Suicide Advertising

Looking back at class a couple weeks ago, I remember discussing what our favorite advertisements are along with the most terrible ones we have seen. It got me thinking, why do companies actually put some of these advertisements on the market? Do they even realize that what they are doing is hurting their company or product. Someone in class brought up the General Auto Insurance ads. I would like to meet the person who designed those ads and just see what was there thought process behind committing advertising suicide for everyone to see. However, this horrific advertising is not completely useless. As an advertising major it is important to know what works and what doesn't work. So let's take a trip down awful advertising lane and learn what not to do.

First take a look at this awful ice chest commercial. After you stop laughing or throwing up let's look at why this ad doesn't work. Everything about this commercial screams "I'm out of date". The age of the cheesy infomercial is dead, in fact I can't remember it ever being alive. It is no longer convincing, much less funny to watch an overenthusiastic man show how great a cheap product is by hitting it a whole bunch of times. We understand, I can hit a plastic box and it won't break. What I hate most about these types of commercials is that it treats their customers like children, it is insulting really. Seriously, it reminds me of my grandma trying to get me to eat my vegetables when I was five years old.

Another commercial that committed suicide was, sadly an ad campaign that used to do it right. It is the most recent "Got Milk" commercial. I remember seeing Got Milk commercials when I was younger and being inspired by seeing athletes who I idolized drinking milk and getting that "stash". It was a brilliant concept, people could identify with their favorite athlete or celebrity. People would drink milk because people like Michael Jordan and Jennifer Aniston did. This new milk commercial however is just a disgrace to the Got Milk heritage. Here is the link to the new commercial. I don't know what was worse, the fact that the commercial made absolutely no sense or the lady making strange grunting noises as she is stuffing an omelet in a cup.

So next time you see a terrible advertisement, watch it and see what you can learn from it. Build a mental library of awful ads so that when you end up in the advertisement industry and someone proposes a less than ideal advertising campaign, you can help prevent another ad campaign from killing itself.