Line #42 TotallyRadical/Advertising


1	* Back in the 90s, companies in general attempted to appeal to younger demographics by refreshing their mascots, turning them into rapping, skateboard-riding monstrosities. These mostly failed to capture their attention, and made older people think of mascots as incredibly silly, and mascots became limited to kid-targeted products (at least in the West, in Asia they are still ubiquituous).
2	%%* There's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00qaMs3025I this commercial]] for the Hardee's Little Thickburger. Presumably it was pulled fairly quickly.
3	* Creator/{{Sony}} was particularly bad about this with their Platform/PlayStationPortable advertising.
4	** An advertisement for the "Slim and Lite" revision of the PSP suggests that players can "put it where they like", which typically means "shove it up their ass". Sony seems to be getting annoyed at its customers.
5	** At one point, an incredibly poorly-disguised viral marketing campaign [[{{Astroturf}} attempting to masquerade as a fan website]] noted of the PSP, "I'd hit that." [[{{Squick}} Does it even have the right ports for that?]]
6	* Creator/DisneyChannel has been guilty of this twice:
7	** One ad encouraged people to stay for the upcoming shows, because after whatever was coming next, "Then it's off the heezy with ''WesternAnimation/TheProudFamily''."
8	** A promo for a Saturday night rerun block stated that the only thing better than [[Series/ShakeItUp shaking it up]] on live TV is "sharing it with your biffle". Your guess is as good as ours (it ''may'' be a failed attempt to phonetically pronounce "BFFL").
9	* Despite trying to win over -- presumably -- the kid demographic, consider how anachronistic the Creator/ChuckECheese mascot is with his depiction as a "[=Sk8r=]" boy, ''over'' a decade after that fad has run its course with young kids. The mascot originally started as a suspendered, straw-hatted barbershop-type performer, appeared in the 1980s as a skateboarding mouse, went out of style, then swerved right back into relevancy when the [=Sk8r=] boy image appeared, and is now fading back out of style -- all without any changes ever being made to the character itself. By the time skateboarding bert-slided itself back into relevancy again, it was in the form of [[DarkerAndEdgier edgy street skating]], and an edgy street skating Chuck. E. Cheese [[MoralGuardians probably wouldn't go over too well with the parents of most kids.]]
10	** One ad campaign has a child badly rapping over the beat to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h24_zoqu4_Q The Cupid Shuffle]] (which is only ever heard now at weddings alongside The Macarena and The Electric Slide), and then exclaiming that a thousand tickets is "like, a gazillion!"
11	** The [[http://screenmag.tv/story/2012/jun/29/9576/ July 2012 campaign]] reimagined the mascot as a CGI rocker with the voice of Music/BowlingForSoup's Jaret Reddick.
12	* Boost Mobile briefly retained a commercial gimmick which involved elderly people talking like teenagers. ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLLewkpKZNI One features an old black woman who uses street vernacular and says stuff like "Where you at?"]]; in another, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oaa37H9r-do an old white lady makes frequent usage of "like", "whatever" and "totally"]]; apparently, this commercial presumes that old [[TheGenerationGap Generation Gap]] stereotypes will die out, but ''racial'' ones never will.) Later referenced on the ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
13	-->'''Marge''': Yeah, I'll bet there'll be old people talking like young people, like those cell phone commercials everybody hates.
14	** Around the same time T-Mobile played it for laughs in somewhat a parody of "hip", "urban" mobile operators in their [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P78qyZJb16E Poser Mobile]] commercials. Five, well, posers in baggy pants with blings randomly interrupted people talking on their phones with "Poser Mobile says you're out of prepaid minutes, yo".
15	-->'''Person''': I've just bought minutes!
16	-->'''Poser''': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4AWazJ3FsM Fees, shorty, fees!]]
17	%%* This [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFWR5DtYMgg Hubba Bubba commercial]]; note the AlphaBitch-sounding voice at the closer.
18	%%* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nIUcRJX9-o This commercial]] for Cingular. It's been argued that it's intentional irony; this does not prevent it from being very annoying. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySR3hpieiQc A later commercial]] combined it with the "[[CoolOldGuy hip grandma]]". It was parodied with [[http://www.rustywalrus.com/view.php?id=199 this comic]].
19	%%* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRYtx_zO394 This commercial]] for Schick Quattro parodies this and mixes it with SophisticatedAsHell.
20	%%* What happens when a cell-phone advertisement becomes a big hit, but ad execs don't fully get the joke? Apparently, teenage girls talking to one another in textspeak... face-to-face.
21	* Parodied in a series of Volkswagen commercials which would end with a grey-haired, thickly accented Peter Stormare "un-pimping" someone's ride...which is a fancy way of saying "trashing it in spectacularly hilarious fashion (and replacing it with a sober, sensible VW)."
22	-->'''German Guy:''' Yo, Mike, you vant us to un-pimp zis ting, let me hear you say 'vhat'?
23	-->'''Mike:''' What?
24	-->''Car is launched from trebuchet''
25	* The Cliff's Notes banner ads, some of which were, at the time of writing, visible on this very site. Among their misinterpretations of textspeak are spelling "who" as "hoo", a ''Zero Wing'' reference, and the mystifying term "xcore" (which is possibly "score" spelled with XtremeKoolLetterz). Xcore sometimes means "hardcore."
26	* Gas stations advertising "We got the hooch" after the popular '90s song.
27	* EA's [[http://kotaku.com/5010047/skate-2-teaser-might-be-doing-it-wrong initial teaser]] for ''Skate 2'' announced "We're dropping the deuce." While this can be read as "releasing #2", its slang meaning is "taking a shit".
28	* Parodied in an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk8QN7NCiTg Aim Trimark ad]], where some executives, upon being told that their new shoe design is "sick", take most of the commercial to puzzle over whether or not that's a compliment. Then the Aim Trimark guy comes and says that he's not going to invest your money in a company run by these idiots.
29	* "It's ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' and it's really rad! Those monsters from Gannon are pretty bad! [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNtuK4CU3ko Octoroks, Tektites and Leevers too, but with your help our hero pulls through!]]" ''For the Nintendo Entertainment System, Your parents help you hook it up.'' [[note]]"Hook up" back then simply meant to connect the console to your television set. [[HaveAGayOldTime The phrase wouldn't pick up its sexual connotations for another decade or so.]][[/note]]
30	* Smokey Bear:
31	** A billboard ad for forest fire safety: "Get Your Smokey On", making it sharing a sign with an anti-drug ad more hilarious.
32	** Defied in [[https://youtu.be/toah4rguQMw this PSA.]] Smokey tries his hand at this as rapper "Smokey B," but couldn't continue because he didn't feel comfortable spreading his message that way. So he takes off his rapper outfit, dons his traditional hat, and gives his message the way he knows best.
33	* A sign for youth sports that says "Be a Playa". While it obviously was meant to say "Be a player of sports!", what it actually said was "Have promiscuous sex!"
34	* In 1968, Creator/ColumbiaRecords ran a notorious ad in ''Rolling Stone'' showing a bunch of picket sign-toting young radicals in a jail cell with the caption "But The Man can't bust our music." For extra hilarity, the albums shown in the ad are all ''ClassicalMusic.'' (Wendy Carlos' early electronica ''Switched-On Bach'' was a bit more far out then.)
35	* In a commercial for Lunchables' newest product, "[[XtremeKoolLetterz Wrapz]]", three kids lousily rap about the wrap. Possibly intentional, but still full of fail, and with slang like "A'ight" pronounced "Ah-Ite.".
36	* An Australian example for a rather mediocre car combines this with BuffySpeak, explaining that the Holden Astra "has extra features to an exclamation mark".
37	* A poster advertising the Slush Puppies sold there. The right side of the poster is a generic image of some Slush Puppie cups, but the left side is in a league of its own. It consists of three open cell phones with text messages on them. They read, in order, [="LuVN DA CHiLLLLLLLLLLLL TASTe and FLAVZZZzzzzzzz" "REal FRUIT JUICE ITS GOT VITA C!!!!!!!!" and "GOTTA GET A SLUSH PUPPIE PLUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"=]
38	* The similar Icee cold drink at some point replaced its [[http://www.iceedistributors.com/iceebear.gif old bear logo]] with a [[http://www.oocities.org/televisioncity/4369/ICEE_bear.gif snowboarding one]], and its current slogan (at least at Burger King franchises that sell it as of 2013) is "CHILL OUT WITH UR FAV FLAV."
39	* Similarly, Big Daddy Pizza posters saying {{Narm}}ful things like "Every other slice is a sliver", "Wanna Piece of Me?", and "Show Your Hunger Who's Boss".
40	* An ad for Advertising/{{Progressive}} seems to be an inversion. Flo, the company's mascot and resident GenkiGirl tries helping out an elderly customer who uses outdated slang from the mid 20th Century. Needless to say, she has no idea what he's talking about.
41	* There is a German PSA about hepatitis that features a hip-hoppin' syringe (filled with a hepatitis vaccine), singing about using it to protect yourself. Yes, it's as bad as it sounds.
42	%%* ''Monster'' energy drinks. '''Just look at the can's description.'''
43	* Special mention must be made of K-Mart's Back to School 2009 ads; not one but two horrendous pseudo-slang words that no decent human being will ever utter without monetary compensation: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdfaLGUvD7s "Blingitude"]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3_FinnaHoU "Rockstare".]]
44	%%* Parodied in this Tim Horton's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW-bomqZ3Lw Steeped Tea commercial]].
45	* UsefulNotes/McDonalds
46	** The phrase "Maccy D's" as a nickname.
47	** The [=McWorld=] kid-targeted campaign from the early to mid 90's, which had the theme of "a world run by kids". The commercials depicted very stereotypical kid-instigated changes, with the big one being [=McDonalds=] food and restaurants becoming the centerpiece of the world. Mind you: This was the decade before ''Film/SuperSizeMe'' premiered.
48	** A short lived banner ad, apparently intended to appeal to the "urban demographic" (read: black people) had the brilliant dialogue: "Double cheeseburger? I'd hit it". That does not mean [[AccidentalInnuendo what they think it does]].
49	* Wendy's jumped on the bandwagon in the 2010's with their ad telling customers to "Do a spicy chicken sandwich." It has a "memer" praise the sandwich with "Eat spicy goodness [[MemeticMutation LIKE A BOSS,]]" as well as a bunch of girls taking "selfies" of their sandwich. The last guy is a "behind the timeser" who uses outdated slang like "da bomb" and "raise the roof," and everybody looks at him like he's lame.
50	* A TV ad for the UsefulNotes/GameGenie in the late '80s featured a pair of Bill-and-Ted-soundalikes and opened with the phrase "Yo video game dudes, talk to me!"
51	%%* The description for this Creator/{{Atari}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qAadfsJrmM=related ad]] explains everything.
52	* An ad for an electronic diary for girls has one girl saying "And you can plug in your Platform/MP3 for ''major tuneage!''
53	* In Italy they started adding in the buses ads reminding people to leave your seat to elder people. One of them just says "Be polite - leave your seat", while the other one says "leaving your seat is TOTALLY RAD!"
54	* Not only is [[https://66.media.tumblr.com/1e0800e00d44337020ee0f26946b3276/tumblr_nhisv1cqlu1sy3tjvo1_400.jpg this 1983 comic book ad from Parker Brothers]] a nearly-perfect example of the trope, it was a trend-setter, as to this day, the ginchiest teens totally dig board game adaptations of arcade classics.
55	* A UK Pizza Hut billboard gives customers the instruction "Max Your Chat", leaving most people over the age of 0 utterly baffled.
56	* As if Ovaltine's advertising were [[BrainBleach not bad enough]], there were a series of ads featuring [[ThisIsWrongOnSoManyLevels Radio Ovaltine]], which was basically run entirely by kids using "radical" lingo and playing nothing but the Ovaltine jingle sung by different kids, each one in a different style. Each performance was followed with the kid DJ saying something along the lines of "Totally radical!"
57	* Old Israeli toy and game advertisements frequently used the word ''madlik'' (מַדְלִיק), a ‘90s word for ‘cool’, entirely obsolete in modern Hebrew.
58	* The [[http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm official website]] for ''Film/SpaceJam'' has this gem:
59	-->''Click above to find out more about our sponsors and the various hip sites that make WB Online the jammin' place that it is.''
60	* A 2011 ad for the new Hot Pastrami melt from Subway claims it has [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMKWmU4_YGE power chords of tasteocity]]. If you were to say "Power chords of tasteocity" in conversation, people would probably assume you're having a stroke.
61	* For more Subway slang fail, there's one ad, in their long-running "fast-food will make you a fat slob" campaign, in which a burger combo is stated as giving someone a "badonkadonk butt". Three things: 1. Fast food ''wouldn't'' give you a badonkadonk butt, as it connotes a big, ''shapely'' butt, not a flabby one; 2. Badonkadonk is usually used ''positively''; 3. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking The phrase "badonkadonk butt" is redundant.]]
62	* There was a hilarious(ly awful) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohr0bZ_WWFQ Duncan Yo-Yo commercial]] made in 1994 that showed two different kids: One was a stereotypical nerd sitting on a chair in his living room playing a Sega Genesis (with [[PacManFever Atari 2600 sound effects]], of course) and a stereotypical [[TwoDecadesBehind cool kid]] with a backwards baseball cap "enthusiastically" playing with a Duncan Yo-Yo. The commercial ends with the kid saying, "You want speed, action and excitement? Get a Yo-Yo!"
63	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCwn1NTK-50 This ad]] for the boardgame Crossfire is an interesting variation. How do corporate advertising geniuses imagine a future that would appeal to the target audience (pre-teens and teens) while also promoting their new product? By showing kids in leatherjackets playing the game like a Rollerball/Thunderdome-style deathmatch of gladiatorial combat (the loser spins into oblivion), surrounded by their cheering fans, while a cool hard rock song is playing in the background. [[http://cinemassacre.com/2009/07/27/board-james-3-crossfire/ The Angry Video Game Nerd even made a video about it (as his alternate persona Board James)]]
64	%%* The Hi-C commercials from the mid-1990's that contrasted kids and adults (right down to an adult's idea of a Hi-C commercial vs. a kid's idea).
65	* The commercials for Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats that ran in the early-mid 1990's, such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hib06O5yDrA this one]], which showed conflict between the kids' love of the frosting (with bad "heavy metal" music in the background) and the adults' love of the whole wheat (with boring "adult music" playing in the background). Noticing a chronological pattern here?
66	%%* Creator/{{Nickelodeon}}'s infamous "Don't Forget About Breakfast Time" animated rap video. Along with their "democracy" video.
67	* Advertisements for YoungAdult novels can fall into this, especially those done by Fierce Reads. Take, for example, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiSWgzz9dJU this]] oppressively {{narm}}y ad, complete with the most banal attracting phrases and a stereotypically pop song about the joys of reading. There's not much else that could make a 16-year old ''not'' want to read.
68	* A '90's Pepsi commercial tried to convey that Pepsi drinkers are cooler than Coke drinkers by giving Coke to a group of teenagers and Pepsi to a group of senior citizens. The result was that the teenagers took to sitting around playing chess, while the seniors began skateboarding and dancing. The last scene showed an elderly man taking a swig of Pepsi and proclaiming, "This stuff is really radical!"
69	* The Burger King Kid's Club commercials of the mid-90's (again: noticing a common time frame here?) were particularly JustForFun/{{egregious}} examples. Their spokesperson was a "cool kid" with all the necessary "makings" of one (shades, a greaser jacket, a backwards baseball cap, etc.). The commercials themselves often depicted kids doing everything from playing in rock bands to being disgusted by their relatives just for showing them affection.
70	* Quaker Oats tried to reach the young crowd in the mid-90's with its "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDVHD2wvweI What's Hot, What's Not]]" commercials, using footage of hip young athletes and rock stars to show that their instant oatmeal was cool, and showed old timey things to prove that regular cold cereals were lame. It never seemed to occur to the advertisers that by their own logic, the portly, old, 18th Century Quaker Oats guy on the box would fall firmly into the "not" category.
71	* Honey Nut Cheerios, during the early/mid-90's, attempted to market their cereal to a younger demographic by ditching the warm and friendly tone of their 80's commercials for a more [[MascotWithAttitude hip and edgy]] style: they retooled Buzz Bee into an arrogant JerkAss who talked like [[WesternAnimation/{{Doug}} Roger Klotz]] and challenged people (including [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDDP9OXF354 Sonic The Hedgehog]]) to races, with a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios as the prize. The retool didn't sit well with audiences, and by about 1995, Buzz Bee was given a much nicer personality akin to the 80's.
72	* A particularly egregious example was a commercial for Twix that aired in early-1997. Its jingle went like this: "Some people like... peace and quiet" ::cue four shushes:: "... and some people like things to be LOUD! LOUD! LOUD! LOUD!" ::cue some stereotypical mid-90's grunge/alternative music:: The shortened version of this commercial was even weirder, with the lyrics going: "There once was a boy... who wanted everything... to be LOUD! LOUD! LOUD! LOUD!"
73	* Creator/CartoonNetwork seems to think the way to relay a message to 2010s kids about bullying is with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZUYEUtOIRg painfully bad hip-hop]] that wouldn't have been "cool" even in 1991.
74	* {{Invoked\|trope}} for humor by Sprint with their 2013 commercials featuring Creator/JamesEarlJones and Creator/MalcolmMcDowell. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmUMg8r6ShQ Totes magotes!]]
75	* A 2014 American Family Insurance Teen Safe Driver Program radio advertisement in Northern Colorado has the female teen narrator use "like" with the frequency of an article. Her friends suggest going to "the mall" as she now has her license, which is a radical idea... for 1995.
76	* Advertisements for ''VideoGame/AlfredChicken'' were full of radical slang, making the game seem much edgier than it was.
77	-->"''Are you ready to play the ultimate game of chicken?''"
78	%%* The entirety of this Franchise/{{Barbie}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtOR9ghSKx8 promotional video from 1989...]] featuring Music/PaulaAbdul.
79	* Vitamin Water does this a lot, with one notable ad referring to "zero [[SadTrombone womp-womps]]". They also awkwardly put regional references in their ads, telling Philly residents to "get that jawn" (Philly slang that's basically a placeholder for any noun).
80	* The infamous {{Franchise/Transformers}} Generation 2 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h18AG_Y33CY commercial]] for the Aerialbot and Combaticon action figures referred to Combaticon leader Onslaught as "a metamorphing dudicus." Nobody has ever quite been able to figure out exactly what that is.
81	* {{Invoked\|trope}} with [[https://twitter.com/keeblerelves Keebler's Twitter account]], which features the Keebler Elves trying to keep up with current social media trends and falling short.
82	--> "Keebler elves. Cookies, they know. Social media, not so much."
83	* A 2017 advertisement from {{Creator/Nintendo}} invites players to "find totally tubular offers for the Virtual Console".
84	* Spoofed with the Sprite soda "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peqZPb3oi50 What is Cool?]]" commercial from 1994, where a teenage boy on the street wonders how he should try to be like one of the "cool" stereotypes, with amusing results.
85	* This was parodied in one commercial for the Advertising/SeattleMariners baseball team, in which, at the advice of a PR person, "Old School Kyle Seager" re-invented himself as K-Swag, a jewelry-wearing, slang-spouting walking stereotype.
86	* Toys/{{Bionicle}}'s world mostly takes place in a reasonably serious LowCultureHighTech fantasy world, but when it came time to show off the Piraka (a group of villains who took the form of an evil gang), they decided to advertise them the only way such a group could be advertised... with a rap song. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1CTPC02n0c YO YO, PIRAKA!]]
87	* AOL News and Joyus, has clickbaity article: "Star Wars fans will flip out over this collector's edition gift", in which fans "flipping out" is supposed to be a good thing.
88	* ''Advertising/AbsolutelyRoseStreet'' is a 1994 {{infomercial}} meant to advertise the Platform/SegaGenesis' 32X add-on. It has a very mid-1990s South California aesthetic. Max, the "cool" hot-shot main male with a backward baseball cap and earrings, is the most blatant example.
89	* The Advertising/ViveSinDrogas ad campaign from Mexico features a flower who raps about how DrugsAreBad. Predictably, the rap contains radical-type dialogue (for example, at one point the flower says "If they offer you drugs, they will tell you that it feels really ''padre''", with "padre" [Spanish for "father"] being a common slang word for "cool" in Mexico).
90	* One of the advertisements for Creator/DisneyXD's anime block is "Anime: It's not about being {{otaku}}. It's about being you". "Otaku" isn't really a positive term and most people would say "an otaku".
91	* In TheNineties there was a Dutch ad campaign to keep kids from smoking. Since SmokingIsCool they tried to showcase that cool people don't smoke. What the makers of these ads thought kids considered cool included: a waiter urinating in somebody's bottle of "apple juice", a guy punching his own father in the face for no reason whatsoever and another guy who made his mother believe his father had cheated on her and messing up their marriage ForTheEvulz. After performing these outrageous acts, the character would always turn to the camera and say: "Hey, but I don't smoke." Let's just say the campaign was controversial.

Context TotallyRadical / Advertising