History MisaimedFandom / Advertising

** Creator/SethMcFarlane says that he came up with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl_Ocg1Eoko this parody]] of the ads for ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' out of his sympathy for the rabbit: "I mean, they were ''his'' Trix".

** Creator/SethMcFarlane says that he came up with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl_Ocg1Eoko this parody]] of the ads for ''Series/FamilyGuy'' out of his sympathy for the rabbit: "I mean, they were ''his'' Trix".

** ''The Hunger Games'' makeup line from Covergirl was especially misaimed, given that Katniss never wore makeup on her own and hated wearing it in the Capitol since it was another opulent luxury (in her homeland of District 12, the people could barely afford food). Plus, ''Catching Fire'' was about Katniss helping to start a rebellion against the society wearing this sort of makeup.

* The Greek toy company "Jumbo" published some ads in the "Republic of Joy" series that "go against stereotypes with humor, gentleness and sudden truths". One such ad depicted a straight couple, and a gay one (with two men). However the point of the ad was missed, and [[InternetBackdraft the ad itself caused fireworks that could be seen from the moon]]. Many people took offense of the company depicting lesbians as normal people and even wanting Jumbo to apologize. It got to the point is that the company's head said the Greeks were spoiled because of the ad's reception.

* One anti-domestic violence campaign featured an ad with a male and female child. The boy says, "One day, I'll grow up to beat my wife", while the girl says, "One day, my husband will beat me to death." The ad was almost immediately latched onto by advocates of male domestic violence victims as a clear example of how the very ''existence'' male victims -- who make up between 48% and 52% of all domestic violence victims according to the Centers for Disease Control -- was regularly swept under the rug, much less the fact that they make up ''half'' of all domestic violence victims. The ad was yanked from billboards across the U.S. within two weeks of the beginning of the campaign it was meant for.

* The Advertising/TrixRabbit is one of the quintessential examples. In 1976, General Mills had a contest where kids were able to vote on the question "Should the Rabbit be able to eat some Trix?" Most of the responses were "Yes". They had a similar contest in 1990, with the same result. In the latter, however, it turned out to be AllJustADream.

* The Advertising/TrixRabbit is one of the quintessential examples. In 1976, General Mills had a contest where kids were able to vote on the question "Should the Rabbit be able to eat some Trix?" 99% of the responses were "Yes". They had a similar contest in 1990, with the same result. In the latter, however, it turned out to be AllJustADream.

* The Trix Rabbit is one of the quintessential examples. In 1976, General Mills had a contest where kids were able to vote on the question "Should the Rabbit be able to eat some Trix?" 99% of the responses were "Yes". They had a similar contest in 1990, with the same result. In the latter, however, it turned out to be AllJustADream.

** The commercials where a guy puts some body spray on, and becomes attractive to women. They have a large {{hatedom}} composed of the many people who ''keep thinking they're supposed to be serious in any way''.[[note]]Of course, there's as just a large a hatedom who thinks that, satirical or not, any ad campaign based on depicting women becoming uncontrollably sex-crazed upon smelling a cologne, is based on sexual objectification, whether it's meant to be humorous or not.[[/note]] Presumably, if most Axe brands didn't smell like rubbing alcohol and aerosol, or made their elements of satire clearer like in "Advertising/TheManYourManCouldSmellLike" Old Spice ads, there'd be fewer problems.
** The hatedom might not be people who take the ads seriously but rather a hatedom of Axe wearers who ''do'' seem to take the ads too much to heart and consequently drench themselves in the reeking stuff.

* The advertising onslaught for ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' included Burger King cups with the characters on them, and the slogan "Collect them all to unleash the power of the One Ring!" It's unknown whether Tolkien fans were headdesking harder at this or at the beautifully designed bookmarks that turned up everywhere with ''heavy, well-made, authentic-looking copies of the One Ring'' attached to them. All together now: The Lord of the Rings was the bad guy, people. Do not give evil dark forces to your kids to chew on.

** This also happened to Music/NeilYoung with his song "Rockin' in the Free World", which is about homeless people, drug addiction, babies stuffed into trash cans, and UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush ineffective rhetoric. Only the last verse, which references Rev. Jesse Jackson's "Keep Hope Alive" Presidential campaign, is hopeful. When UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump tried to use it for his campaign, Young [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UCrZbmATFo reacted with angry invective]].

* Sprite ran a TV campaign that poked fun at a fictional soft drink called "Jooky", intended to represent Sprite's competitors that relied more on flashy advertising gimmicks than taste. Audiences decided that Jooky looked like it would be more fun to drink than Sprite, and so the ads were withdrawn.

* A commercial for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 features Music/LouReed's "Perfect Day" being boisterously sung by two friends playing against each other while portraying various video game characters. "Perfect Day" is about heroin addiction. Then again, it could be unwittingly sending a message about [[AccidentalAesop how many people play video games for the same reason some drug addicts use heroin, out of loneliness and desperation and seeking escapism...]]

* UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} have an annual publication, ''Spinoff'', intended to show the general public "that 0.4% of your (American) tax dollar isn't wasted and is instead used to improve your life." The problem with this campaign is that almost no one outside of the space community knows about it (as evident by the writing style they aren't the target audience). On the off chance that the general public do reads a little bit, expect universal negative reactions regarding "NASA's waste of money". In addition, even during the Apollo Era, where tens of thousands of dollars were tossed into advertising, the public notion to abolish NASA has always being the majority -- over half.

** Many people didn't like "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads for the following reasons:

* Mattel used Scandinavian pop band Aqua's popular song "Barbie Girl", a satire of the culture surrounding Barbies (read: showing girls as spoiled, shallow slaves to fashion and money), to sell Barbie dolls.

*** This ad reinforced the stereotype that Mac users were snobbish elitists.

*** This ad reinforced the stereotype of Mac users as snobbish elitists.

** Zoloft ads featured a cute, depressed blob. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHG8cjI5B-w This one was even parodied]] in a ''Series/{{MADtv}}'' sketch.

* In Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads, many people thought that the Mac came across as an arrogant {{hipster}} jerk, whereas the PC was a [[TheWoobie cute, lovable loser]]. This was particularly notable in the UK, where the localized advertisements featured comedic duo Mitchell and Webb, who played a lovable loser and an arrogant jerk, respectively, in ''Series/{{Peep Show}}''.
** Particularly ironic since the Mac character is pretty close to what a Brit parody might seem like.
** Also, a good number of people dislike the commercial series because it was ''all'' about making the PC look bad. And they chose John Hodgman to play the PC as a whiny, oversized Bill Gates caricature. Problem is, Bill Gates and John Hodgman's PC are ''personally'' more charming and affable than Justin Long's Mac.
** This ad may have reinforced the stereotype of Mac users as snobbish elitists.
** Even Microsoft noticed this, and started making "I'm a PC" ads showing satisfied customers in a TakeThat to Apple. It worked well enough that MS is doing this even in ads not mentioning its competitor.
** Consider: if you interviewed these two men for a job, who would you hire? For that matter, who do you think you could stand talking to for more than thirty seconds?
** Another series of Mac commercials tried to play up how specialized a Mac could be. It contrasted a "typical" Mac user (read: artist) saying he would use a Mac for editing his pictures/music/what have you, with a "typical" PC user saying "boring" things like how he could use his PC for documents, and spreadsheets. The message was clearly ''intended'' to be "Buy a Mac and be a hip, unique artist!" The message that actually came across to viewers was, "Buy a PC, it has the stuff you're [[BoringButPractical actually going to use]]."
** Even the new PC commercials are using this by showing all the practical uses/features their tablet has that the iPad doesn't.

* The Mercedes-Benz car company has used JanisJoplin's anti-consumerist hippie-era song "Mercedes Benz" in a staggeringly large number of ads. That song is most definitely not in favor of Mercedes-Benzes.
** On a similar note, Mattel used Scandinavian pop band Aqua's popular song "Barbie Girl", a satire of the culture surrounding Barbies (read: showing girls as spoiled, shallow slaves to fashion and money), to sell Barbie dolls.
** Music/BruceSpringsteen's "Born in the USA," a song full of highly ambiguous and quite critical message about the unfulfilled promise of the American Dream and certainly not of uncritical super-patriotic themes, was adopted by political ads for many American right-wing politicians, including, most notably, UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan's 1984 reelection campaign. Springsteen was notably annoyed by this development.

* Be honest -- does anyone consider the Trix Rabbit a bad guy?
** In 1976, General Mills had a contest where kids were able to vote on the question "Should the Rabbit be able to eat some Trix?" 99% of the responses were "Yes". They had a similar contest in 1990, with the same result.
*** Although in 1990 it turned out to be AllJustADream. Why does General Mills hate the Trix Rabbit so much?

* The Axe/Lynx commercials where a guy puts some body spray on, and becomes attractive to women. They have a large {{hatedom}} composed of the many people who ''keep thinking they're supposed to be serious in any way''.[[note]]Of course, there's as just a large a hatedom who thinks that, satirical or not, any ad campaign based on depicting women becoming uncontrollably sex-crazed upon smelling a cologne, is based on sexual objectification, whether it's meant to be humorous or not.[[/note]] Presumably, if most Axe brands didn't smell like rubbing alcohol and aerosol, or made their elements of satire clearer like in "Advertising/TheManYourManCouldSmellLike" Old Spice ads, there'd be fewer problems.
** [[http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2010/10/axe-calls-out-old-spice-for-its-horse-fixation.html This ad has a billboard chastizing Old Spice, saying Axe is for men who would rather be with a woman than on a horse.]]

* UsefulNotes/NaziGermany once made a propaganda spot, ''Liese und Miese''.[[note]]Think about Goofus and Gallant, only with women instead and Nazi propaganda added.[[/note]] Liese was the good, pro-Nazi German woman; Miese [[MeaningfulName (meaning "the bad one" in German)]] would be lazy, talk with spies, listen to foreign radio broadcasts, be unpatriotic and so on. However, Miese's actresses, Brigitte Mira, made her character more likable.[[note]]Mira did this because unbeknownst to the Nazis, she was half-Jewish.[[/note]] The series was cancelled for being counter-productive.

* An episode of ''Series/TheGruenTransfer'' (a show about ads) mentioned how there was a serious problem with drug addicts stealing anti-drug posters to hang up on their wall because they thought they looked awesome and reminded them of drugs.
** In addition, Todd Sampson (an ad executive on the panel) once told a story about how he and some other ad people were doing surveys and talking to drug addicts as part of their research into anti-drug ad campaigns, and he said that the ice addicts thought the ads against ice were actually really cool and just made them want to take more ice.

* TV commercials for the anti-depressant Abilify feature a cartoon personification of a woman's depression, which is basically a pair of droopy eyes on a shapeshifting gray blob. It's the cutest depression ever!
** For that matter, Zoloft ads from a few years ago feature a similarly cute, depressed blob. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHG8cjI5B-w This one was even parodied]] in a ''Series/{{MADtv}}'' sketch.
** For that, the Abilify depression blob was replaced with an equally as [[http://image.cdn.ispot.tv/ad/7fla/abilify-terri-and-team-large-4.jpg cute depression pill]], YMMV if this was a good decision.

* When the film ''Film/TheHungerGamesCatchingFire'' came out, a number of companies tried to capitalize on the popularity of the franchise, including Subway ("Where victors eat!") and Covergirl with their [[http://www.seventeen.com/fashion/blog/covergirl-hunger-games-makeup-line Hunger Games makeup line]] ("Soon, you can look a little bit more like Katniss or your fave Capitol citizen!"). Remember that in the books and films, Katniss was made famous because she killed other teenagers in a sadistic gladiatorial game for the entertainment of a corrupt upper class. Ironically, the in-universe Capitol might have put out ads just like these, given the amount of popularity the victors had.

** There was at least one line of chocolate bars, which had twelve different flavours, one for each District. As in, the same Districts that are suffering from severe poverty and for the most part can barely feed themselves.
* UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} have an annual publication, ''Spinoff'', intended to show the general public "that 0.4% of your (American) tax dollar isn't wasted and is instead used to improve your life." The problem with this campaign is that almost no one outside of the space community knows about it (as evident by the writing style they aren't the target audience). On the off chance that the general public do reads a little bit, expect universal negative reactions regarding "NASA's waste of money".
** For that matter, even during the Apollo Era, where tens of thousands of dollars were tossed into advertising, the public notion to abolish NASA has always being the majority -- over half.

* One anti-domestic violence campaign featured an ad with a male and female child. The boy says, "One day, I'll grow up and kill her", while the girl says, "One day, he'll grow up and kill me." The ad was almost immediately latched onto by advocates of male domestic violence victims as a clear example of how the very ''existence'' male victims -- who make up between 48% and 52% of all domestic violence victims according to the Centers for Disease Control -- was regularly swept under the rug, much less the fact that they make up ''half'' of all domestic violence victims. The ad was yanked from billboards across the U.S. within two weeks of the beginning of the campaign it was meant for.

* In Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads, many people thought that the Mac came across as an arrogant {{hipster}} jerk, whereas the PC was a [[TheWoobie cute, lovable loser]]. This was particularly notable in the UK, where the localized advertisements featured comedic duo Mitchell and Webb, who played a lovable loser and an arrogant jerk, respectively, in ''Series/fPeepShow''.

* The Apple from the current Apple Jacks commercial used to be a DesignatedVillain, but the makers of the ads changed it due to feedback so that he and "Cinni-Mon" are [[FriendlyEnemy friendly enemies]] now.

* Currently in some states, there are anti-drunk driving [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHytr5GocwY commercials]] explaining how if you are drinking and driving, you ''will'' be caught and you ''will'' be arrested. In order to represent the drunk drivers, they have their cars/motorcycle helmets ''filled with alcohol'', so that opening the window/visor causes the beer (or wine or martini, depending on where they are in the socioeconomic ladder. The redneck had beer in his car, while the middle class guy had martini in his car, and the upper class guy had red wine) to spill out in a waterfall. It quite possibly may be the best anti-anything commercial ever because it is [[HilarityEnsues impossible to take]] [[{{Narm}} seriously]]. Not that drunk driving is something to be taken lightly - but good luck convincing anyone of that with these commercials. People who ''already know'' the dangers of drunk driving, who will probably point out, "Look at all the alcohol they wasted" or "The inside of that car is ''ruined''".

* In Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads, many people thought that the Mac came across as an arrogant {{hipster}} jerk, whereas the PC was a [[TheWoobie cute, lovable loser]]. This was particularly notable in the UK, where the localized advertisements featured comedic duo Mitchell and Webb, who played a lovable loser and an arrogant jerk, respectively, in ''PeepShow''.

* A commercial for the PlayStation4 features Music/LouReed's "Perfect Day" being boisterously sung by two friends playing against each other while portraying various video game characters. "Perfect Day" is about heroin addiction. Then again, it could be unwittingly sending a message about [[AccidentalAesop how many people play video games for the same reason some drug addicts use heroin, out of loneliness and desperation and seeking escapism...]]