Badvertised

The Return of Badvertised

2011-11-05T16:26:00.000-07:00

Watch out. In 2012, Badvertised will be back, and it won't be happy.

Uh Oh, Domino's!

2009-05-13T05:06:00.000-07:00

(...with apologies to The Banana Splits.)

Public relations campaigns are powerful weapons, and can be remarkably useful in corporate self defense. That's why it's important not to use them unless absolutely necessary, and then only with the greatest caution. Sadly, all too often companies don't practice proper P.R. safety. They reach for their 9mm chrome-plated P.R. pistols at the slightest provocation, they don't check to see if a bullet is already in the chamber, and end up accidentally squeezing the trigger while it's still pointed at their own feet. Think it can't happen to you? So did Domino's until last month, and now that poor bastard is missing 3 toes.

It started rather when a video popped up on YouTube showing a couple of Domino's employees in South Carolina -- Michael and Kristy -- having a grand old time in the kitchen of their franchise. It was a delightful video: Michael gleefully adds his own bodily secretions to several items on Domino's menu while Kristy narrates and assures viewers that the delicious offerings will soon be delivered to some "unlucky" customers. After a few days the video became, eh, kinda sorta popular, with about 1 million views on YouTube. The video has since been removed for some reason we can't fathom (though perhaps it has something to do with the criminal charges facing the video's makers), but here's how the Today Show covered it:

Okay, our sympathies go out to Domino's. It's pretty rough when your own go-getting, ambitious employees take the initiative to develop and test market the new Domino's Snotzerella Cheese Pizza and market it all by themselves on YouTube. What's a brand to do?

Well, some companies might respond to this by cleaning up the store, firing the pranksters, releasing a few press statements about how measures have been taken to make sure that this could never happen in a Domino's restaurant again, waiting for the whole thing to blow over and then mentioning indirectly the unparalleled cleanliness and hygiene of Domino's stores in future advertisements. Maybe if you're feeling especially punitive you help bring charges against the mucosal mischief makers. The advantage of this approach is that in time the people who saw the video will forget about it, and the people like us at Badvertised -- who somehow never saw the original video and didn't hear a thing about the whole affair in April -- will remain ignorant.

In fact, we wouldn't have known anything at all about the Domino's new Snotzerella Cheese Pizza promotion until last week when we were busy scanning YouTube's most popular videos for procrastination material. To our surprise, Domino's HQ had released a video with the ominous title, "Disgusting Dominos People - Domino's Responds":

Since we had never heard of this prank, we assumed the message from the Domino's President was a clever viral marketing ploy about some fictional hoax. Domino's discovered a video but they won't mention the specifics? Ooh, maybe we should search for it! Felony warrants are out for the fugitive employees? Ah, now we get it: this is one of those alternative reality games in which we, the audience, are supposed to go hunting for the missing employees! (After all, what company in its right mind would defend its brand's cleanliness in a video titled "Disgusting Dominos People"?) Fun! Excitement! Intrigue! Let the online detective game sleuthing begin!

We were ready to declare this a brilliant marketing move, since it had so intensely piqued our interest... until we found out that Domino's people really were disgusting (or at least two of them were). We at Badvertised will be the first to admit that Domino's was in a tough spot here, but we'd just like to submit polite that, in our case and likely those of many others, this particular PR effort backfired. When Domino's first noticed it had boogers on its corporate face, maybe it should have done what real people do in such situations: hope that not everybody noticed, politely excuse oneself, and wash up in private.

BK: Burger Kolonialism

2008-12-08T08:26:00.000-08:00

Up to now, we at Badvertised were deeply disappointed by the commercials of 2008. This year's crop of ads were, frankly, bland and thoroughly underwhelming. We expected so much more from you, you crafty advertisers. For crying out loud, a year ago you figured out how to make factory layoffs into a sales pitch. But this year, it's as if there's been some sort of recession in your creative output. What's the matter? Global economic crisis got your tongue?

We were really starting to worry that we'd never see another nightmarish and actively repulsive ad again. But then, just as we were beginning to lose hope, came Burger King to our rescue with an utterly tasteless and revolting new take on the old hackneyed "taste test" gimmick!

You've probably heard about the ads by now. The idea is simple (and simply offensive): Whopper Virgins is a short documentary-style film that chronicles a team of intrepid marketing tools who travel to the furthest corners of the globe to find people who have (gasp!) neither tasted McDonald's nor Burger King's mass produced crap before. Or, to use the campaign's terminology, these ad geniuses are looking to expose their burgers to Whopper Virgins to see how they like it. See, the idea is that people who have never tasted American fast food burgers can provide a scientific, objective and unbiased measure of which company's burger is really tastier.

Now, the staff of Badvertised are currently on an extended trip abroad, so we don't know firsthand how this campaign has been received in the U.S., but we hear that it's caused quite a fuss. Apparently there have charges of racism and exploitation. We at Badvertised can certainly understand why Whopper Virgins might seem exploitive. After all, to the untrained observer, there might seem something unsavory about the image of a troop of well financed Western advertisers traipsing about the globe on a mission to take the virginity of as many [burger-ignorant] natives as possible. Perhaps some might even take offense at the blatant attempt to make money off of the Whopper-naivety of people who will never be fairly compensated for the role they play in boosting Burger King's profits by participating in this publicity stunt.

The short film begins with one advertiser saying, "It's been very interesting to see their reactions to the burger because they've never seen such a foreign piece of food before. And they didn't even quite know how to pick it up. And they didn't know how to... from what end to eat it!" (Boy, don't I feel stupid! I never knew that there was a proper end from which to begin eating a burger before, and I've been eating burgers for as long as I can remember! I must be an ignorant savage myself!)

Another -- this one identified as a "researcher", explains: "What we're doing is really talking to people who have absolutely no awareness of either Burger King or McDonald's advertising and have never experienced a hamburger: typically, very difficult people to find... and would be impossible to find them in the United States."

Now, to some it might seem vaguely reminiscent of scenes from the classic Nanook of the North, in which the man who appears as Nanook mugs for the camera and jokingly acts if he's never seen a phonograph before and has no idea what to do with it.

But we at Badvertised take issue with this ad for a far more fundamental reason. Sure, it's exploitive. Sure, the ad blatantly seeks to make a dollar off of cultural and economic difference. But at the heart of this promotion is this premise that Americans cannot trust their own sense of taste. And it's for this reason that we raise our middle fingers to Burger King. As one of the filmmakers in the Whopper Virgins documentary explains:

"You can never really get an entirely pure taste test from a group of Americans because they've been exposed to so much advertising, [and] burger culture [and] those types of things for such a long time."

Did you catch that? Supposedly the sole motivation for this experiment is the corrupting influence of advertising and exposure to the very food being advertised. You American consumers cannot actually trust your own taste buds, you see, because you live in a world saturated with advertisements that distort your perceptions. If you truly want to know which burger tastes best, you simply cannot trust your own marketing-spoiled sense of taste. Rather than naively judging for yourself, you should rely upon the burger-naive judgment of someone who has never tasted a burger before.... as represented by an advertisement.

The shamelessly self-undermining message of the campaign, then, is this: You can't trust your own preferences because your ad-drenched culture interferes with your natural connection to your own taste. But thanks to this commercial, now you can see you how you would react to a burger if you lived in a world where advertising didn't corrupt your relationship to your own taste buds. To put it bluntly, this advertisement's essential argument is that advertisements alienate consumers from their own bodies and from their own senses of taste. And the solution to this problem proposed by Whopper Virgins is one more advertising campaign.

Matthew's Meat

2008-11-22T10:30:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, it is our horror to present to you this radio advertisement for Matthew McConaughey's penis:

I Got Your Catch Phrase Right Here

2008-10-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

I don't know exactly when or how the term "catchphrase" came to mean something of which one could be proud, something more than a label for cheap and empty hucksterism, or something more virtuous for a poetic device deviously designed to spread like a virus that infects audiences with an overriding desire to spread the infection and consume more from its source... but I do remember specifically the moment when I realized that this change had occured: when news reports (and if I'm not mistaken, his own widow) characterized United 93 passenger Todd Beamer's overheard remark, "let's roll," as a catchphrase.

A catchphrase? Really? Not an expression, an idiom, or a plain old phrase, but a catchphrase? Like "¡Ay, caramba!"? Like "Ancient Chinese Secret"? Wow. How thoughtful of Mr. Beamer, in his last moments, to craft for the United States such a powerful device for strengthening national brand identity, huh?

If I sound disrespectful, let me be absolutely clear about who and what I'm showing disrespect: not Todd Beamer, nor his actions, nor what he said, nor even the people who found comfort and strength in what he said. No, what I'm disrespecting is the act of treating a man's last known words like a movie poster tagline or a fast food slogan. For crying out loud, "Let's Roll" was eventually trademarked by the Todd Beamer Foundation because so many people were using the phrase to make a quick buck.

So we at Badvertised take the radical position that one shouldn't use the term "catchphrase" for something about which one feels reverent. Catchphrases are useful for certain ends, but they're insidious little monsters. At Badvertised, our idea of a dystopian nightmare is a vision of a world in which everyone speaks in catchy ad copy.

It's for this reason that we at Badvertised hold the following marketing gimmick by Crest in particular disdain:

Pardon me, but how fucking lazy is an ad agency that farms out its own job -- coming up with a catchphrase -- to the consumers to whom it's advertising? It's bad enough that you're asking us to hand over our cash for overpriced flavored toothpaste, but now you expect us to come up with the slogan that will encourage us to do so? This is like holding a contest among slaves in which prizes are awarded to those who come up with the best slave-whipping machine.

Hey, that gives me an idea... Here's a catchy slogan to give Crest's whitening toothpaste a distinctive identity: how about "White Power"?

Microsoft: Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

2008-09-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

I could spend pages going on and on about Microsoft's dismal attempt to reboot its image with Jerry Seinfeld, but it kind of seems like piling on at this point. It's been said elsewhere and countless times already why this was a dubious idea at best. (For instance... Nothing says innovative and hip like an aging comedian who hasn't done anything funny in a decade. Oh, and on his show, he used a Mac.)

Still, I was hoping that the first ad with Seinfeld would be worth watching. Instead, I get this:

Microsoft certainly isn't the first company to put out an ad that has absolutely no mention of its products or services and instead focuses exclusively on brand identification and image, but they may be one of the worst at doing so. Watching this ad, I kept expecting it to turn out to be a commercial for something else: American Express, right? No, no, Discover. Wait, maybe a short film festival?

How disappointing to see that the ad's message boils down to nothing more than, "See? At Microsoft we can take a joke. We've got a sense of humor too! And we're making the future more playful. Like a Seinfeld episode. Remember Seinfeld? He was the most boring of those people on that sitcom back in the 90s with that god awful laughtrack and possibly the most disappointing finale ever. Still don't remember? It was the show with the guy who yelled the N word and talked about a hypothetical lynching of an African-American man in his audience at a comedy club? Exactly. At Microsoft, we're working to make the future just like that."

And yet, if one thinks of this ad less as an attempt to improve Microsoft's public image for consumers and instead see it as a projection of the company's self-image, then it all makes sense. Just like Seinfeld, Microsoft became hugely successful and then, in the late 90s and early 2000s, seemed to take a break. Just like Seinfeld, when Microsoft tried its old act again, it seemed hamhanded and awkward. Just like Seinfeld, Microsoft's recent failures and missteps don't seem to bother it all that much. (I don't use Vista, but perhaps someone out there can tell me if there's a way of extending this metaphor by likening Bee Movie to Microsoft's latest bloated operating system.)

It didn't have to be this way. Frankly, I would have laughed out loud and applauded if this ad had recreated a scene from Seinfeld's show... only with Bill Gates as the Soup Nazi, now transformed as the Software Nazi. Imagine Jerry walking into the restaurant, wanting to go from his Mac to a Windows machine, but the Software Nazi is unimpressed: "No software for you!" Bill's MS outfit would look suspiciously like an SS uniform. Elaine asks if maybe the next version of Internet Explorer would be kind enough not to use up all the memory and processing power in her 3 year-old laptop: "No software for you!" Bill is angry and we see brief glimpses of what looks like a bondage dungeon over his shoulder through a doorway off in the distance. Kramer comes in listening to a Zune, and the camera settles on Bill's face as his lips just barely twist into a smile under his phony Hitler mustache.

Now see, THAT is how you get people talking.

In a world where even an individual's voice is commidified...

2008-09-05T12:32:00.000-07:00

R.I.P., Don LaFontaine.

P.S. WNYC's On The Media offers this obituary for LaFontaine:

It Does a Body Good

2008-08-26T19:05:00.001-07:00

As highlighted on Photoshop Disasters:

Supposedly this is just a case of Photoshop malpractice, but I'm not so sure. She's pretty skinny, so maybe the bright yellow type is visible through her skin and bones... which would be stronger and less translucent if she drank more milk... Oh! So that's what makes this a trendy ironic T-shirt!

I'm Lying To You Right Now

2008-08-05T15:22:00.000-07:00

We at Badvertised were starting to get pretty depressed about the milquetoast ads we've seen on TV lately. We were losing hope that we'd ever find a crop of abysmally self-undermining commercials again. And let's be clear: that's what we're really interested in at Badvertised. Sure, we like lame ads, we like ads that seem a bit awkward, but badvertising gold is the commercial that actually undercuts itself at a basic level. It's the marketing equivalent of the classic paradoxical assertion, "I'm lying to you right now." One might argue, of course, that successful advertisements are based on the art of making that particular conundrum aesthetically palatable...

In any case, just as we were giving up hope, along comes John McCain's campaign to the rescue. It is our pleasure to present, not one, but two staggeringly sui-ad-cidal specimens for your pleasure:

"Troops" begins as your run-of-the-mill political attack ad, but after about 13 seconds McCain's media team overplays its hand: the footage selected to illustrate that Obama didn't visit U.S. troops during his recent trip abroad is rather famous video of Obama playing basketball... during a recent visit with U.S. troops abroad. And the source video wasn't some obscure B-roll -- it was Obama triumphantly sinking a three pointer on his first try to the wild applause of American soldiers:

True, McCain's people were trying to make the point that Obama specifically didn't visit wounded troops in Germany, but does it really help your cause to remind your audience of how well-liked Obama was by American troops overseas during his visit?

Hey, but anyone can make a mistake. It takes special effort to follow up an ad like that with this:

Yes, this ad did get a lot of media buzz, and yes, in that sense it's a success. But how weak do you appear when your 60-second spot's central criticism of the opponent is that he's more popular, more charismatic, and more media-savvy than you are? An ad like this certainly appeals to McCain's base, but it offers absolutely nothing to attract new supporters. The only message it conveys about McCain is that he's envious of Obama's favorable media coverage... which rings pretty hollow coming from Mr. Straightalk Express, whose Republican rivals complained that the media were unfairly biased in favor of the Maverick Senator from Arizona.

For us at Badvertised, this looks like pretty promising stuff from Team McCain. We hope we can expect even greater examples of self-undermining, just-add-water-instant-blowback campaign material from the McCain media masters in the weeks to come!

To Paraphrase Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica...

2008-07-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

"You're going the wrong way!!!!!"

Burn, Baby, Burn

2008-07-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I loved the 4th of July, but I was no patriot. I liked the music, I liked the parades, and I liked the barbecues, but what I really loved were the fireworks. I played with sparklers and used model rocket engines to make my own super duper 4th of July spectacles. In retrospect, I'm lucky I've still got all my fingers. But even as a grown man, I still find America's annual, ritualized playing with fire to be pretty seductive.

So maybe this is just my own borderline pyromania talking, but my reaction to this PSA is not so much caution as it is... "Co-o-ol!"

Worst Political Ads In America Awards

2008-05-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

This from TheUptake:

Tonight (May 21) Growth & Justice, an economic think tank, will hand out the awards for the worst political advertising in America. We’ll bring you the winners of the non-partisan lampooning after they’re announced. The UpTake’s Mike McIntee gets a preview of some of the videos that are in the running from Growth & Justice President Dane Smith.

Badvertised Flashback!

2008-03-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

We at Badvertised were really hoping that the Superbowl would provide us with months of material. Sadly, this year's crop of Superbowl ads were just plain bland, which doesn't help us at all. (Our rivals at http://blandvertised.blogspot.com , however, are having a field day. Bastards.)

Come on, advertisers, we know you can do better (worse) than this! We have proof! Since you symbolic hucksters are slacking off, we're starting a new feature in which we'll dust off a classic baddie from the Badvertised Archives. This week's Badvertised Flashback is offered in the hopes that today's advertisers will take note, look to the wisdom of their ancestors, and start cranking out some good old fashioned orientalist marketing.

Duck and Cover Your Ass

2008-01-31T09:50:00.001-08:00

We'd like to extend a big Badvertised salute to the United States Government's Department of Homeland Security and the Ad Council on their collaboratively produced website, Ready.gov . On this site you'll find lots and lots of helpful tips for making you and your family more prepared. You might be wondering, "But prepared for what?" But you see, that's the beauty of it: you should be more ready for everything -- especially unpredictable emergencies. The website suggests helpfully that you ask yourself if you would be ready for, say, an influenza pandemic or unspecified explosions.

Ready.gov wants you to realize that you probably haven't planned carefully for most emergencies. To illustrate this point, Ready.gov presents the following PSA (Public Service Announcement):

Oh dear, these folks are unprepared! When something really bad happens, boy are they going to be in for a surprise! Like, for instance, what if there was a really awful hurricane that swept into their city and the levees failed? Clearly if something like that happened, the people at fault would be the silly folks depicted in this ad who didn't even think to prepare themselves for a natural disaster!

I mean, what do they expect? That their government should promote their general welfare or something? Keep dreaming, suckers!

No matter how hard it tries to sugarcoat its real message, here's what Ready.gov is trying to say: "You know how to best prepare for a disaster? Easy: be wealthy. That way we can shirk our responsibility as an agency chartered to protect you in the event of an emergency. We're the United States Government, and we'd rather spend money telling our own citizens to figure out their own disaster preparedness strategies individually than spend money preparing to save them collectively. So don't come whining to us when your home is flooded, crybabies."

Make no mistake about it: the videos on Ready.gov aren't PSAs (Public Service Announcements): they're PSAs (Preemptive Shifting of Accountability).

P.S. Am I alone in thinking that the soundtrack for this PSA is suspiciously similar to Izrael "Bruddah Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole's Somewhere Over The Rainbow?

"...So Grab That Juicy Double, Mixalot's In Trouble..."

2008-01-28T11:59:00.001-08:00

I'm not criticizing these ill-conceived banner ads for McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder because they suggest that there's something erotic about food. I'm criticizing this ad because it suggests that there's something erotic about a McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder, and that's just preposterous. I can name a dozen fast food items that I'd tap before the sad, sorry sandwiches depicted above. The same can be said for the poor, second rate Sanjaya Malakar-esque loser on the left side of the banner.

I can appreciate that McDonald's wants to present itself as a hip, irreverent brand that talks like all the cool 20-somethings, but "I'd Hit It" hardly achieves that goal. How about something simple like, "I'm Lovin' It, Bitch!"? Or, "McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder: Because Chronic Makes You Hungry"?

P.S. I'll happily sell these slogans to McDonald's marketing department for a modest fee...

Operation Desperate Marketing Ploy

2008-01-14T22:38:00.001-08:00

It's a tough time to be a U.S. military recruiter. Somehow fighting in a counterinsurgency doesn't seem as sexy as, say, Top Gun. Dogfighting against communists wasn't just cool -- it looked fun! But it's hard to imagine Goose, Maverick, and Iceman laughing it up in Baghdad while on patrol in their poorly armored Humvee.

I mean, really, how do you convince a young man of fighting age who hasn't already signed by now that there's still a great reason to join the U.S. Army? What possible incentive could you offer to some dude sitting on his couch playing Guitar Hero who hasn't already been moved to serve his country in the War on Terror in Afghanistan or the war in Iraq? If your recruitment target isn't moved by patriotism, economic need, or an internal desire for military service, what else could possibly motivate him to sign up?

Huh. Well, considering how popular Guitar Hero is, maybe that's not a bad place to start, right? I mean, for a lot of young men, is the fantasy of becoming a rock guitar wizard motivated by anything all that different from the fantasy of becoming a fighter pilot? Could it be that this is the kind of (flawed) reasoning that went into this atrocious ad to the left?

"You know which guys get all the hot babes? Rock stars. Wait, no. Men in uniform. And rock stars. And you know who gets the turbo-hot babes? Rock star soldiers! No two ways about it: every girl's crazy 'bout a camouflage-wearing, stratocaster-playing man."

Nice going, U.S. Army. Those are advertising dollars well spent.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

2008-01-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

What a great year for bad advertisements, huh? When it came to disappointment, 2007 did not disappoint! It was a tough competition, but the judging staff here at Badvertised agreed that our first ever Baddie Award should be given to the ad that gave this blog its start.

Congratulations, GMC Robot! You've literally turned capitalism's worst nightmares into a sales pitch. For what can be described accurately as the most perverse ad we've ever seen, we tip our caps to you. Bravo!

Forty acres and a Mazda

2007-12-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

Man, that ad sure does have rhythm doesn't it? That car must have a lot of soul if it can make a black gospel choir gather round it and spontaneously burst into song, yeah? Can you taste the culture? Can you feel the history?

And check out those lyrics:

Come shine here with me!
(Gotta make it mine today!)
I'm finally free!
(Gotta make us stop and say...)
Zoom! Zoom! Zoom!

This commercial sure does move me. It's as if it affects me on some kind of deep, primitive level. Or something like that. I'll have to think about it some more, really. In the meantime, boy, I sure wish I understood those lyrics better: "I'm finally free!" Now, whatever could this black gospel choir mean by that?

Maybe it's best not to think about it. Maybe it's better just to concentrate on the pure aesthetics and imagery of this brilliant spot. For instance, how about the way the choir is summoned by and vocally aligned with the Motor Trend Award, as if the bodies of the singers were naturally tuned to it? It's like they've got some sort of natural, corporeal, prelinguistic, precognitive, physical connection with the sounds and rhythms of the product in question.

Isn't it great to be free... to buy a car?

Pseudoschizophreniadvertisement

2007-12-15T16:04:00.000-08:00

It's tough to be the advertisee. As raw deals go, it's one of the rawest: on the one hand, as a potential consumer, the advertisee's attention is coveted fiercely, courted endlessly, and hunted ruthlessly; on the other hand, the advertisee's only compensation for his or her attention is the perverse desire to buy the products advertised. The advertisee effectively loses twice: first when his or her attention in taken, and then when he or she rewards the marketer for the theft by buying the client's merchandise.

It would seem a hopelessly exploitative, abusive, and one-sided relationship if not for one thing: every new scheme to steal attention from advertisees begins to wear out the moment it is used. The pop-up ads that seemed clever one moment become hopelessly annoying the next. "Bugs" -- the tiny animated ad-lettes that appear in the corner of a television show to promote another program on the same network -- have stopped enticing audiences and now merely "bug" viewers.

I've always taken comfort in this cycle of marketing innovation and audience desensitization, because it assures me that no matter how advertisers surpass me in wealth, resources, and research, they will be bested forever and helplessly by one thing: my mind and body's capacity for boredom. No matter how hard they try to catch my eye (or my ear), they will inevitably come up against my psychological and corporeal inertia. Think of it as the marketing equivalent of Newton's First Law of Motion: a body at rest will not move until an external marketing force acts upon it, and then that body will get used to that force, return to a state of rest, and fast forward past the commercials.

Note, however, that this law only applies to cases in which the marketing force applied to the advertisee's body is external. It now appears that all this is about to change:

You see that billboard? You see those two boxes that look like loudspeakers on top? Those little boxes were developed by MBAs (Masters of the Black Arts) at Holosonic Research Labs, and what they do in a nutshell is send out a focused beam of ultrasonic waves at frequencies above those of human hearing which then interact with air and surfaces in the beam's path to create audible sound. The result: when you're in the beam's path, it sounds like someone is talking to you from inside your head -- and the people standing a short distance away from you can't hear a thing.

(According to some of the reports on this technology that I've read, any surface struck by the beam is used to help create these audible signals, so the sense that there's a voice in your head might not be far from the truth. On the other hand, as has been pointed out by several readers' comments to this post, this is probably less than a fair characterization of how this technology works, but which circulated nonetheless after initial reports described how those who encountered these "audio spotlights" felt as though the sound was emanating from inside their skulls. See the comments below for more details.)

A few advertisers have begun to experiment with this blatantly evil and obscene technology, but the most prominent is the cable channel A&E, which is using it in conjunction with a billboard in New York to scare the shit out of people in the hopes that this will drum up interest for its television show "Paranormal State." Whether or not this advertising experiment pays off for A&E really is beside the point, because it's the thought that counts, and the thought in this case is unforgivably devious and irresponsible: to make people on the street think they're hearing voices that no one else can hear in order to make them momentarily think that they've gone crazy because they're hearing voices that no one else can hear... which they are.

Make no mistake, though: this Baddie Nomination is not being given to a specific commercial but rather to a new technology, and that's a special honor in and of itself. We tip our hats to you, Holosonic Research Labs, for your bold contribution to a field we're calling "Ad Assault": the science of targeting a stranger's ears without his or her consent to deliver a personal advertisement that his or her neighbors can't hear. Congratulations, HRL! Your exciting technology shows enormous potential--not just for advertisers, but for police and military forces as well! Just think of how, in a few short years, crowds of peaceful political protesters will be dispersed with individually targeted blasts of deafening noise. Imagine the military interrogation techniques that will become possible when your technology is applied to a prisoner who claims to have no intel to offer: we'll see how long he lasts when interrogators can go hyper-Clockwork Orange on him and play Beethoven's 9th as if it was coming from within his own head!

That's Not Chocolate

2007-11-25T16:41:00.000-08:00

This week's nominee for the 2007 Baddie Award has been selected not so much out of respect for its outstanding achievement in the field of awkward marketing, but because we detect in it a hint of subversive resistance on the part of the advertisers. We actually sympathize with the poor bastards who were charged with this impossible task, the advertising equivalent of a suicide mission: to entice people to buy a bland, 10" circular pizza crust drizzled unevenly with soupy vanilla icing and soggy, crushed Oreos.

We often think of advertisers as magicians who cast spells, enchant us, and can make us see things that aren't there. We imagine that their work has nothing to do with the material world, that they trade exclusively in symbols. And to an extent, these impressions are accurate. But as this commercial brilliantly illustrates, there are always limits. I don't care how much money and talent went into this ad, because no amount of either could ever overcome the intense and instantaneous disgust that this pile of unappetizingness engenders. Behold:

Sickening, right? It was a horrible idea that became a worse product, and there's really no way to make something this ugly look appealing.

But I suspect that there's more going on here. There's more wrong here than just the Oreo Pizza or this tragically ill-conceived "Oreo Mustache" gimmick. Look at the ad again (if you can resist the urge to vomit): Why are these people sitting on the floor eating off of a coffee table as if they're watching television... except that there's absolutely no sound of a television or anything else in the background? Are there three people on the planet who have less familial chemistry than these actors? Why the hell is there a window-unit-style air conditioner protruding FROM THE WALL above the couch? What is "Kevin" doing with his left hand in the ad's first seconds? How come there's an electric guitar propped between the couch and the side table but no amplifier in sight?

And then there's the music at the end of the ad. If it sounds familiar to you, it's for a very good reason. It's a short clip that comes packaged with every copy of a popular sampling software program called "Reason". Remember Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday" sketch -- the one where the two guys are rapping about the Chronicles of Narnia and how much they love Magnolia cupcakes? Go watch it again and you'll find that the same audio clip appears half-way through the skit.

So I have to ask myself: are the geniuses behind this commercial even trying to make this product look good, or are they intentionally offering us an advertisement that is as bad as its product? This ad seems to actually delight in Domino's misstep. This commercial almost flaunts the Oreo Pizza's undesirability. When I watch this ad, I feel as though the creative team behind it is whispering in my ear, "We know you're not going to buy this! It's hopeless! Go ahead, mock Domino's! We hate the people who made us shill for this crap!"

And for that, we honor this ambiguosly subversive bit of symbolic hucksterism. Good luck at the Baddies, Oreo Pizza!

The Baddies!

2007-11-21T23:56:00.000-08:00

It's the holiday season, and you know what that means: it's time to take stock of the worst, most cringe-inducing, skin-crawlingly awful advertisements of 2007! It's been a great year for terrible ads, and we'll be counting down the worst of the worst from now until New Year's. And when it's all over, we'll give our first Baddie Award to the greatest badvertisement of the year.

It's going to be an exciting competition, so stay tuned to this blog and be sure to send us your nominations and cast your votes in the comments of each entry.

And now, our first nominee: Viva Viagra!

There was a time not long ago when direct-to-consumer erectile dysfunction medication advertisements were nothing more than a crude montage of visual metaphors for sexual performance: guys throwing footballs through tires in their back yards, scoring holes-in-one of the golf course, swishing a free-throw on the basketball court, blah blah blah, same old same old. But this new ad for Viagra takes us to a new and supremely awkward level.

It's not so much that this ad depicts a bunch of middle aged men sitting in a circle, working their instruments, and singing a song about how Viagra is helping them to get it on... because really, that's something to which we can all relate, isn't it? No, what sets this commercial apart from the rest of the herd is the ending, wherein we learn that these guys aren't just rocking out in one of their garages or a local bar. Instead, they've assembled in what seems to be a deserted saloon in the middle of nowhere, and they've driven separately to this isolated location for one reason and one reason only: to play with each other. And boy oh boy are they pleased with themselves! Just look at them high-fiving as they say their goodbyes and prepare for their long journeys home from this remote rendezvous -- why, they look like they've shared a really special experience. Isn't that just the most touching thing you've ever seen?

You Are So Beautiful....To Advertisers

2007-10-07T12:45:00.000-07:00

I know. How could I possibly argue against the message of this ad? The "Beauty Industry" is, after all, an unforgivably ugly monster that thrives perversely only by instilling insecurity in its consumers. Dove's "short film" offers a compelling indictment of Beauty Inc. and the relentless marketing of cosmetic anxiety.

Except for one thing: this is an ad for a beauty company about how beauty advertisers can't be trusted, and there's something deeply unsettling about this sort of anti-commercial. It's a bit like the logical paradox inherent in the statement, "People like me never tell the truth." Or, in Dove's case: "Talk to your kids before I do."

Most interesting, however, is the way that this ad all-too-readily provides its audience with an argument undermining its own message. This ad, even if produced with the best of intentions, is ultimately about a pretty-on-the-outside cosmetic makeover... for Dove's own brand image.

After watching this commercial, I began to worry about Dove. Dove seems to be obsessing about what people think of her appearance. Why can't Dove just be confident in her beauty instead of desperately trying to convince everyone that her peers are ugly? Dove, it looks like you lost a lot of weight to fit into that Self Esteem Fund dress. I don't like seeing you like this, Dove -- it's just not you. I wish you could just accept yourself for you who are instead of trying to meet some external unrealistic expectation of beauty, Dove.

The Fight for Mucosal Rights

2007-09-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

Protesters are so annoying, aren't they? Clamoring about their rights, challenging authority, calling attention to unfair and illegal state and business practices... Sheesh, why can't they just shut up!

Well, finally, the ad firm responsible for the new Mucinex campaign has stepped up to address these pesky protesters by visually representing them as boogers. Like a mucosal picket line, they whine in a futile battle against the ~~union-~~mucus-busting Mucinex. Hooray for Mucinex!

Now why don't you lazy boogers quit your whining and go back to work.

The Intel Aryan Processor

2007-09-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

So your boss tells you that you need to come up with a print ad for Intel's new business CPU, one that conveys the feeling of having lots of computing power at your command. You begin to brainstorm... What does power in an office look like? Hmmm....

Then it hits you: a smug white man standing over six black athletes in ambiguously servile positions! Genius! What could go wrong?

OK, so I'm being a bit unfair. But only a bit, I think. I'm sure no one involved in the development of this ad ever realized how it could seem racially offensive... but that's precisely the issue. Long before models were hired and photographs were shot, this advertisement must have started out as a set of seemingly innocuous whiteboard scribblings about how to visually represent "power" and "performance" in an office. At some point, however, the advertisers were charged with embodying these concepts, and were responsible for answering questions like "What kind of person looks like a powerful athlete?" and "What kind of person looks like our target audience?" I doubt that they ever realized that they were choosing race to be their visual shorthand for the concept of power.

The irony, of course, is that this ad is completely successful in its vivid representation of control, management and authority. The "message" is unmistakable... and hideously racist. And as such, the production of this ad speaks loudly to the often whispered issue of how mass-mediated representations of race and power continue to be linked.

Kickoff Time

2007-07-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

Advertising is a curious business. Marketers and advertisers work along a strange socioeconomic and cultural borderland: between global and local production and consumption; concerned not only with the economic laws of supply and demand, but with the supply of demands; negotiating the perpetually fluctuating symbolic economy of commodities and desires. For social scientists, advertisers can seem like an uncanny reflection of ethnographic researchers, with eerily similar research methods. As a result, academics have drawn on the work of advertisers for insights into the relationships between social, cultural, and economic spheres of life.

This blog is dedicated to a slightly different proposition: that the dramatic, cringe-provoking, skin-crawlingly hideous failures of contemporary advertisers often reveal more to us than marketing "successes." When an ad "works" seamlessly, when it provokes no protest, sails past our cultural and psychological defenses and inculcates itself in a new crop of catch phrases and jingles, we can only shrug our shoulders and acknowledge that advertisers and their advertisees are somehow synchronized with one another, that their models of each other need no adjustment for the moment. When Advertising Age writes a glowing review of a new television spot, really, what's the most we can hope to learn?

But when things go bad, one has to ask, "What went wrong? Who misjudged what and how? What can we see through the crack that just appeared in the advertising industry's seemingly impenetrable, glossy armor? How did the advertisers' careful and well-funded assessment of the audience fail to line up with the audience's assessment of the advertisers and of themselves?" And then, of course, there's the deliciously intense schadenfreude that comes with watching an industry that, by its very nature, is condemned to publicize its own mistakes as loudly as it publicizes its successes.

Take, for instance, the ads in the 2007 Superbowl. The Superbowl is, of course, only incidentally a football game. Its primary role is that of the world's most expensive advertising showcase. So you'd expect to find only the best, the most focus-group tested, the most ruthless and psychologically manipulative advertisements that money can buy. What, then, are we to make of this:

There are skilled filmmakers who have tried and failed to criticize capitalism in full length movies as effectively and concisely as this commercial does in sixty seconds. That this sort of indictment of contemporary industrial capital should appear in the form of a car company ad is either perverse... or something much more interesting.

I can still recall in vivid detail my reaction to this ad as I watched its premiere. I actually stood up from my chair and took a step towards the television as each episode of the sacked robot unfolded. "My god," I breathed, horrified, when I saw GM likening its treatment of robots to its treatment of workers and, by extension, vice-versa. "My god," I repeated louder, as I watched the dejected robot looking for work on the street. "This can't get any worse!" I said in disbelief when I watched the robot contemplating SUICIDE on a fucking bridge. "Christ, it actually got worse!" I nearly shouted as the robot awoke in a cold sweat on the factory floor. Somehow the advertisers figured out something even darker and more disturbing than a laid-off robot deciding to end its life: a robot on the factory floor who dreams of suicide, because at least then, the perpetual fear of being fired would finally come to an end.

I've seen plenty of commercials that backfired and actually discouraged me from buying the product advertised. But this is the first time I can remember seeing an ad that actually made me want to never buy anything or go to work ever again. All illusions are stripped away: GM doesn't just relate to its factory employees as interchangeable robots: it brazenly depicts that equivalence in its advertisements. GM is portrayed as not simply indifferent to the nightmares of its employees under the constant fear of layoffs, but these nightmares are presented as a punchline.

Indeed, the ad certainly did provoke a powerful negative response from some viewers... but for the most part, it was not the one I had expected. Mental health workers and suicide prevention organizations objected to the commercial's depiction of suicide. GM and its advertising agency agreed to edit the offending scene of the robot hurtling towards its watery death.

The whole affair left me with two questions. What does it mean that some of the most incisive critiques of contemporary capitalism come in the form of advertisements... and what does it mean that these critiques are generally ignored?