Discussion Horrible / Advertising

Have we talked about adding the "Augment your Pre-Order" promotion for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided? It was cancelled after severe backlash from gamers and press, given how it amplified every criticism people have about pre-order bonuses.

Does anyone think that the announcement trailer for the 2022 Saints Row reboot should qualify here? It garnered a lot of controversy due to the way Volition marketed it, touting the reboot as a return to the series' roots (by having the Saints Row website turn into a brick wall that got slowly covered in graffiti in the days leading to the trailer's premiere), only for the trailer to show the exact opposite. The trailer has a massive amount of dislikes and tainted the game for many people.

Should we add the ads for the Mexican banking service Nipper? These ads are not only infamous for the snake with a girl's head which scared the viewers, but their other ads have little to no relation to the product. It seems they tried to imitate the weirdness of Japanese ads given that the service was aimed at a young otaku audience.

Should we add the infamous 2019 trailer for the now-cancelled Commander Keen mobile game revival? The trailer garnered so much backlash that the game was cancelled, and Bethesda removed all official traces of its existence. Even worse was when the gameplay was revealed and the controls are extremely unintuitive. Fans complained about the following:

• It had a Thin-Line Animation art style that many fans derided as too far off from the original aesthetic of the DOS games, as well as being generally seen as ugly.
• The franchise was dormant for far too long, so a reboot in the form of a Mobile Phone Game was seen as a slap to the face, considering the unpopularity of mobile games.
• It had a very Audience-Alienating Premise: longtime fans were furious that a mobile game would be the long-awaited return of Commander Keen, while casual mobile gamers were generally unfamiliar with the franchise. Adults found the art style far too cartoony and childish to be appealing (especially for the very '90s Commander Keen), but despite the generally kid-oriented style and humour of the trailer, there are some baffling instances of Demographically Inappropriate Humor in the trailer song ("Get Uranus to Mars" and "Don't give a f***") that would generally not be accepted in an E or even E10+ game in 2019.

As written, the Alliance Defending Freedom example sounds like a violation of “offensive ≠ horrible”.

Here’s one to keep an eye on. Tesco has put out an advert for its Clubcard loyalty scheme in which Clubcard users’ faces morph into hideous Cheshire Cat Grins after saving money on their shopping. The reaction from viewers has been almost universally negative (some have called it “creepy” and “terrifying” while others have compared it to Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” video) and, as of 14 March, 58 complaints have been made to the Advertising Standards Authority.

Think we should include the Velma ads that have been displayed on YouTube so far? Many people have shown that they genuinely dislike the show for the targeted Take That! offenses they've done thus far to their potential audience and the general Narm they have to the scenes shown beyond the general ideas of Scooby-Doo with some race swapping in mind and in a more mature rated setting has caused quite the stir online in places like the aforementioned YouTube and Twitter, with I believe both trailers in question (the opening reveal trailer and the general trailer that gives more information away to the public) currently being stuff that people are unable to comment on directly, which is always a great sign for things to come!

MySpecialDates and LoveForHeart should get a mention, due to scam-advertising dates with Ukrainian women, while the country is at war and seeking refuge. Now, that's what I call bad timing. I have compiled some examples on what those ads look like here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10juTFF7xjuSNgOWOchyeTyhIpb_3p3ED?usp=sharing

Could one add the Evertale ads because they are misleading (where's the promised Pokémon creepypasta?) or would you say "'misleading' and what army?? What else is there?"

Do you guys think we should include this ad from this smartphone game called Prehistoric Era: 10,000 B.C. here? This ad just straight up showcases a caveman knocking multiple women unconscious, raping them, and then wanting to continue his deviant desires before he notices it's a woolly mammoth for the final attempt and instead of being killed by it, it's implied that he gets raped by the woolly mammoth instead. I don't even know who the fuck thought that was an okay thing to show for an advertisement at all! Vinesauce covered it in this video here, being shocked by the ending in particular.

And on that note, plenty of other smartphone ads shown in that second video (i.e., the ones that wouldn't qualify for the So Bad, It's Good page like the ape game ad shown earlier in the video) I linked here probably should qualify also, such as the nasty foot fetish ad shown after the Prehistoric Era: 10,000 B.C. ad.

I think there are some ads worth mentioning in the page:

• Simply Piano/Guitar ads.
• Future Evony fake gameplay ads (Eg: A person in the ad says "Are you annoyed over those ads? Well, I found the perfect game! That's right, this is the exact same game that was found in the ads.")
• AFK Arena IRL ads (EG: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSau01OUnRZf1KkOxpvLGOK7hwNfYwwup (Watch 1 and 2.))

Considering Google Stadia's going to be dead soon, I think we can safely say that the Google Stadia ads for it might count here.

Classic suggestion: the Apple "Lemmings" commercial. A failed follow-up to the famous "1984" ad, it got backlash for being incredibly bleak (depicting its consumers as blind Suicidal Lemmings) and the product it was advertising (Macintosh Office) wasn't even ready to ship until 1987. They didn't go back to Super Bowl ads until 1999.

It might be too early to tell if it qualifies for this page, but the Mehmet Oz "crudités" video might be a candidate for this page. It's already being portrayed as a failed attempt at being relatable to voters, Wegners went trending on Twitter, and his opponent John Fetterman claimed he raised $500k since the video went viral. That being said, it's still an active election race as of writing, so it might be also wise to wait and see.

With regards to "Piracy. It's a crime", it may have to be rewritten to remove the "used stolen music" part, as it's been claimed since 2017 that this story is actually about a different anti-piracy PSA. Might be something to look at.

Can we consider Mark Zuckerburg's introduction of the "Metaverse" from his November 2021 presentation on it as a potential candidate? I've noticed ever since his Metaverse presentation, Facebook, I mean "Meta" has taken a significant dip downward in terms of its reputation. Plus Mark continues to be as stiff as ever with himself. Not to mention the way it was presented just felt like VR Chat with extra steps or even a VR downgraded version of Second Life.

I feel as though Cryptoland's presentation should be on here, but I'm not sure if it's placed more for Web Ads or Promotions. This video that got Cryptoland into some serious trouble was definitely fit for a promotion at hand, but the more official version that still remains uploaded onto Cryptoland's YouTube channel feels more like it's properly placed for the Web Ads section.

I think the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser trailer has a good chance of qualifying. It received so much backlash for being cringeworthy and making the hotel look cheap that it was deleted. It has even been speculated that the trailer was unappealing enough to make people cancel their reservations.

So now what do we do in regards to YouTube's stupid decision to remove dislikes as of late? With the way we know dislikes can help understand people's displeasure, do we have to go back to looking at a majority of comments to find awful advertisements again?

I notice that several of these campaigns were not horrible per se, but ended up disastrous thanks to being victims of their own success through attendance/demand going way over predictions.

I think those would warrant their own section on the page.

Where do things like the Fortnite MLK event or the recent Cinderella traffic stall go?

The sad thing is with the first one is I could see it working in a HEAVILY moderated game like VR Chat, Minecraft or such. Not Fortnite.

Would the Chips Ahoy! Imposter ad be worthy of going here? The official upload of it has 3.1k likes as opposed to 7.1k dislikes and the top comments are negative towards it.

Here's a link to the ad in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReT3KhB54Vo

So Netflix released a trailer for this new series called Q Force, which got thrashed by the internet almost instantaneously. It gained 11,000 dislikes to 3,500 likes within a day, likely due to an offensive premise and a lack of self-awareness. Should we add it now or is it too early to tell?

Entry ideas I came across:

• The Pacific Airlines print ad by Stan Freberg. Apparently it's regarded as one of the worst advertising decisions of all time, basically reminding airline passengers of how terrifying it is to fly a plane, and its failure cost the ad execs their jobs and got Freberg fired.
• This campaign for the film A Cure for Wellness which just posted entirely made-up news stories about Trump and other highly contentious subjects just to get people to click on the headlines and get redirected to the website. The fake news barely had anything to do with the movie.

Burger King started a campaign both in print and online today on International Women's Day proclaiming that "Women belong in the kitchen", before trying to pull a bait and switch and say that they're trying to achieve gender equality in their kitchens by giving women more opportunities to work there. As expected there was some heavy backlash and Burger King eventually apologized.

That being said, is this suitable for this page? Obviously it caused some big outrage and forced BK to apologize, but BK did have a small group of defenders who tried to point out the other tweets.

Been thinking of adding the Truth Campaign's infamous "Smoking Memes" PSA to the page. Here's a draft:

• The anti-smoking Truth campaign has always been pretty contentious, but "Smoking Memes" is probably their most universally reviled PSA. The message is that just because you only smoke "socially" doesn't make it any less addictive or unhealthy - which is a fine message, to be clear. The problem is that it's delivered in the most grating and asinine way possible: namely, with faded Vine stars and outdated meme characters shouting, "IT'S A TRAP" at partygoers while crappy EDM blares in the background. The most viewed upload of the ad (linked above) currently sits at 1.5k likes compared to 8k dislikes.

Does "Introducing Team Siren" qualify? Almost everyone seems to think it's cringeworthy.

• Team Siren, an ill-fated all-female League of Legends team, tried to make a good first impression with their introduction video Introducing Team Siren. Unfortunately, it backfired. The video oversells their skills and promotes them as the first all-female team, which is incorrect. The attempts at seriousness come across as fake and corny, with two of the more infamous moments being the pointless shooting range scenes (clearly a forced attempt to make them look badass) and the cheesy scene where Solvanas says she'll "bait you and outsmart you" before moving a chess piece. Even the girls themselves dislike the video.

Edit: Does this count as a promotion so it can go here, or is it still a web video (a type of media that has been banned from the Horrible namespace)?

Something about the Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE entry doesn't seem right to me. I can't quite put my finger on why, but it just feels...off, for lack of a better term.

(Also, the fact you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom to add a new post bugs the heck out of me.)

Does that recent Grubhub dancing ad qualify? It’s been a very frequent source of ridicule and derisive memes as of late but I’m not sure if it’s bad enough.

I'm very confused by the entry for "Dicks Against a Sexist Dick". Conflating a president's belief that abortion should be illegal with attempting to make abortion illegal doesn't seem like much of a stretch, and there certainly are plentiful accusations of Trump packing courts, so that doesn't seem particularly unusual. I do not see the "hypocrisy" in complaining about pay discrepancies while destroying currency, nor do I see how the legality of the latter is relevant. And, uh, "the sexual objectification of men" is not a serious issue, especially when it's being used to criticize the actual problem of sexual objectification of women. Can somebody who's seen the ad in question please rewrite the entry so it actually makes sense, or, if it doesn't really belong, remove it?

I'd like to pitch the following ads for inclusion.

• Irish bookmaker site Paddy Power not only making light of disgraced sprinter Oscar Pistorius's murder trial, but actively trying to profit off of it by offering to refund bets if he was found not guilty (spoiler alert: he wasn't). This resulted in a record 5,525 complaints made to the ASA, every single one of which was upheld.

• Apple automatically adding U2's Songs of Innocence onto millions of peoples' libraries without their consent. Those who had auto-download enabled had the album added to (and later pointlessly taking up space on) the device itself. Bono's reputation as a self-obsessed "capital-A Artist" was further exacerbated and the stunt was met with widespread public derision as Apple initially offered no real way to delete the album rather than just hiding it. This also ate into the album’s commercial and critical reception: Songs of Innocence became the band’s lowest debuting album on the UK rock charts in 33 years (peaking at #6 and lasting only nine weeks on the charts) and while the reviews spoke of an album that was decent-at-best for a band of U2’s caliber, it’ll more than likely be remembered for its incredibly botched marketing campaign.

• Spotify promoting Drake's 2018 album Scorpion by plastering Drake's image on almost every single editorial playlist, including ones he doesn't even appear on like ambient, EDM, and gospel.◊ Worse yet, the aggressive marketing campaign even made its way to Spotify Premium, a service people pay for to NOT see ads. The outrage led to many angry Spotify users grilling the company on social media, with one Reddit user requesting (and eventually receiving) a refund.

• Rax's Mr. Delicious: an ad campaign so bad it essentially tanked an entire company. In a hare-brained attempt to recoup their dwindling consumer base, roast beef restaurant chain Rax ran a series of commercials featuring their new mascot, Mr. Delicious, an awkward, middle-aged, down-on-his-luck animated sales representative who does little more than monotonously drone on about the supposed benefits of eating at Rax. While likely a Ur-Example of "weird brand Twitter", especially in regards to the character's approach to deadpan humor bordering on anti-humor, these ads, coupled with the dumbed-down new slogan “You can eat here”, were nonetheless a transparently half-assed attempt at upselling the already waning fast-food chain with tired "take my wife... please!" humor that 1.) had very little to do with the product they were advertising and 2.) even at the time was considered passe.

• Green Day's "NO FEATURES..." billboard used to promote their 2020 album, Father of All Motherfuckers. What was most likely meant as a lighthearted jab at mainstream pop music was instead widely◊ chided◊ for◊ coming across like a severe case of Were Still Relevant Dammit by way of played-out retro rockist snobbery.

Should this be added? It seems to have many things in common with the ads shown on this page. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV6J5jlticg)

Since there are three examples for movie posters now, should they get their own folder?

Would the trailers for "Star Trek Lower Decks" and "Hoops" qualify.

The former received so much backlash that the Likes and Comments are disabled on the official trailer. The show got OK reviews from critics (not from audiences) and was renewed for a second season.

As for Hoops, most of the comments are accusing it of being a Rick and Morty clone. Unlike Lower Decks, Hoops was lambasted (It might even qualify for Horrible Western Animation)

That's all. Any comments?

Netflix is trying to make an NC-17 French movie appeal to.... some group..,. https://twitter.com/miggsboson/status/1296495374056775688?s=20

Would this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAP1HrUZmAU) be qualified for this page or just plain old Were Still Relevant Dammit?

Can we include sports promotions that went wrong (Cleveland Indians' "Ten Cent Beer Night", Chicago White Sox' "Disco Demolition Night.")? Maybe just limit to the more notable ones where things got out of hand and not just things like "free giveaway of crappy little trinkets."

Watch this space https://slate.com/culture/2020/07/walt-disney-world-reopens-florida-coronavirus-welcome-home-video-inspires-parodies.html?via=rubric_recirc_recent

You think Voodoo's tasteless Ball Shoot ad was bad? Ketchapp made a similar style of ad for their Basket Dunk 3D game and they put "Are you retarded" as their caption.

I am not making this up: https://www.reddit.com/r/mobilegameads/comments/fnbg38/are_they_allowed_to_put_that/

Think you can give another mobile developer their spot here?

Should there be a mention for anti smoking/vaping advertisements (The Real Cost and Truth being sone of the more notable offenders)? Most of these often resort to grossout or potentially triggering imagery of the harmful effects of smoking amd vaping...

I'd say that Mike Bloomberg's anti-Trump billboards should get a mention, probably after the democratic primaries (or, if he gets the candidacy, the 2020 election) wrap up. They're incredibly childish ad hominems that have been mocked and edited to criticize Bloomberg, and it's likely that they hurt his campaign more than helped.

How about "The Memesteins" Xfinity ad? It has a lot of the same shortcomings of the Wendy's example, albeit shorter, and it was apparently taken down by the original company for reasons I can infer from the dislike ratio on the reupload.

Personally, I think the Run trailer that You Tube shows periodically looks too awful for me to not skip. I'm sick of horror trailers relying on jump scares and screaming girls; it's really f!@#$%^& annoying.

Does anyone remember that one add from Bianco footwear that said women deserve more than equal pay because women’s fashion is more expensive (and saying that men don’t appreciate fashion) and ends with women either vandalizing their boss’ property or assaulting them? I think the last woman even kicked a full coffee mug in someone’s face.

Regardless of where you stand in regards to feminism, equal pay etc, I think we can all agree that that add was not the way to go about it. The youtube video has 1k likes and 37k dislikes to, so I think it qualifies for the page. I’d link it directly but I don’t know how to on mobile. Thoughts?

Edit: fixed spelling error.

Would any of the commercials for Gardenscapes/Homescapes count under Web Ads? A lot of them have Viewers Are Morons in full effect - They usually show someone making obvious mistakes like pouring gasoline over a fire or hammering a broken fish tank, while some variant of the term "Why is this game so hard (insert crying emoji here)" appears. While that's already fairly asinine to begin with, the worst part is that its pretty much false advertising because Gardenscapes/Homescapes isn't an interactive story game but instead a Match-Three Game.

Either I must have dreamed it up, or it was removed, but I vividly remember there being a section here that mentioned the constant redirecting "congrats you are win giftcard" scam ads here...

Can we add Doom: Annihilation first trailer? The number of dislikes prevailed over number of likes, and most people were also offended by Amy Manson's tweet on Annihilation's Twitter page.

I have the main commercial for a bank service called Nipper. It features a talking snake with a human female's head.

Also a series of some ads from a Brazilian shoe retailer named Star's Chic. Some of them can be Nightmare Fuel

Possible qualifiers?

• Pepsi's lottery in the Philippines where they announced the wrong code, causing hundreds of people to think they won the lottery and get disappointed.
• The 2013 Hyundai ad where a man tries to commit suicide with the car's fumes.
• The Mc Donald's Dead Dad advert.
• Acclaim's "Name your baby Turok" contest.
• Cartoon Network's "It's What You Do" rap against bullying.
• The Boston Bomb Scare
• The CEO of Lifelock making his Social Security number public, daring people to steal his identity, and tons of people doing exactly that.

If you need more info on any of these, please let me know.

Just look at this stinker◊ This ad is for the Ball Shoot, the game made by Voodoo. Their games vary in quality, but this ad brings up Etika's death to either mock his fans or fool them into playing this game. Probably both.

I feel someone's gonna add it, so lemme just say straight up that the Cats trailer does not qualify. The designs, while horrific, are the only bad thing about it, and I'm already seeing defenders.

Someone added the Ghostbusters trailer. Does it really qualify? I thought it was Flame Bait.

So umm, someone just made an entry for "Asgha(?)" that is legitmatly the worst entry I've ever seen. I hid it for now. What do we do with it? Does the ad qualify or is it just a typical Kitschy Local Commercial?

I think that superkeijikun's new entries need a bit of cleanup (while well written, they have a different tone than the rest of the page), but I don't know how. I'll at least add some links tomorrow, but if any of you guys could do it before hand it'd be greatly appreciated.

Does the teaser trailer for Trolls count, because I already have a draft for it?

Not sure if it counts as an ad, but I believe Comcast's "What Can You Do With A Terabyte"? (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE9OuNK-QWg) qualifies as Horrible.

• In 2016, Comcast announced its unpopular 1 TB data cap and released a promo video titled What Can You Do With A Terabyte? in an attempt to make it sound more palatable. It did not work at all. At first it explains what a byte is and that a terabyte is a trillion bytes, and then it lists facts like "you can upload 60,000 high-resolution photos with a terabyte" and "a terabyte is 1.8 billion tweets" while making no attempt to understand why anyone would actually want to use more than a terabyte of data^note (4K videos, large game files, frequent updates to online games...), and failing to realize that most people who'd be unhappy about a data cap are already perfectly aware of what a terabyte is. It doesn't help that the narrator throws in a few unfunny jokes. The whole thing just comes across as a condescending attempt to pass off a bad "feature" as a good thing.

I just made a trailers folder. Is The Nun ad a trailer?

Should we make a folder for trailers? Y'know, High Guardian Spice, Titans, Mighty No 9, Sam and Max, possibly the Sonic movie trailer if the redesign is good enough. I think that we have enough for them to be their own category.

So apparently, the late Stan Lee's Twitter account has been used to promote the Captain Marvel movie and many people are upset about it. I've seen a couple of people defending the move, but I don't know if that's enough to disqualify it as SBIH, or if using his Twitter posthumously is enough to be SBIH. I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to add it here, so I'd like to know in advance if it should be removed or added.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/468/477/2bb.jpg

https://www.reddit.com/r/CorporateFacepalm/comments/ayd0im/using_a_dead_celebritys_twitter_account_to/

I would like to contest the recently added Burger King Andy Warhol ad. Looking it up, while there are some people criticising it, most people seem to just be indifferent about it. The You Tube upload has more likes than dislikes and the comments section is full of people who love the ad or don't care about it. It seems like it was added just because the editor must have thought there was some hidden rule that every Super Bowl must have an ad that should be added to this page. Anyone agree?

I saw this local ad on TV recently and I could not get it out of my head. The editing is just so bad, especially the slow-mo and the poorly placed rimshot, and the acting is pretty lame too, especially the lady at 0:21. Checking the Youtube comments, I seem to not be alone on it, and other people are confirming it does not really represent its target demographic well (apparently they misused Yiddish, but I am not Jewish and I cannot really say for certain). I considered putting it under So Bad, It's Good because I personally found its poor editing choices funny, but the comments seem to just flat out dislike it. Thoughts?

Would this qualify for the page? https://twitter.com/CursedAds/status/1086389744290988034?s=20

The PlayStation 3 ads linked have far more likes than dislikes, do they really count as horrible? Or are those just nostalgia likes?

So this example was added recently (edited to have correct formatting):

• Gillette's infamous advertisement "Men Can Be Better". It basically starts off as portraying men being utter assholes such as brushing off bullying as "boys being boys" or condemning harmless actions like watching scantily-clad women on TV. The advertisement proceeds to then say men have recently changed, which translates to them thinking men have been horrible for all of history. The ad then starts portraying men doing the right thing and the ad states this is only what some men are like. The blatant misandry got this advertisement hundreds of thousands of dislikes on Youtube overnight.

Here's a link to the ad if you're curious.

While the ad does have 700k dislikes, it also has 300k likes. It seems like the ad is more controversial than objectively horrible, and there definitely are people who support its message given the 300k likes and major news sites speaking in its favor. Given how controversial the ad is, I'd say presenting it as objectively bad (or good, for that matter) is against the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment.

Does Juicero's "Making Juice is Easy" count? It has more than 10 dislikes per like, but I'm not sure that's because people find the ad itself terrible — the product ended up on Horrible.Other. I hate the ad because of its annoying voiceover (especially when she arrogantly says "uh, Juicero, the best juice ev-uhr!") and Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket approach to normal juicing, but I'd like a second opinion.

Could we add Life Alert's 2014 Basement advertisement?

• Life Alert's initial ad campaigns were deemed So Bad, It's Good, spawning a variety of jokes about their overly silly natures. Worried that this silliness would cost them sales, the company released a new, Darker and Edgier advertisement in 2014... which ended up backfiring and caused public outcry. Many people decried it over its unnecessarily bleak tone, with reports of panic attacks occurring to unsuspecting viewers with anxiety disorders flying about. In addition, Life Alert was also accused of preying on the elderly and those worried about their senior relatives using paranoia-based emotional blackmail. It’s a small wonder the ad was pulled only two months after its initial airing, quickly being replaced with still serious, but much more uplifting commercials.

I don't know if the Cottonelle commercial is really bad enough to belong here. I've never really heard anyone complain about it outside of this page, and this page's only complaints with it are that its subject matter is kind of gross (again, toilet paper ad) and that the kids in it are maybe kind of annoying.

I'm removing this entry because the comments on the video are mostly positive and it has a positive likes ratio as well. The entry itself comes across as Complaining About Shows You Dont Like as well. If it failed to appeal to its demographic, we'd probably have heard about it by now with how outspoken the League community can be. Additionally, I doubt whether or not they have a page on This Very Wiki should be used as an indicator of popularity given that other popular personalities like Jared Dines don't have pages here and yet have a healthy viewerbase.

• The YouTube ads for League of Legends are mostly harmless, but the ad featuring Nevercake falls into this. First off, he claims to be a YouTuber extraordinaire despite not even having a page here. Second off, he often jabs at the fanbase in a mean spirited way, saying that they have no friends. He also outright gives false advice, like telling them that they only need to Button Mash to win. Watch it here.

There's a Direct TV ad where a girl breaks up with a girl and she throws stuff out at him. It kinda looks like it's hitting him, too, if you look closely. Here's the link for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH2xhmgfUgs

By the way, just a heads up: only 90 likes and 617 dislikes on this one.

i'm not really sure about the league of legends ad from nevercake being here. here are a few reasons.

1. the video has 19k likes and 611 dislikes. most of the comments i see seem to be from people who like it rather than hate it. i think there are fans out there for the commercial, and i'm not really sure that a commercial with fans can be here.

2. every reason listed for the ad being so terrible is an obvious joke. i don't think there was much in the ad that was intended to be taken seriously.

that's it. i tried to be as calm as i could. i'm sorry if it seems dumb, i'm not really the best at determining what can go on the sbih pages. i hope you have a nice day.

Looks like Dodge's recent Super Bowl Special with a Martin Luther King speech seems to fit here.

• For Super Bowl LII, one of Dodge's Big Game ad campaigns that season featured a rousing montage of working class people all across America... set to a sermon from one Martin Luther King Jr.. Said sermon, "The Drum Major Instinct", had a portion where in King criticized advertising, using car ads as an example. Needless to say, the spot drew widespread condemnation from social media, especially during the end of a politically turbulent season for the NFL, for using the anti-capitalist MLK Jr's image to sell pickup trucks, and the King Center (a seperate entity from his notoriously litigious estate, which Chrysler claimed approved the ad) and his daughter Bernice were quick to distance themselves from it.

I'm from Illinois and the backlash towards Jeanne Ives' ad is astounding. Both liberals and conservatives hate it, not an easy task. On top of that, when you try to represent certain groups like transgender, immigrants etc, don't make them look like a bad guy for YOUR campaign.

Read about it here, they also provide a link to the ad http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-jeanne-ives-bruce-rauner-transgender-ad-cps-20180202-story.html

If social media reactions are anything to go by, the new advert for Tui (formerly Thomson) appears to be annoying the hell out of everyone who sees it. Is there anyone who's seen it who thinks it deserves a place here?

You know what, please delete this message.

A MESSAGE TO ADVERTISERS!!!

STOP MAKING ADS WHERE WE FEEL BAD FOR THE OLD GENERATION, IT MAKES THE NEW ONE LOOK BAD!!!

Xfinity, this was a terrible ad https://www.ispot.tv/ad/wpVV/xfinity-mobile-a-new-generation-of-iphone

Regardless of politics, the level of strawman on the Latino Victory Fund's ad for Ralph Northam against Ed Gillespe is pretty damn bad. Relying on strawman, feeding of a fears and stereotyping to an insane degree. And given that the ad has been seemingly barried by those involved, I'm not the only one who agrees https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVckRJvuBQY

I think it would be appropriate to add the Wii U's marketing campaign to this list of horrible advertising. Not only did it poorly show what the system was capable of but it was also potentially confusing since it focused on the Game Pad so much and left the console out of focus, leading to false assumptions that the Wii U was just an expensive add-on for the original Wii. The logo having similar music and animation in TV commercials didn't help the confusion.

Also, it doesn't help the TV ads have actors being given some cringe-worthy dialogue and direction, the fact that Nintendo didn't even try to consistently market the system on TV that much and eventually taking their advertising to the internet via Nintendo Directs, where for the remainder of the Wii U's existence has lead to the system's low lifetime sales and eventual discontinuation in 2017.

Does Protegent really belong here? The Memetic Mutation and the fact that it has far more likes than dislikes would indicate that it's So Bad, It's Good.

We need to add Orange Truth, It's Trap ads to this lost. While YMMV on the message against smoking, the execution is deplorable.

1. The creators have gotten the effects of cigarettes confused for marijuana as evidenced by the behaivor of the teens and at one point they use a BONG for cigarettes.

2. Annoying, outdated and unfunny internet meme usage such as "I can has cheezberger" in order to appear "hip" and "with it"

3. The obnoxious techno music which is at full volume and sounds like absolute garbage

4. They are like two ads in one as we get two scenarios, with the same joke.

The hatred for them is pretty wide too. There are annoying and repetitive web and TV ads "here in my garage anyone?" But this one is a special kind of bad

I'd suggest that this UK commercial for McDonald's be added to the page. The ad starts with a boy asking his mother about what his deceased father was like. Through the ad the mom fondly describes many things about him, none of which the son has anything in common with... until they arrive at McDonalds and the mom points out that the Filet-O-Fish her son ordered also used to be the dad's favorite. Immediately the ad drew ire from the public and McDonalds was accused of being exploitative of families that endured bereavement, prompting the company to quickly pull the ad and issue an apology.

By now, I think we can all agree that The Emoji Movie... isn't very good as a film but I think their Twitter campaign making a shallow parody on The Handmaid's Tale should be here as well. Even if you look past its lack of class and its Unfortunate Implications, the ad itself looks lazily made and poorly designed. I think it fails on all aspects, but what's your thoughts on the matter?

Here's an article from Hollywood Reporter about this misfire of a social media ad: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/emoji-movie-criticized-tasteless-handmaids-tale-tweet-1024054

Crazyrabbits: Removed the following examples:

• In the late nineties, early two thousands, there was an anti-smoking campaign sponsored by the tobacco companies, it had the slogan "Tobacco is Wacko (if you're a teen)!" So wait, tobacco's bad, but only if you're a teen? In other words "we don't want you to smoke underage because it reflects badly on us, but once you're legal feel free!"
  • "If you're a teen"? They didn't say anything about kids?
    • It's a tobacco company...
  • There's a popular theory that the tobacco companies intentionally backed anti-smoking ads so painfully corny that they'd actually encourage teens to take up smoking just out of spite.

If I understand this example (and the text in the page for Stealth Cigarette Commercial) correctly, this is more an example of a Broken Aesop than a horrible commercial. Remember, to qualify for this page, the ad has to fail to appeal to its target audience. If said target audience is actually lighting up more than before because of this commercial, it doesn't count, regardless of the content. That said, the production values are no worse than some of the other entries listed.

• The most recent Prego commercial poses the viewing audience a truly compelling dilemma: eat pasta sauce from a jar (illustrated by someone dropping a jar onto a pile of spaghetti) or eat Prego (illustrated by someone lovingly spooning it over another pile of spaghetti)? It doesn't sound stupid at first (at least no dumber than any average commercial)... until the camera pans out, to reveal the JAR OF PREGO. What?! The thought process behind this is mind-boggling. Are they implying that people are so stupid that they would drop an entire jar of (Classico, judging from the shape of the jar) pasta sauce onto their pasta, or the jar itself? Would they drop the jar of Prego if the ad didn't come with instructions? Has Prego developed new, magical, fresh-sealing jar technology? Why is your jar better than anyone else's jar?
  • The message seems to be that tasters preferred Prego over others when they didn't know which jar it had come out of. Unfortunately, that's not the strongest message in the ad.

This doesn't describe how the ad is horrible. It only describes a kind of backhanded message. Either rewrite it with an indication of how it drove audiences away, or leave it out.

• There is an ad on Tvtropes as of this post for Raheem Devaughn's album The Love & War Masterpiece. Normally this wouldn't be bad, but it features sound, like those annoying smiley ads. Not only does it slow down this Troper's internet to horrible levels, but every time this troper opens a new page, it seems to be there, playing a song that isn't even that good.

Aside from the fact that this reads like Licence To Whine, there is still a market for this guy's type of music. You're not the demographic who would listen to this guy, the ad will probably be gone in a couple weeks anyway, and you're complaining more about the issue of sound than anything else. There are hundreds of online ads that are just like that, and none of them are considered So Bad Its Horrible. If you really can't stand the ad, just download Firefox and Ad Block Plus.

Can we make a folder here for movie posters? That has some potential

I gave the 3DO entry the axe.

• The 3DO advertisement campaign by The 3DO Company. The Panasonic version of the system referred to itself as the most advanced gaming system in the universe and blatantly insulted the popular SNES and Sega Genesis consoles by calling them "baby toys". For its supposed advancement, the 3DO had for the most part only one controller input, instead of two as consoles had for years at that point. And while it had superb graphics at the time, it was very expensive, costing $700! Few were sold, and it was quickly overshadowed by upcoming consoles.

The entry doesn't tell us why the advertisement itself is bad and instead chooses to explain how the 3DO was unable to live up to its hype. Insulting the competition does not qualify the commercial as "So Bad Its Horrible". It was a common advertising tactic during the 90s console wars.

I feel like the Arby's ad for its gyro sandwiches should get a spot on this unflattering page. The obnoxious commercial uses the song "Holding Out for a Hero." Normally, that wouldn't be so bad, especially since it's a good song, but what makes it So Bad Its Horrible in my opinion is that every time Bonnie Tyler sings the lyric "hero," the audio is replaced with the announcer saying the word 'gyro,' and very off-key at that, as if he's not even trying to sing.

Well, do we agree that it belongs here, or does anybody like this ad?

Should we add Burger King's Google Home ad because it backfired?

This recent pepsi ad is incredibly controversial for co-opting political imagery, and has attracted enough for Pepsi to apologize for it but at the same time I'm not well versed in the background of it enough for me to write an entry for it. (and it's a pretty sticky topic as is)

I do think it fully belongs here, though.

Can we add a special category for Superbowl commercials? My logic behind this is that if you screw up a commercial for a huge event like the Superbowl, then you really screwed up.

I also think political campaigns should be in their own separate folder.

Would two Nintendo game ads (in different forms) qualify for this page? The ads in question:

• The TV commercial for Yoshi's Island is built around a Shout-Out to the Mr. Creosole sketch from Monty Python, instead of focusing more on the game. Unfortunately, it follows the sketch a little too closely, resulting in a horrifying gross out ad. The ad is supposed to be referencing how much content the game has, but it is often considered one of the worst and scariest game ads ever.
• The Earth Bound "This Game Stinks" ad campaign in game magazines. Nintendo put scratch 'n' sniff cards in magazines, but they were made to unintentionally smell bad to emphasize Vulgar Humor as a selling point. It may have damaged the game's sales (the game later became a Cult Classic), the effects of which are still being felt today with Mother 3 yet to secure an official release.

These should really be called...

BADVERTIZMENTS

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OMG LOLOLOLOLOL kill me

Should we add Always's campaign ads for more "girl" emojis? They have twice as many dislikes as likes and have been mocked nearly everywhere.

I think Littlewood's Xmas advert from 2011 might deserve a place here. It's the one with the kids singing about how mum buys all the presents. The example could go like this:

"Littlewoods' 2011 Christmas advert attempted to be charming and sweet, but ended up being remembered as one of the worst Christmas adverts ever made. In it, children in a school play sing an ill-conceived song about the one who brings the presents at Christmas time. No, not Father Christmas and his sack of toys, but mum and her Littlewoods purchases. The ad received a huge backlash from outraged viewers, who accused Littlewoods of ruining the magic of Christmas."

Can't think of a way to finish it. Feel free to suggest anything. You can see the ad here, and there's a wee bit about it on AdTurds as well.

Asking first because this could spark a lot of controversy: how about the infamous "I Am Autism" commercial from Autism Speaks? Aside from the fact it misrepresents the disorder (as most of the company's promotional material does), it barely gives any information as to what autism actually is other than just making it sound threatening and promising to fight against it. It's also accompanied by unrelated home videos that don't fit the tone of the message, as if they are intended to be autistic children, and none of them are particularly threatening, what is there to be afraid of other than the concept of a neurological disorder?

I think a certain infamous Frosties advert deserves a mention. The one which a kid sings an intensely annoying song about how "They're gonna taste great", with all kinds of desperately painful rhymes that try to rhyme with "great" ("pie-rate"?). To make matters worse, it was on all the time. Not only did it get a massive backlash for being so irritating, but there were (fortunately untrue) rumours that the boy in it had received death threats and had killed himself! There's already an entry for it on the advertising page for The Scrappy.

The section about Allstate insurance could probably be removed, since it only seems to be added on the basis of twisting "girl shows up her sexist boyfriend" into "Allstate thinks all men are woman-hating animals".

I mean, the joke in the commercial isn't really funny or anything, but the entry on the page is all but lying about the commercial's content.

I'm not sure if this belongs here:

• The "first they're sour, now they're sweet" ad campaign for Sour Patch Kids was never very good in this troper's opinion because of the implications of "it's okay to do mean, physically hurtful things as long as you say you're sorry/do something nice" in alot of them, like repeatedly denting and damaging a car being forgiven by putting a little smiley face topper on the antenna. The worst, though is a Halloween-themed ad from 2015. Trick-or-treaters show up and its answered by a scrawny teenage boy who shows up in a shirtless firefighter costume and then starts yelling at the top of his lungs in the most annoying way possible because some Sour Patch Kids are pulling on the one and only hair on his chest, terrifying the kids, who run off screaming and dropping their bags of candy, which the kid takes at the Sour Patch Kids' suggestion. Frankly, this ad is sick and unrealistic even by the standards of most live-acted commercials (contrast the Ouya example, which goes straight for gore and vomit) because who in their right mind would dress like that if they're expecting to answer the door for trick-or-treating children. The unrealistic part is how the sicko reacts to having a hair pulled—how would this person react to a drop of water falling on him, or being hit by a gentle breeze? Pulling a hair can hurt, but not that much. Sour Patch, you just lost a customer, maybe for good.

Maybe it's just me, but this seems like it belongs in the advertising section of DMoS, as the troper seems to state his personal opinion of the ads in the same campaign before it, and then at the end, says that he'll stop buying the product, as if the example were on that section.

Any thoughts on Nationwide's Super Bowl ad "Make Safe Happen"? The advertisement has been destroyed by critics and viewers alike, with both viewing it as a creepy, manipulative ad that uses cheap shock value. More specific to the advertisement itself, it has little to do with their product (insurance) and it even implies that they could prevent accidents, which is absolutely deplorable given how many families have been broken by deaths from accidents. Thoughts?

Does anyone think this commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mycxSJ3-_Q belongs on this page? Not only is it filled to the brim with Unfortunate Implications, but it's so depressingly bad that it could be considered Nightmare Fuel if it wasn't narmy to pathetic levels.

I have an idea for a web ad:

• There is a site known as Lower My Bills.Net, which uses advertisements with very misleading (sometimes animated) images. Usually containing text regarding President Obama and ending with "Tap Here to Calculate New House Payment", online reviews have shown the extreme downside to this program, seeming to be scams attempting to gain the personal data of it's customers. The Lower My Bills ads appear on many sites, even this very Wiki!

Not sure if this one really counts as even the linked video doesn't have a particularly terrible like/dislike ratio. Some more evidence would be appreciated.

• The commercial for Blur was intended as a Take That! to Mario Kart, but it was done in way that suggests that they never even played Mario Kart. The Tastes Like Diabetes imagery is just an exaggeration, but the go-carts are shown driving at a snail's pace set to cheap 8-bit music, totally unlike the breakneck speeds and catchy tunes of the franchise they were supposed to be spoofing. And the line "Racing isn't about winning, it's about making friends!" shows that they definitely never played Mario Kart in multiplayer. The ad campaign backfired horribly, serving only to alienate fans of Mario Kart and failing to attract the mature gamers it was aimed it, because, being mature, they didn't care that the game was cartoony.

How about the Verizon web ads that are showing up everywhere? You know, the ones with the horrendously annoying host (I know that's the wrong word, also "CMON TOD") the people who seem completely disinterested and like they are reading straight from a cue card, an incredibly sterotypically nerdy sidekick, and awful reasons to even think of buying Verizon stuff?

As heartbreaking it is to say this, Nintendo's "Pitch" ad for the Wii U is nothing short of terrible. As you can see here, it barely features gameplay of the game in question (Super Mario 3D World), instead focusing on kids poorly presenting the Wii U to their parents. It also completely misses the demographics' preferences these days. Most kids of the same age as the presenters would prefer FPS games like Call of Duty these days and many are shunning the console for its inferior selection of games as well as its specs when compared to other Gen 8 consoles. The ad does nothing to address these issues and in fact reinforces the stigma of it being a underpowered expansion to the Wii at best to the viewers. What are your thoughts?