So Bad It's Horrible/Advertising: Difference between revisions
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* 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 [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|ruin our lives]], but [[What Were You Thinking?|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, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|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 [https://web.archive.org/web/20100910024356/http://www.bbbonline.org/reliability/code/principle1.asp 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 and Hipper|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? [[Unfortunate Implications|I'd hit it. I'm a dollar menu guy.]]". Whoever did the copy for that slogan evidently didn't know that "[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%27d+Hit+it 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 [[Cargo Ship|people doing unfortunate acts with sandwiches]]. When the banners appeared on sites like [https://web.archive.org/web/20120722222143/http://andrewteman.org/blog/2005/01/26/mcdonalds-wants-you-to-fck-its-sandwiches/ 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 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxuna944dls 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 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGvrWvoBkiQ another], a laboratory testing subject with silver facepaint rambles on about nothing in particular for most of his screentime), grossout humor ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N8pZeoGrNk 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 Entertainment System|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.
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* 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. [[Fridge Logic|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 [[Cracked.com|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.
* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-v8zcokHlg Locker Room Meltdown]" is a failure on several levels. Badly acted, badly narrated, and [[What Were They Selling Again?|barely related to the product]] ({{spoiler|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 [[The Colbert Report|his show]]; even after Kraft ''bought ad time on Colbert's show to rerun their ads'' and made [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr9s8WO2t4M this response] to Colbert's attack, it came off as needlessly whiny. [[The Man Is Sticking It to the Man|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.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:So Bad It's Horrible]]
{{Darth Wiki}}
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