History Main / DadaAd

* The infamous K-Fee ads - peaceful setting followed by a sudden JumpScare of a zombie or gargoyle. And nobody knew what it had to do with a brand of coffee that nowadays is so obscure that finding it for sale online is less common than [=YouTube=] uploads of the ads themselves. It didn't help that some of the most popular uploads of the ads on [=YouTube=] have the tagline and K-Fee name removed, leading many to not even realize the videos were selling something in the first place.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLWWtgqDG2M This Dunlop ad]]-- 'cause nothing says 'tires' like the Velvet Underground and fat guys in nipple clamps.

* To promote Music/LickMyDecalsOffBaby, Music/CaptainBeefheart ran [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRlmTzDyw7s this ad.]] It has a person flicking a cigarette while "Woe-Is-uh-Me-Bop" plays, while an announcer names off locations and members of The Magic Band, before finishing on Captain Beefheart himself. After this, we are treated to silent shots of The Magic Band, wearing a dark mask around their heads, playing with kitchen utensils, before someone kicks a bowl of porridge in the middle of the road. The ad would later be banned from Metromedia owned stations and recieve complaints from viewers who found it disturbing.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF6PyIML0hI This commercial]] is filled [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter with extremely cute]] little bunnies [[TastesLikeDiabetes doing extremely cute things]] [[SugarBowl at an old-style fair while soothing music plays]]. As we see a pair of them rising up in a hot air balloon, a neon sign comes swings down from the sky and hits their balloon. It reads "SWEET MILLION IS SWEETER THAN SWEET", and then another which says, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment "WHICH IS SWEET"]] crashes into the first one. Yes, this sickeningly sweet commercial was made to sell ''lottery tickets''.

-->'''Rick''': Sex sells, Morty.
-->'''Morty''': Sex sells what? Was that a movie or, like, does it clean stuff?

** Alan Sugar once described this trope as one of his pet hates on ''Room 101'' so it's not surprising he would rule against ads using it. Although some of those ads were horrible anyway, like the already infamous Pantsman advert from series 5. An attempt to sell a cereal called Wake Up Call by advertising it as what you need to stop you [[WhatAnIdiot putting your pants on over your clothes]]. [[note]]Pants, in this case, meaning "underwear".[[/note]] And the mascot was Pantsman, a superhero who wears his pants over his clothes. The team {{Handwave}}d the FridgeLogic of this by saying only Pantsman can wear his pants over his trousers, [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing never mind that most kids view superheroes as role models and want to do what they do]]. Unsurprisingly, they lost and Philip, the creator of Pantsman, will most likely NeverLiveItDown. Because WhoWouldBeStupidEnough to design an advertising campaign based on pants?

* The [[UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn Saturn]] didn't fare much better, with the ads being very prone to not making much sense nor actually advertising the Saturn. While Sega eventually managed to stop making such commercials by the time of the "Hard Stuff" campaign, ''the'' prime example of this can be seen in the promotional video Sega produced to market the Saturn at launch in North America. While the video admittedly talks about the Saturn's features for most of the 9 minutes (yes, it's that long), that's to say nothing of what actually ''happens during the dialogue.'' Absolutely nothing makes sense, nor does it have anything remotely to do with the Sega Saturn, and it's one of the few of these ads that has to be seen to be believed. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pK5KsX3a0Y Words simply can't do it justice.]]

'''Lisa''': "Dad, was that your commercial?"\\
'''Homer''': [audibly distressed] "I don't know."

* Likewise, the crew of {{WesternAnimation/Futurama}} has a commercial made about their delivery service, but upon viewing the finished product (which is based on the 1984 Apple ad mentioned above) are baffled by the abstract imagery and conflicting messages.

* The Happy Socks commercial "[[https://youtu.be/u1E9jsbCDTI Happy Holidays]]" begins in a '50s diner, where one of the patrons, Charlie, shows off his polka-dotted socks. He proceeds to engage in some SpontaneousChoreography, with the diner's other patrons joining in. Eventually, they all dance in GoofyPrintUnderwear, also produced by Happy Socks. As everyone prances out of the diner, Charlie ends the commercial by floating into the sky. For additional weirdness, [[Creator/PedroPascal his actor]] is neither renowned for dancing, nor half-bad at it.

* The Happy Socks commercial "[[https://youtu.be/u1E9jsbCDTI Happy Holidays]]" begins in a '50s diner, where one of the patrons, Charlie, shows off his polka-dotted socks. He proceeds to engage in some SpontaneousChoreography, with the diner's other patrons joining in. Eventually, they all dance in GoofyPrintUnderwear, also produced by Happy Socks. As everyone prances out of the diner, Charlie ends the commercial by floating into the sky. For additional weirdness, [[Creator/PedroPascal his actor]] is neither widely known for dancing, nor half-bad at strutting.

-->'''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic:''' Yes. Apple will save us from the terrifying ''1984''-style future. [[SarcasmMode For as we can CLEARLY see today]], [[HypocriticalHumor no longer are people lined up like cattle for hours and hours on end! No longer will people dress alike in cold, colorless environments! No longer will any cultish-style groups gather together to honor a grand, controversial leader! And most importantly, no longer will we be brain-dead, lifeless zombies who plug ourselves into the machine of life we can also call "The System"!]] Thank you, Apple. You have done well."

* To promote Music/LickMyDecalsOffBaby, Music/CaptainBeefheart ran [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRlmTzDyw7s this ad.]] It has a person flicking a cigarette while "Woe-Is-uh-Me-Bop" plays, while an announcer names off locations and members of The Magic Band, before finishing on Captain Beefheart himself. After this, we are treated to silent shots of The Magic Band, wearing a dark mask around their heads, playing with kitchen utensils, before someone kicks a bowl of porridge in the middle of the road. The ad would later be banned from Metromedia owned stations and recieve complaints from viewers who found it disturbing

* Recent Skittles ads have gotten to be like this. One new one has a giraffe eating a rainbow while a Jamaican man milks the giraffe, but the "milk" that comes out is [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic Skittles]]. The man eats some, then laughs and goes back to milking the giraffe. What this has to do with Skittles, or why it would want to make you eat them, is anyone's guess.

'''Homer''': "I... don't know."

** Not even the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 was immune to this. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE_1BZZekIY "Play Fearlessly"]] has fantastical imagery of people escaping their everyday mundane lives accompanied a message about how player can overcome their fears in the world of PlayStation... but PlayStation itself isn't mentioned until the very end of the ad. [[https://www.thedrum.com/creative-works/project/bbh-ny-playstation-play-fearlessly The lack of PlayStation imagery was intentional]], but it'll still definitely confuse you the first time.

* Another [=PlayStation=] example: The American ad for ''VideoGame/UmJammerLammy'' depicted a car jumping a ramp and crashing into a pool at high speed, while listening to the Stage 4 music.
* Early UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 adverts were aiming to drive home the idea that the console will offer you ''all kinds'' of experiences. But perhaps the makers of those ads [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjySDiV6HbE overdid it...]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t10rdc_NIz4 slightly.]]
** The Creator/DavidLynch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Laf9vpJMDjA directed ad]] may just take the cake for most weird.
* U.S. and European ads for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 were notorious for this, even though they didn't create the furor that some UnfortunateImplications ads for Sony's previous systems did.
** The initial run of European adverts didn't even feature the name of the product, just the URL www.thisisliving.tv. As a result, many people assumed they were intended to advertise the satellite channel Living, especially as the content of the ads seemed to focus on some kind of SoapOpera.
** The [[UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable PSP]] got a similar treatment with these [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqHd4UysK9k squirrels]].
* Not even the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 was immune to this. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE_1BZZekIY "Play Fearlessly"]] has fantastical imagery of people escaping their everyday mundane lives accompanied a message about how player can overcome their fears in the world of PlayStation... but PlayStation itself isn't mentioned until the very end of the ad. [[https://www.thedrum.com/creative-works/project/bbh-ny-playstation-play-fearlessly The lack of PlayStation imagery was intentional]], but it'll still definitely confuse you the first time.

*** Most recently in line with the people exploding into Sprite, rapper drake was featured drinking Sprite to get re-energized. All well and good, until his skin pops open like panels on a robot as the soda travels through his system.

Compare GainaxEnding, WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs, WhatWereTheySellingAgain. Contrast ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, or at least the [[TropeNamer trope-naming]] Ronseal adverts. PerfumeCommercial is a subtrope.

Note ValuesDissonance can come into play here. What's confusing in some countries and regions is normal elsewhere, so examples of ads should make sure they're confusing in the region in which they are placed. Alternatively, they may have been trying to make a splash for their ad company and forgot about the client. A third possibility is that a bizarre ad may be less likely to be fast-forwarded through by DVR viewers, and well done ads of this type can be quite memorable if they somehow successfully manage to link the product to the ad.

* Parodied by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcY4lw6Hcwk a 2009 advert]] for Tesco's mobile phones, in which artistically-shot people say what they want from a mobile phone network in terms of IceCreamKoans and MeaninglessMeaningfulWords like "We want to live in a world where we communicate with everybody ... and nobody", before it ends with the dramatic music stopping dead, as the last person says "To be honest with you, I'd rather live in a world where people stopped talking nonsense", and explained what Tesco Mobile was actually offering.

* 2008 USA Presidential candidate Mike Gravel ran ads like this; one had him [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rZdAB4V_j8 standing by a lake before tossing a rock in and walking off]], another had him lighting a [[https://youtu.be/lRwizmuCnOw campfire]]. No one could figure it out, [[ShrugOfGod not even Gravel himself]]. It sure was creepy, though; [[Series/TheDailyShow Jon Stewart]] remarked that [[Literature/TheRing seven days after you view the ad, you will die]].

* Given the similarities between the aforementioned Dreamcast and the original UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}}, Microsoft ttok a page from Sega and created launch ads that made little to no sense. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP9XNzvmPIw Like the green sphere ones]] or [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF9K_GcgMo0 this strange thing]]. Thankfully they eventually began making ads that made sense.