from a crane? Nowhere on the page does the ad bother to tip its hand. Not even a little. The copy only offers a vague promise that the car ‘considers your environment too’. This ad — part of a… Read More »

Beck’s all but endorses steroid use in baseball.

Right smack in the midst of the latest Rodriguez, Ortiz, Ramirez, juicing scandals, Beck’s has created this remarkably mindless ad celebrating technological advances in baseball performance. As the game suffers body blow after body blow with every new revelation of performance enhancing abuse, it’s hard to imagine why Beck’s would throw its hat into the… Read More »

Hellman’s buys Bobby Flay for a sandwich.

There’s a lot that’s deliciously nonsensical about this Hellman’s campaign. Most obvious of course is Bobby Flay. The man made his name on southwestern grilling, not sandwich-making. His latest book is about burgers and fries. Mayo has a total of two mentions in the index. Then there’s the awkward photo of the chef, arms extended… Read More »

Smokeless tobacco features firemen engulfed in smoke.

Copenhagen makes an odd visual choice here for their smokeless tobacco. If the idea is supposed to be that smokeless tobacco delivers the nicotine where cigs can’t, than firefighters certainly make for a more heroic illustration than guys at a carwash. But if chaw’s main reason for being is you get the nicotine buzz without… Read More »

Kashi and Corn Syrup duke it out in Martha Stewart.

We love it when mags are unwittingly turned into boxing rings. In this month’s Martha Stewart Living, Kashi throws a few punches at high fructose corn syrup. Why not? Everyone else is. In its ad, Kashi refers to the sweetening goop as ‘fake stuff’ which will never be an ingredient in its granola bars. In our… Read More »

Candy promises hugs as good as mom’s.

We see this kind of ad idiocy most around Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Christmas. Here, Werther’s promises that their candy can do comforting hugs as well as a mom can. So, like, if you and your mom are no longer speaking, or if she’s passed into the great beyond, you can just eat a… Read More »

Bring your baby to work and pin it to the wall.

According to this ad by CLM, BBDO France, the quality of HP printing is so lifelike, it’s almost like having your actual baby pinned to the wall of your cubicle. Even if you have to ignore it because you’ve got work to do. Leave it to the French to give us a humorous take on… Read More »

Real butthole dispenses toilet paper.

We think that dispensing anything, even toilet paper, out a butthole is creepy. Call us old fashioned, but we have no idea why the folks at By Far in Denmark thought this’d be a winning way to draw attention to Silk Soft’s recycled tp. We don’t think we’d be able to keep our eyes on… Read More »

Texican Whopper between two toasted puns.

Because of all the hullaballoo, we figured we’d weigh in on this Texican Whopper spot. It’s not only an unbelievably, pun-ish stinker, its awfulness is surprising, considering it comes from CP+B. First things first. Like most advertising built around a pun, it’s barely an idea. To put this in perspective, the rag-tag team of C-list… Read More »

Advertising’s unnatural acts against Mother Nature.

As if her sagging ice caps weren’t bad enough for her downwardly spiraling self-image, Mother Nature has also been geting poked from the ad side as well. Tampax Pearl’s campaign, which has been running for a few months, actually encourages us to ‘Outsmart Mother Nature’. As if we aren’t already dealing with the disastrous consequences… Read More »