worst commercials on television

2) Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Fucking Ugly Yogurt Bikini

3) Two dudes playing piano with their cocks (Aus erectile dysfunction ad [fucking horrendous])

Included on here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=edLWIbV-_Is

4) the one where the little girl in the luxury minivan is like "what does 'spoiled' mean"and the mom is like "why did someone say that about you?" and the girl is like "no the said that about YOU"

(my favorite, for what it's worth, is the Dow Human Element campaign)

yaz birth control

It's a goddamn good thing I hardly watch tv anymore, because I hate commercials so much I want to mutilate them all with boxcutters. Why, I even started a thread once about a spot that made me particularly furious.

So.

1. All of them.

There are so many bad ones but this one while old still makes me smile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DRucm2UREU

Oh and this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NRNQmtUAUg

It's bad because you can just picture the meeting where they came up with the rap idea, you know, to really reach the youth of today.

No time to quit making awful misleading political advertisements.

this thread reminded me to upload this to youtube: i nearly gagged when i first saw it but had the wherewithall to hit 'record' on the ol' tivo. check it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSvKYwy9kJo

Ha, speaking of "rapping" in commercials, the rap part was always my favorite part of this classic one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeffKUWZIng

Hands down, this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgxxAwue7Fs

So bad it's bad.

YES Moley!

I was looking for that the other day, I was describing it to my gf, and she wouldn't believe me.

My girlfriend worked on something to do with that one. She's going STRAIGHT TO HELL.

'Advanced Hair? Yeah yeah' - so bad a catchphrase it entered the Australian vernacular immediately:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqMemogg4kI

It's funny. I was asking my friend from Kansas what sticks out and is different about Australia (coz she was saying how Aus is pretty much the same as the US in most respects) and she said the main thing she noticed was how tv commercials are so much worse over here.

The ads here are so very shitty, but that bom-chicka ad appears to have originated in the states so we can't be blamed for it. It's just being rolled out here, with a lame local version.

One yank told me it was weird that so many ads here have crap music jingles - even cheap ads for Paul's Warehouse etc. Apparently that's unusual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ANn6Z1iKxc&mode=related&search=

This needs to be seen to be believed.

I am also shocked to find out that the Advanced Hair company is under investigation for false advertising:

http://www.belgraviacentre.com/advancedhairstudio.htm

"...Advanced Hair Studio doesn't make it clear exactly what its amazing 'Strand-by-Strand' procedure is - or what you'll get for your money. And at a cost of at least £2,000 for treatment, it's a significant investment.

Paolo Beggio and Ross Trowsdale were both sold the 'Strand-by-Strand' procedure. After watching a sales video, they were convinced Advanced Hair Studio could solve their problems. That's until they went for their fittings. The amazing non-surgical skin graft they'd been sold was actually a toupee that was glued to their heads."

HI DERE, that ad is kooky but great. It looks like something that John Kricfalusi would've plundered for Ren and Stimpy.

xpost

Well, thing is, back in mid-to-late eighties in the states, programs were run pretty regularly which consisted in large part or even exclusively of showcasing ostensibly humorous commercials from other countries (mainly European)...I'm thinking that at some point, the U.S. ad industry must have seen how lame their commercials came off in comparison to the Germans or the Swedes or the French or whomever, and so there was a paradigm shift of sorts as far as attempting to make commercials more "edgy" or humorous or whatever.

Prior to that, many American commercials did, for the most part, involve lame jingles (with the odd exception of innovative standouts such as, say, the Wendy's "Where's the Beef?", or Apple "1984" commercials). Nowadays, jingles don't turn up much anymore, except in local ads for used car dealerships and such.

As someone living in the U.S., the "Advanced Hair" one is definitely striking in its cheesiness. The nonstop repetition of the jingle is singularly bizarre.

In LA in January, I sawe this Burger King ad repeatedly:

http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-05-09_235

I remember thinking, 'Thank God - they have ads as bad as back home in Australia'. It was almost a relief.

Sadly, I don't think the video will load, although the analysis at the link pretty much describes the whole horrible thing. Stand out phrase: "I will eat / This meat" (To Helen Reddy's 'I am Woman', at the point where the lyrics go, 'I am strong / I am invincible').

OK I found a working link to the ad:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3861974550027138294

Note the 'chick food' vs 'man food' dichotomy.

There's so much stereotyping in this ad, it is almost impossible to keep up with it.

VIVA VIAGRA

i like quiche

No doubt you were forced to eat it by your girlfriend?

If I ever have a son and I catch him eating quiche, he's in for a whoopin'. Guaranteed.

Sometimes it seems like the only thing I remember from browsing in bookstores as a kid in the eighties is "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche", "Real Women Don't Pump Gas", "The Preppy Handbook", and "Buns".

Does anybody remember "Buns"??

I like most of these commercials.

http://www.amazon.com/Buns-Woman-Looks-at-Mens/dp/0399505008/ref=sr_1_39/103-0576075-8470233?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189578016&sr=1-39

Urine Gone - with enzymes!

(srsly this ad - the 15 minute infomercial I sat through while watching British Eurosport at half midnight last night - suggested that, if your pet or child pees on your countertops you don't wipe it up, you just spray it with Urine Gone. Piss on your walls? Just spray and it's neutralised!)

DO-ING THINGS IS WHAT I LIKE TO DO! YES!!
DO-ING THINGS IS WHAT I LIKE TO DO!

^^^ turf war

I love that commercial. YES!!

we've seen just the tip of the iceberg with the boomer-retirement-years commercials, rite?

that bk commercial made me laugh. surely they are totally making fun of the whole macho thing... right?

like the carl's jr / hardees commercials? taking it to an extreme for lolz? i mean they throw a mini-van over a bridge!

yes, the bk commercials are the worst commercials on television

worst commercials are EASILY THE MAC COMMERCIALS. absolutely no personality and it just reeks of airs. UGH i hate that campaign.

like, i can't imagine anyone actually laughing at them. that's really unfortunate.

I didn't this ad:

There was just something really creepy about the animals (not just all the sexual shenanigans)

"like"

Wasting your extra hour on ILX: classic or dud?

lol i find tht ad kind of funny :/

i don't know what's wrong with me tho, i'm generally a fan of animal ads

Burger King's sissy troubadours singing about the steakhouse shroom & swiss -- what the FUCK.

Hot Zebras, never thought i'd see that :-/

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww at the orangina ad

Holland & Barrett ad totally absurd

and mention must go to that awful awful AWFUL whatever the fuck 'more minutes / seance' advert. fuck a shit catchphrase.

This commercial makes me want to punch something/one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bocuvU1ve5Q

The BMW commercial with Brian Unger (love him) has got to go.

"Americans are always finding ways to be... more responsible".

I keep waiting for the punchline or any clue that he's joking, but it never shows up.

how did Brian Unger go from being the best correspondent on the Daily Show to randomly doing voice overs and commercials?

Anyway, the worst ads right now are the Coors Light ads with the standup comic that are on TBS.

Glad to see there's already a coupla Axe commercials up in here. Absolute fucking worst ads for some years now. I will NEVER buy one of their products! (If I did, I'd be tempted to spray it in my eyes every time another of their commercials aired.)

re that brian unger ad, there's one brief moment in that ad when they do a close-up on his face and he looks absolutely horrifying! i froze the frame and snapped a picture recently. will post to frighten everyone soon.

that one Allstate ad where the president from 24 does the whole sales pitch and some random guy at a mailbox goes "no way" and then 24 guy goes "way" and smiles, my wife thinks i'm insane the way i rant and rave about this commercial, but i mean...that's it? that's all they've got?

yeah but i bet keanu reeves bought it

wtf @ that 'go meat' advert.

double pits to chesty

it hurt to type that

Anyone else noticed there's a lot of red-haired people - children and adults - in TV adverts these days?

YES! but why is this in the "worst" thread? it makes me very happy

Redsploitation

bright'something or other'

two northern lassies on about paying for tv rental or something. the annoying part is at the beginning where the black haired woman makes some fucking stupid facial expressions when she says "mandy loves her weekly spa treatment"

"webuyanycar anyanyanyanyanyanyanyanyanyanyanyanyanyanyanyanyanyany"
FUCK OFF!!!

Brighthouse are evil, basically loan sharks.

webuyanycar is also one of a growing number of commercials where the advertising executives used the fact that it's a World Cup year to shoehorn in a football reference - in webuyanycar's case, the fake newsreader starts playing keepy-up for no reason, and is then joined by loads of other people doing the same.

I had a sneaking fondness for an old Ocean Finance one (not the new ones with the people with light bulbs strapped to their heads, which I find vaguely disturbing); it was a vox-pop one where a woman said, 'I like Ocean Finance, they don't try and babble you with science.'

I assume these were genuine vox pops on this occasion, as the thought of a scriptwriter coming up with that is almost as disturbing as the light bulbs.

confused.com - "The Internet is the most important invention of the 21st century."
FUCK. OFF.

T Mobile, seriously get 2 fook

anyone else notice how that car commercial where the kid is getting chased home by bullies is now about a kid being challenged to race home? of course he still leaps into the safety of the minivan and all the other kids were also racing to his house for some reason. an effort to be sensitive to the whole bullying issue thing.

i've noticed an increasing number of commercials which are shot in reality show style, complete with sit-down interviews of some random person who owns a toyota or w/e, mixed in with shots of them in their car, and they're actually copying the shitty audio edits heard in reality shows (frankenbiting.) considering the budget companies have for such national ads, it has to be intentional.

can we talk about these state farm commercials?

ugggh the miller lite "man up" ads are so awful in just about every respect

THE FUCKING TACO BELL TWO SHRIMP CRASHING DUDES. FUCKING DIE.

i dunno, tbell's always had really stupid commercials

ha kind of like this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWeOhezlwM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX6bT8_ji2k&feature=related

that one drives me nuts too.

there's a whole 'behind the scenes' with 'buddy mignon' the singer on youtube, not crossing that line. glad that dudes getting work though, he's a tv commercial trouper from way back

I swear this commercial is like 3 minutes long.. some guy who thinks he's hilarious pretending he's a Billy Mays dude and it says nothing about the product until the last 15 seconds.

aaaaargh these state farm "like a good neighbor" commercials

"I have blah blah insurance so person come help" I want to shoot these people and leave their bodies rotting by their cars

this one is kinda tone deaf in the same vein as that "life is good" honda ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNvgT93GATo

The anti-smoking ones with the lady ("Terry") who was dying of some vicious form of cancer talking with her tracheotomy tube in place. Jesus Christ.

New iPhone ad (GIGAANTIC! GIGAANTIC! A BIG BIG LOVE!) is annoying and ubiquitous as hell, but at least a return to "LOOK AT ALL THE FUN YOU COULD HAVE BUT WON'T!" as opposed to the horrible "profound" streak Apple ads were on.

iPhone "I'm living the life of dreams" ad. Horrible song, horrible "you can't raise your kids without Apple" message.

well yeah apple is terrible

u.s. tv ads have gotten slightly funnier in the last month or so. there was a wave of over the top wtf misogynism for a while there that seems to have ebbed

The ones with the giant marionettes interacting with people.

mummy, what's neu-ter-ing?

The new "I've fallen and I can't get up" ad with a woman at the bottom of her basement stairs crying and yelling "HEEEELPPPP!" is just a little too realistic and horrifying.

There's one about Chicken wrappers where the dad starts rapping that I find really wearing.
I think there are another couple that I tend to hit the remote over but I can't think what they are right now.

this creepy miller lite commercial where they claim the invention of lite beer led to your, the viewer's, conception

SIX CALLERS AHEAD OF US, JIMMY

Some of these commercials these days make me miss the good ole days of Go Meat!

For instance, those Geico ones: "Everybody knows that ... yeah but did you know that ... " Ugh.

The new Blu e-cig ad with the soul song in it is terrible - Stephen Dorf livin' it up in various C-list ways, the line "TAKE BACK YOUR FREEDOM" apparently designed to appeal to angry white guys - but that song is fucking hilariously bad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFVYMP1skvk

It's apparently by a band called T-Bird and the Breaks, which... yeah. Perfect.

Recent terrible songs in commercials:

Some fake Fred Cole sounding guy singing too fast to be deciphered over modern garage pop, required catchy "WHOOO HOOO OOOOH OOOH" chorus inserted as predictably as computer code. Car commercial. Garage-indie-pop bands really need to stop selling songs to commercials.

Think this other one is for a clothing store or something, pseudo-mod-soul vibe with a woman singing what sounds like "You and me we could be BAEH-FOOT-AHN, perception to get AROUND, WHAHH-OHH WHAHH-OHH."

I just last night saw a nauseating commercial for an IBS medication with this thing as the mascot:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSMxKqmUcAAHByg.jpg

And yes, it is indeed an anthropomorphic pile of intestines. At one point, this horrific thing sits down for a meal and tucks its napkin between the ropes of intestine. It was to barf.

Good god.

I think I contracted IBS from that commercial.

all of them

"I'm in the Buick."
"BUHHHH I DON'T SEE ANY BUICK!!!!!!!!!!"

Essentially they're saying "yeah, our cars are shit but now they don't look like shit. As much."

"You won't believe it's a Skoda"

Fuckin Bon Jovi shilling for some cable company.

Those are horrible, but the Chevy focus-group campaign is worse. Almost revived this thread to gripe about those.

3) Two dudes playing piano with their cocks (Aus erectile dysfunction ad [fucking horrendous])

ILX posts that haunt you.

Those are horrible, but the Chevy focus-group campaign is worse. Almost revived this thread to gripe about those.

yeah definitely. wish I could explain why they piss me off so much, guess it's just the toxic smugness of bearded guy + the incredible stupidity of the totally-not-fake focus group..."IS THIS A LEXUS!? DOES IT COST FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!??"

"...and I want you to reply IN EMOTICONS!!!"

"If I throw eggs at you, will you be more likely or less likely to buy a Chevy?"

"How many fingers would you be willing to chop off to drive this pickup?" *places meat cleaver on butcher block*

The apple ad with this shite, maudlin British hip-hop track about a guy who, sigh, just wishes he had a little sister

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HiB-hNt_mw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8UV7SAhvG4

Marco! Polo!
Marco! Polo!
Marco! Polo!

I just found out the bearded actor in the Chevy ads is named Potsch Boyd. And now I'm ready for the earth to die in nuclear fire.

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the road
Healthy, free, the world before me

OKAY I GET IT, FUUUUUUUCK OFF WITH YOUR WALT WHITMAN

THE SEVERED HEADS OF CHILDREN SING TO YOU OF THE FUTURE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1b-Zt2IJl8

"in 200 feet, stop for what most people consider "authentic" Cajun food"

when our phone ais become insufferable hipsters

That Dorito's one where they say the chips are like having a baby dragon. WTF

one for the stoners that

R-O-C-K IN THE U-S-A!
R-O-C-K IN THE U-S-A!
R-O-C-K IN THE U-S-A!

30 seconds later

R-O-C-K IN THE U-S-A!
R-O-C-K IN THE U-S-A!
R-O-C-K IN THE U-S-A!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQYkgEJ4_WE

So the endless gospel sample in the Chromebook ads says "First you got a light bull due/Then you got a gas bill too" and I at least know that. But I kind of never want to hear that remix ever again ever.

dilly dilly

where did that shit come from, that's not even real, you'd be kicked out of the ren faire for that shit

tbf i'd probably think it was really funny if i were 8yo

https://i.stack.imgur.com/ADPFV.png

fuck you

also the real spokesperson's actual name is 'potsch boyd'

this is undoubtedly the worst thing i've ever watched pic.twitter.com/G08EvRQ6du

— Florb Netterson (@comicpanopticon) May 28, 2019

war criminal slidin into home

nobody's said it for many years now but fuck Wolfmother for that shit-ass T. Rex song about livin' free that's in a commercial every ten seconds.

fake T. Rex song obv

i fuckin hate potsch boyd

That smarmy bearded TD Ameritrade financial advisor who sits back, legs crossed (always in a dark green room) and wheedles his newly affluent marks. Sit up straight, dork! And wear a tie.

any commercial that uses a version of "go your own way"

there are THREE right now. one drug ad, one for a kids movie, one for a pickup truck.

also hard agree on the Ameritrade guy

yes FUCK THIS GUY

that Peloton ad is causing a hell of a shitstorm online

I don't really buy the idea that it's necessarily sexist or problematic but it is deeply weird, it kinda reminds me of the commercials I grew up with in the 90s that had bad actors and told bizarre stories that clearly weren't focus grouped at all

what's up with the walmart ready player one thing?

i think i figured out the theme: they all have some sort of sci-fi ship. they are trying to make the fact that you have to drive to a walmart cool, when their competitors will just mail the stuff to your door.

h8 this guy

https://i0.wp.com/bobsullivan.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Cap-One.jpg

the allstate moon commercial is close to ruining "crusin" forever for me

The Jill Scott Nationwide commercial is literally satan

i wonder if state farm has to pay like double the going rate to get athletes for its painfully dorky ads

I don't think so.

https://i.imgur.com/QXTC5eD.jpg

man i hope jill got paid

My gf is rewatching Fringe on IMDB's streaming thing and they play that Nationwide ad during literally every single commercial break. I never thought I'd have occasion to implore Jill Scott to shut the everloving fuck up for the love of christ but, well, here we are.

It's like if the HR manager at your shitty corporate job Tiktok-ed a musical paean to corporate synergy and it went viral.

--A talking ass for SeatGeek

Liberty Mutual was bad enough when it was just Liberty Liberty Liberty Liiiiberty etc
the limu emu shit though is a plague

all the AT&T commercials with Lily make me want to die

I feel like the intolerability quotient of advertising would drop by like 90% if it was illegal for insurance companies to make commercials.

the Dean Winters commercials as "Mayhem" are pretty good. or maybe I just think they're good because they actually have something to do with insurance? like every other company is just doing "you can save a lot on insurance!" and "oh my god, I can't shut the fuck up about insurance!"

i think commercials in general are getting more annoying and desperate for attention. maybe they have to now that they're competing with "switching to a different tab" and "looking at phone"

WHY are these BIRDS so ANGRY???

also wanna mention the USAA ad where Gronk is trying and failing to buy insurance?? one because he fucking sucks as an actor (surprising!!), two because why are we supposed to believe superstar athletes give a fuck about their home and auto insurance? what is this contrived Trix and the rabbit situation

What... what year did you just post this from?

The Geico angry birds commercial still airs all the time!! The game is well over a decade old!! As old as Mario 64 was when it first came out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVjFdaRxoo0

This Ben Moore commercial is just a farce. NOT how you paint.

The Russian meerkat characters getting cancelled is objectively absurd and somewhat indicative of ugly xenophobia that is already having worse consequences, but can't say I'll miss the little fuckers.

dunno why they didn't just go "oh Sergei is ukranian of course" tho unless there's some deeper meerkat lore I'm not privy to.

uhhh the Uber Eats commercial where celebrities drink soap and eat candles?

the youtube tv commercial (i think that's what it's for, some streaming alternative to cable) where the woman keeps moaning and groaning. physical pain to hear it

I do not understand these AT&T Lily commercials at all, every single one comes off like half the dialogue has been removed

"I'm Cologuard and I detect altered DNA in your stool"

I know this falls into the rather wide category of ads that are really just trying to get you to pester your doctor or whatever but jesus the ubiquity of this one on any show streaming on Paramount+

also yeah the Lily commercials are very very strange

feel like Rule #1 of writing/directing commercials is knowing that the vast majority of your audience isn't really paying attention. so all this intricately produced stuff that's paced like an Avengers movie is just kinda falling on deaf ears, particularly those which have very little to do with the product itself. back in my day a commercial was just two dude yelling "ZESTY!" at each other

Geico doing a bunch of "TV dad" commercials who I presume from the sweaters is trying to resemble Bill Cosby

Think he's supposed to resemble the character he played on Family Matters (the Urkel show)?

Me, I could live without the Cologuard (place that sends you a box you shit in and return to be tested for cancer) commercials that feature a rewritten version of My Way.

lol ok, didn't watch it so I didn't realize it was the same actor