So Bad It's Horrible/Advertising

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
“The most common trouble with advertising is that it tries too hard to impress people.”
—James Randolph Adams

Advertisements litter every television, newspaper, and website they can find...and naturally, consumers will fall f-er, buy what's being promoted. But, why buy certain products if their ads are So Bad Its Horrible? These advertisements are so bad that they even drove the people who liked the product in the first place away. This is the bottom of the barrel for commercialism.

For a different variety of really bad advertising, see What Were They Selling Again?.

Important Note: Merely being offensive in its subject matter is not enough to justify a work as So Bad It's Horrible. Hard as it is to imagine at times, there is a market for all types of deviancy (no matter how small a niche it is). It has to fail to appeal even to that niche to qualify as this.

Examples (in more-or-less alphabetical order):


Web Ads

  • Many, if not all, animated web and pop-up ads (especially those with loud sounds) can easily fall here, especially if you have an older, slower OS or a mobile platform. And let's not get started on the pop-ups that take over your screen. Yes, it does cost money to ruin our lives, but why do these execs seriously believe that clogging up people's modems so their logo can fly across your screen and obscure the text you're trying to read will create a positive reception for their product?
    • Most of these ads are for scams of one sort or another anyway; anyone who doesn't hate them for their sales pitch will hate them when they discover their computer is full of viruses, or they've just had their credit card number stolen, or acai berry doesn't really whiten their teeth. Reputable businesses with real products to sell know better than to risk their reputation with this sort of advertising.
    • Any web ad that disguises itself as a Microsoft Windows dialog box. Designed to trick gullible users into downloading spyware and will get the makers in hot water with the Better Business Bureau (I-A-2, second bullet point). It backfires horribly for users of other OSes, or even reasonably-recent versions of Windows, as these ads usually impersonate the Windows 98 or XP style of dialog boxes, and shifting your color scheme even a shade from the default will betray those that impersonate the Vista/7/8/10 window style.
  • Certain sites used to distribute .zip or .rar files, such as Megaupload or Sendspace, will occasionally have advertisements which masquerade as the download button — and, when clicked, pipes .exe files into your computer.
  • Any snail-mail spam sent in an envelope deliberately designed to resemble envelopes used for official government documents. Depending on the local laws and the degree of resemblance, this may not even be legal, but in some regions of the U.S. it's both legally grey and a fairly popular tactic. Additional shame goes to those who disguise the contents as an official government document as well. Consumer Reports occasionally wall-of-shames these in their back-page feature "Selling It" between humorous typos and absurdly spacious packaging.
  • In 2005, McDonald's launched an online viral campaign that was designed to promote the company's "younger, hipper" image. Using a series of banner images emblazoned with young people eating double cheeseburgers, the ads were meant to convey a more playful attitude (in tandem with the company's well-established "I'm lovin' it" campaign). Sounds good, but during the creation of this campaign the ad agency that oversaw it decided to run with a disquieting slogan — "Double cheeseburger? I'd hit it. I'm a dollar menu guy.". Whoever did the copy for that slogan evidently didn't know that "I'd hit it" was slang for wanting sexual intercourse with another person, and that phrasing, rather than instilling in consumers the desire of going for burgers for dinner, instead conjured up images of people doing unfortunate acts with sandwiches. When the banners appeared on sites like ESPN.com and several other major sites, the public reaction was immediate and fierce. The banners were pulled after a firestorm of controversy and mocking from the public and various online advertising blogs, with McDonald's executives chalking up the failed campaign to not understanding what the term meant. The "I'd hit it" campaign is now a regular fixture on "worst marketing campaigns of all time" lists.
  • Video ads on mobile devices. An idea that is very irritant by itself becomes even more so when you realize that most cellphone companies impose relatively low data caps in their data plans. Seeing how each video ad chomps your 500 MB-per-month plan on 10 by 10 MB for time gets old quite fast.

Commercials

  • The Armed Forces Network (AFN). Unlike commercially-owned television and radio stations, AFN is funded by the government and doesn't need to air commercials to raise revenue. To keep shows on a regular schedule, AFN replaces commercials with public service announcements, often made in-theater and sometimes by the local affiliate. This has led to poorly-written PSAs with horrible-to-no production values which fail to appeal to the soldiers they're being aired for in the first place and often backfire drastically.
  • The marketing campaign for the Atari Jaguar was a misstep of incredible proportions, and was at least partly responsible for killing the development of consoles in the U.S. until the release of the original Microsoft XBox in 2001. The marketing campaign featured annoying narrators (in one, a shrill and annoying teacher lectures a class about how the 64-bit Jaguar was obviously superior to the other 16- and 32-bit consoles at the time; in another, a laboratory testing subject with silver facepaint rambles on about nothing in particular for most of his screentime), grossout humor (one commercial has a boy puking into the camera at the sight of the Jaguar's graphics), Blatant Lies (the system wasn't really 64-bit, but rather used a pair of 32-bit cores), arrogant slogans that channeled the Super Nintendo/SegaGenesis Console Wars ("Do The Math") and a general lack of gameplay footage to offer. The resulting launch was a disaster - the company barely sold 100,000 units, and had to rapidly cut their system prices in order to compete with the other consoles. It didn't work, and the console died after two years.
    • Believe it or not, a half hour infomercial was produced for the Atari Jaguar, which continues to have people on screen frequently use the phrase "Do the Math", as well as portraying ownership of a 16-bit console as being apparently uncool, to the point where one commenter said you could make a drinking game of this.
  • The earlier commercials for the down-on-your-luck tax service BlueTax were among the worst aired on cable news channels. Start with our spokesman, the large-headed "Max from BlueTax", who comes off as either creepy as fuck due to the entire advert's godawful CGI (his hair was bitmapped!) or as obnoxiousness incarnate for his grating voice and inability to shut up for half a second. The public domain chalkboard fonts, toll-free numbers spiels said by Max using eight different voice clips ("800" or "888", followed by a sound clip of each number individually spoken; some ads with 800 numbers are even sounded out eight-zero-zero) were clearly such and, as a final insult Max closed the ad with a shout that just drove home how unlikeable and/or creepy he was.
  • Pete Hoekstra's infamous "Debbie Spend IT Now" ad. In the ad, a stereotypical young Asian in a rice field rides a bicycle up to the camera and says in broken English (and an offensive Asian accent) "Thank you, Michigan Senator Debbie Spenditnow", the ad then goes on to blame Debbie for every single American job sent to China. To make a long story short, after 2 weeks the actress apologized and Pete Hoekstra lost the election. Furthermore, it was aired during the Super Bowl, menaing that everyone in the US saw it.
  • In the UK, Diet Coke hired Welsh singer Duffy to make a commercial launching their new advertising slogan "Hello You". The ad showed her deciding to, with minutes to go before she's due to appear onstage at a gig, steal a bicycle and ride around town (including right through a supermarket) while singing an extremely off-key version of an old Sammy Davis Jr. song. The idea was that Duffy would become the face of Diet Coke throughout the "Hello You" campaign, but audiences hated the advert so much that she was dropped. Advertising standards then had to investigate complaints that the ad encouraged dangerous behaviour by showing her riding a bike at night with no helmet, lights, or reflectors...were they this desperate to get it pulled?
    • Commentators in the media pointed out the similarity between this advert and the film Psychomania, which features a scene where an undead motorcycle gang ride through a supermarket - the difference being that it is presented as a horror movie and not an appealing way to sell soft drinks!
  • This ad for Finally Fast (the original name). It shows, among other things, a Windows Blue Screen Of Death superimposed onto the screen of an Apple iBook, which is a model of Mac made before the transition to Intel processors (thus it can't run Windows without emulation); a Firefox "can't find the page" warning in Internet Explorer; and countless other baffling errors. There's also the "music" (a generic looping techno beat they probably got from some public domain music library), the Narmy bad acting of the man at the end, and the whiny teenager complaining about how "this game should be a lot, lot faster. Mooooom, this internet connection is so slow!" Said whiny teen was playing a local game on a computer, with what looked like a PS2 controller.[1]
  • This infamous ad for the GM EV1 sells electric cars via creepy music, ominous shadows, and narration that mostly points up the car as unnatural ("How does it go?"). It failed so miserably, there have been accusations of deliberate sabotage (in which case, why run the ads at all?).
  • Canadians are usually tolerant of poor advertising (after all, they often make excellent Snark Bait), but one commercial in particular is guaranteed to send any Canadian TV watcher into an unstoppable rage. It's this wonderful spot from Grey Power, a discounted-car-insurance provider for drivers over 50. What makes it so horrible? Try these reasons:
    • The Unfortunate Implications that all middle-aged drivers act like twelve-year-olds off their Ritalin;
    • It's more than a minute long (most Canadian commercials run 30–45 seconds) with only one major gimmick and a repetitive structure, and because of its length it got lots of airtime on Canadian TV since it served as excellent commercial filler to hide technical problems.
    • It's officially an Old Shame for actress Karen Parker, who played the crazy driver in question. "People are so sick of seeing me ... I even have a hard time watching it myself."
    • When the spot was eventually pulled on November 29, 2009 the Toronto Star, one of Canada's biggest newspapers, acknowledged and celebrated its demise and Grey Power even issued a press release saying that the crazy driver "has earned a stress-free retirement". This is extremely rare in Canadian advertising; not even the infamous "Canadian Tire couple" got an official sendoff from the company it advertised!
    • It got the obligatory "homage" from Canadian comic Rick Mercer.
    • Aaaaand Grey Power's back with a new commercial that is...the exact same format, somehow. Will this lead to another Internet Backdraft? Can Grey Power learn its lesson and keep from contributing examples to this page? And...what about Naomi?
  • The 2011 Super Bowl commercial for Groupon starts off as a PSA with Timothy Hutton detailing China's occupation of Tibet...but then segues into a "You can get delicious Tibetan fish curry for half-price with Groupon!" pitch. Trivializing decades-long tensions between two nations that have resulted in countless deaths and the destruction of culture isn't funny and will never be so. It Gets Worse when you realize fish curry isn't even part of Tibetan cuisine. There was a major backlash from viewers and Groupon customers over this thing.
    • Ditto goes for the commercial where Elizabeth Hurley talks about the deforestation of the Amazon and then says she uses Groupon for her Brazilian wax. Very tasteless if you're an environmentalist. Only thing they did right was associating the Amazon with the Brazilian wax (where it did originate), but it was likely unintentional and doesn't save this ad from deserving scorn.
  • A group of ads for Hot Pockets (thankfully long-gone) depicted people eating a Hot Pocket on the street and being subjected to the same kinds of discrimination and abuse that American minorities suffered prior to and during the Civil Rights Movement — all because they were eating the advertised product without a plate. So if someone eats these Hot Pockets in public, people will harass them both physically and verbally and write threatening messages on their houses with a caulking gun?
  • The channel Teen Nick, formerly known as The N, has been showing ads for a cellphone service called "Jamster". The commercials originally were just boring and told you exactly what you needed to know about the service. Basically, you send them a text and their "live experts" (computers that randomly generate the response) tell you if your boyfriend's cheating on you or if you should date, etc. Yes, the randomly-generated responses are breaking up teenage couples for shits with a side order of giggles. Soon, the ads started to branch out their concepts, many which are So Bad It's Good and are filled with Narm. However, one painful ad qualifies for this. It shows a young couple and a girl who texts them with her name and the boyfriend's name. The "live" response comes back to tell her that they should break up. Thinking that it's silly, she ignores it only to have her boyfriend leave her at the altar specifically because the cell phone foretold it. The commercial then warns that this will happen to you if you don't text them now for your random response.
  • "Locker Room Meltdown" is a failure on several levels. Badly acted, badly narrated, and barely related to the product (cheese, specifically Kraft Singles).
  • Miracle Whip's "Don't Be So Mayo" ad campaign. Imitation mayonnaise doesn't need a flashy advertisement to appeal to another generation. Marketing Miracle Whip as a wonderful condiment for hipsters, playing Animal Collective(?) in the background, and attempting to play up the brand as a cool and revolutionary new flavor just didn't work. The ad portrays anyone who doesn't eat Miracle Whip as an "outsider", even though the one guy they show who fits this description is the only unique-looking person in the commercial. Stephen Colbert ridiculed the campaign on his show; even after Kraft bought ad time on Colbert's show to rerun their ads and made this response to Colbert's attack, it came off as needlessly whiny. It isn't rebellious or cool to eat Miracle Whip. Interestingly, the original video (which had a ratio of 10/90-percent likes to dislikes) was deleted from the official Miracle Whip channel.
    • Their current ad campaign basically says that their product is Love It or Hate It (with no middle ground) and then basically says that the people who disagree with your view of Miracle Whip are also love it or hate it. They feature people who don't like the stuff saying they can't date somebody who likes it, and vice versa. Are they serious, or parodying the Serious Business of their past ads? Who knows? Who cares?
  • The environmentalist ad "No Pressure" by 10:10 (directed by Richard Curtis) is perhaps the most spectacular failure of Rule of Funny ever done without help from Seltzer and Friedberg. It depicts several groups talking about ways to reduce carbon emission, with those who don't want to participate being told "That's okay — no pressure." The authority quickly pulls out a small black box with a red button and presses it, blowing up those who refused to participate. Realistically. Others in the ad are left frozen in terror afterwards, drenched in copious amounts of realistic blood and tissue (including that of young children) while said authorities continue cheerily, as if they didn't just murder people. Worse is the ending — a voiceover by Gillian Hall, who herself is blown up for believing the voiceover was her contribution to 10:10.
  • Oven Pride: So easy, a man can do it! Absolutely abominable because, apart from the suggestion that a woman's place is in the kitchen because cleaning's far too complicated for men, it presents what has to be the world's most miserable married couple — she looks as if her pregnancy has given her cravings to chew a hive of wasps while licking piss-drenched nettles, while he appears to lack the mental capacity to operate a toilet without soiling himself. The man goes on to use said product with an inane, brainless grin on his face, noticeably drooling. If the roles were switched here, this would've never made it to air...but despite all this, the annoying chuckle at the end still manages to be the worst part.
  • The Quietus ads for tinnitus. What better way to promote a product which prevents that annoying ringing sound by using said annoying sound during the commercial? Made worse by the fact that it's completely needless — if you have tinnitus, you already know what the hell it sounds like; if you don't have it, you aren't buying Quietus.
  • Rick Perry's infamous Strong commercial is a rambling Author Tract regarding Barack Obama's supposed "War on Religion" (when separation of Church and State has been a major part of the government since its founding), and "knows there's something wrong when" his kids can't pray in school and can't openly celebrate Christmas, and complains that gays can serve in the military at the same time. The ad was disliked and bashed by hundreds of thousands of people (including Perry's own supporters), and may have been the catalyst for his decision to end his presidential campaign. Matters were most definitely not helped by the fact that Perry's jacket was nearly identical to the one Heath Ledger's character wore in Brokeback Mountain.
  • The beyond awful 2011 "Hail to the V" commercials for Summer's Eve douche, featuring women's hands miming talking vaginas, insulting racial stereotypes, and one ad had the scorching line "show a little love for your vertical smile". The ads were quickly pulled, but surely Stephen Colbert mocking the ever-loving hell out of them had nothing to do with it.
  1. ↑ (And that's the least-inaccurate part of the ad; faux-PS2 controllers with a USB cable are quite easy to find, though why you'd want a non-joystick gamepad for anything but emulation and Mechwarrior...)
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