worst commercials on television

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.

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