History Horrible / Advertising

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igMfYCqPQm0 Update 15 / Devotion to Duty trailer]] for the World War II tactical shooter '''''VideoGame/HellLetLoose'''''. After the game had been purchased from its original devs by Creator/Team17, fans of the game had generally been concerned about its subsequent direction, with a drift away from historical realism and a perceived decline in polish being cited as reasons, but this trailer blew every issue out into the open. The trailer was broadly criticised by fans and casual viewers alike for having an unfittingly lighthearted tone, poor visuals and voice acting (in terms of both performance and audio quality), and a massive amount of extremely obvious animation errors that should've rendered the trailer unreleasable, let alone given a spot in the 2023 Summer Games Fest's PC Gaming Show. To top it all off, the trailer focuses on a D-Day style paratrooper drop, [[TrailersAlwaysLie which wasn't even a new feature added to the game in Update 15]]. The trailer became not just an instant target of mockery, but also a helpful shorthand to illustrate the issues fans had with Team 17's treatment of the game, and it led to a public apology from them for the whole thing.

* '''The UK's Home Office''' tweeted a parody of the infamous "Piracy. It's a crime." (better known as "You Wouldn't Steal A Car") PSA in early 2021, complete with slogans and imagery relating to the country's [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic COVID-19 restrictions]] - such as "You Shouldn't Make Your Own Pub" and "You Shouldn't Go To Raves", interspersed with footage of people being arrested for breaking these rules. [[MisaimedMarketing It did not go down well]] and was deleted a day or so later, but the video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6AaBdt_Xcw has been preserved for all to see.]]

* '''Shaqtoons''' was a contest launched in 2019 by Creator/ShaquilleONeal and Creator/{{TNT}} to promote a new television series airing on the network called ''Shaq Life'' and to gain some animated material to use on the show. The contest was announced on television and social media, with a website set up that hosted multiple "story-time" narrations that were each somewhere from 30 seconds to a minute long, all of them recorded by Shaq and to be animated by the participants. After TNT received all the submissions by the deadline of September 20, it would pick a winner for each narration, each of which would be broadcast on the show and whose creator would receive a cash reward. From the very start, the idea was [[DidntThinkThisThrough horribly flawed at best and incredibly shady at worst]], given that only the winner would receive any payment for their work despite how time-consuming and expensive a process animation would be for all the contestants involved. However, while this was already pretty bad, [[FromBadToWorse it turned out that the grand prize for the winner of the contest]] was [[UndesirablePrize an utterly pathetic payout of $500]], an amount well beneath the minimum wage for most freelance animators to produce an animation of the same length, especially at television-grade quality. It was such a terrible prize that the ungodly amount of backlash it caused eventually convinced TNT to reluctantly raise the prize to a more palatable $10,000. But the true final nail in the competition's coffin was when [[ReadTheFinePrint a few cautious people interested in the contest did a careful read-through of the participation terms]], and discovered that absolutely anything submitted as an entry to the contest became the sole property of Turner Broadcasting. This meant that none of the participants could use their submissions for so much as a personal work portfolio without risking the wrath of Turner and a subsequent lawsuit. That, and the clips themselves were simply unremarkable and below-par for even a first draft. The resulting criticism and drama over the utterly awful terms was so immense that TNT wound up quietly dropping the contest altogether before any submissions could be made, with Shaq and TNT [[CreatorBacklash never so much as mentioning it in passing ever again]] afterward. WebVideo/{{Saltydkdan}} tears apart the whole fiasco [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwZEjT0vA8s here]], even going so far as to make his own {{Parody}} of a Shaqtoon for the video, and Pam Maz, an animator who had created their own submission for the contest, relate their experience and all the red flags they noticed throughout it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLUS4KuGVrU here]].

* In August 2018, an ad for the horror film '''''Film/TheNun''''' started appearing on Website/YouTube. The ad consists of a fake [=iOS=] volume bar being lowered and muted [[note]](imitating a device's interface is already considered a no-no for advertising)[[/note]], [[SchmuckBait attempting to trick users into raising their real volume]] [[note]](this trick, of course, wouldn't work on Android or desktop users)[[/note]], followed by the movie's monster [[JumpScare suddenly appearing]] and [[ScreamerPrank screaming loudly]]. Some people had panic attacks or accidentally dropped and damaged their phones due to the shock, resulting in the ad [[https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/14/youtube-remove-nun-jump-scare-ad-platform-deemed-terrifying-7838328/ getting taken down]] shortly after due to severe backlash, as well as the ad violating the site's shocking content policy for advertisers, as the ad was known to play before innocuous and unrelated videos[[note]](including "relaxing sound" videos, if [=YouTube=] comments are to be believed, which is especially bad since A} people watching this type of video are the least likely to enjoy getting a JumpScare, and B} these videos are typically watched minimized, since the sound is the main point, meaning that the listener won't notice the ad until it's too late)[[/note]]. Watch it yourself [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N436v51QBkk here]] if you want to, but '''please''' remember to lower your volume first. WebVideo/AniMat talks about the whole controversy [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU7klCeF_Vs&t=1h18m48s here.]] Later [=YouTube=] ads [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity actually worked this controversy to hype the movie]], which may have been the intent from the start; they only show a picture of the nun, stating the original ads were pulled for being too scary, so the picture is all they can show. While a step up from the original irritating ad, many people still hated the smug undertones that made their former campaign sound more interesting than it really was. Despite the immense backlash the original ad received, ''[[https://twitter.com/RhiHolly/status/1142763078271946752 they did it again]]'' for the later installment ''Film/AnnabelleComesHome'', only the lead-up is a "staring contest".

* Although the 2007 adaptation for '''''Film/BridgeToTerabithia''''' was well-received and successful, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DSGAeeDXO0 its trailer]] is notorious as perhaps the worst case of NeverTrustATrailer in movie history. The film is an adaptation of the highly-beloved SliceOfLife novel about an outcast boy and girl who escape from the troubles of their lives by creating an imaginary fantasy world in the woods, and is quite faithful to that story. But with epic fantasy films becoming big in the wake of ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'', Disney had the film's advertising all play up the fantasy stuff like it actually existed, which naturally made the book's fans furious at what seemed to be a disrespectful InNameOnly adaptation. The crew themselves (including the original author's son, who was also the inspiration for the main character) were quick to state their own anger about it and assure everyone it wasn't at all representative of the film. Ultimately, the film was a critical and commercial success, though it has been argued that it would have done much better without the whole scandal. Critics who vouched for the film, in particular, were perplexed by the decision to market the film as a fantasy, [[SciFiGhetto finding it deeper than that]].

* '''''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020''''' started on one ''hell'' of a wrong foot with its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfEpqmdXhiU first trailer]]. Audiences were repulsed by the terrible design for the iconic hedgehog, which fell into the deepest reaches of the [[UnintentionalUncannyValley Uncanny Valley]]. It looked like, to quote Creator/JohnOliver, "a furry potato with a corpse's face". It became a MemeticMutation from Sonic turning into AccidentalNightmareFuel after the first trailer dropped. [[note]](This design was later revealed to have been the result of ExecutiveMeddling from Paramount, hoping that general audiences would embrace it even if the fans didn't. Not only did this not happen, but general audiences hated it too. What ended up happening here had [[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:Movie_Megatron_olduglyface.jpg previously]] [[https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/752880/Monster-Trucks-test-screening-Paramount-Pictures-family-film-box-office-flops happened]] with [[Film/Transformers2007 Bayformers Megatron]] and [[Film/MonsterTrucks Creech]], so they really [[PointyHairedBoss should've known better]].)[[/note]] This was along with other strange thematic choices - in particular, [[SoundtrackDissonance using Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" in the trailer, a song one would hardly associate with Sonic]]. The redesign caused such an intense reaction that director Jeff Fowler [[https://twitter.com/fowltown/status/1124056098925944832?s=20 announced]] that the animators would be going back to the drawing board, with the film's release being pushed back three months to February 2020. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szby7ZHLnkA The second trailer]] featured a more stylized and cartoony Sonic which looked much more in line with his video game appearance (designed by Creator/TysonHesse) and a more upbeat soundtrack. This trailer was received much better, with a like-dislike ratio of about 99:1, along with comments saying that the AuthorsSavingThrow in response to the criticism meant that people were now obligated to see the movie. Even so, the very negative reactions to the initial design for Sonic remain a warning of what can happen when ExecutiveMeddling tries to fix what isn't broken. While the new redesign allowed the film to be a solid hit and pave the way for its own franchise, the original Sonic design later showed up as a reoccurring character in, of all places, the live-action ''Film/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'' movie, where he is intentionally portrayed as creepy as a TakeThat, though also as [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap a very sympathetic character]]. The first trailer gained a bevy of reactions to it from both ''Sonic'' fans and non-''Sonic'' fans alike: Creator/JimSterling [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qacb7ZQoeYQ reacts in horror]], as did both [[https://youtu.be/q30Uxr5zp7I Vinny]] and [[https://youtu.be/pOa7_mgPhEQ Joel]] of WebVideo/{{Vinesauce}}, while WebVideo/{{Arlo}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiBjGt3Cepg spins a theory on whether its horrors were intentional]], though WebAnimation/TheOdd1sOut [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLzUtMiq1N4&t=291 disputes this]] on the basis that ''Film/{{Cats}}'' made it to release with similarly horrifying character designs intact. WebVideo/AniMat and Jamietud talk about the trailer [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO2M0Hogz74&t=6m2s here]]. Rob Boor of ''WebVideo/CinematicVenom'' reacts to it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyx2PD5D5wI here]]. Korey Coleman, Martin Thomas, and Billy Brooks talk about the trailer on ''WebVideo/DoubleToasted'' [[https://youtu.be/iqOFSC2wx64 here]].

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijof8uw4OHs "The Gift That Gives Back"]] by '''Peloton''' features a man giving his wife an exercise bike for Christmas, followed by her documenting using it over the next year. Not a bad concept, but the ad was instantly dog-piled on and mocked for a number of reasons. The actress playing the wife, Monica Ruiz, seems bizarrely terrified throughout the whole thing, and her performance drew comparisons to ''Series/BlackMirror'' and ''Film/{{Get Out|2017}}''. Many viewers thought a husband gifting exercise equipment to his wife had [[YouAreFat unintended implications]], and were left with the distinct impression that her husband is forcing her to spend a year doing strenuous workouts because he's unsatisfied with her body. It also embodied a frequent criticism that Peloton's branding only showed its bikes being used by young, white, already-fit people who can somehow afford to live in ultramodern {{Big Fancy House}}s. The company's stock saw a significant drop shortly after its release, which they rather pathetically insisted was completely unrelated to the one thing about them that everyone had been talking about for days. The company did [[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/04/peloton-says-its-disappointed-in-how-some-have-misinterpreted-ad.html smugly reply]] to the criticism, claiming "some have misinterpreted this commercial". Parodies also quickly popped up. A couple of weeks after its release, Ruiz appeared in a Creator/RyanReynolds [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2t7lknrK28 commercial]] for his gin company where she shakily keeps drinking as her friends assure her she's in a safe place and is noticeably not wearing a wedding ring while the other two women are, which she promoted with the hashtag "The Gift That Doesn't Give Back" so there could be no doubt about the reference. Sean Hunter, who played the husband, also naturally took issue with how he was suddenly thrust into the position of a major face of sexism, though he didn’t help himself much by continuing to insist no one could possibly have legit problems with the ad and they’re all just jumping on a bandwagon, and changing his Twitter handle to "Peloton Husband".

* The environmentalist short film '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOmLcSeU2UY No Pressure]]''' by 10:10 (directed by Creator/RichardCurtis, known for his work on ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' and ''Film/FourWeddingsAndAFuneral '') is perhaps the most catastrophic failure in the history of "edgy" humor. It depicts several groups talking about ways to reduce carbon emission, with those who don't want to participate or are simply uncertain about the whole matter being told "That's okay - no pressure." or a variant thereof. The authority in the group pulls out or is given a small black box with a red button and presses it, causing those who opted out to ''explode into LudicrousGibs''. The deaths, and the compliants' reactions, are realistic and played completely straight; said authorities (and, in the next-to-last scene, the compliants as well) carry on as though they didn't just murder people ([[FridgeHorror possibly because]] they [[{{Dehumanization}} considered such beings as unworthy of being called "people", with opting out or expressing uncertainty in this case being essentially a forfeiting of human rights and the privilege of not being blown up]]). To make things even scarier, the first scene includes ''[[WouldHurtAChild two children at a school]]'' getting blown to pieces, all because they were unsure about cutting down their emissions by 10%. This is also ignoring that fact that these people, especially the kids, just need it explained to them more compared to senseless their murders. Even worse is the ending - a voiceover by Creator/GillianAnderson, who herself is blown up for believing the voiceover ''was'' her contribution to 10:10. It conveyed such a clear contempt for those who don't toe their line on climate change that, coupled with all of the above and the many similarities to a terrorist bombing, meant [[DontShootTheMessage not even fellow environmentalist groups were willing to side with 10:10]].

* It's one thing to make ad campaigns that turn viewers off with offensive content, but '''the 2007 ad campaign for ''Film/{{Captivity}}''''' took things even further. The film itself is a survival thriller about a model (Creator/ElishaCuthbert) who's abducted and tries to escape from her captors. Bad enough that the distributor [[ExecutiveMeddling mandated the shooting]] of several {{gorn}}-filled scenes just so they could market it as TorturePorn, but what really sends the ad campaign into Horrible territory is the blatantly NSFW - and possibly ''illegal'' - way they went about said marketing: they created a series of posters showing Cuthbert's character being abducted, tortured, and murdered (it should be noted that [[NeverTrustATrailer Cuthbert's character actually survives the events of the film]]), and when the MPAA rejected the campaign they went ahead with it anyway, even putting it in public places where it could be easily seen by children. The outrage was so great, the MPAA outright refused to rate the film until the ad campaign was dropped completely, resulting in a two-month delay. Even with the threat of a nationwide ban averted, the ad campaign still lingered in the minds of those who had to put up with it, resulting in a miserable performance at the box office, complete with three Razzie nominations, [[GenreKiller and the ad campaign has gone on to be seen as the beginning of the end for the torture porn genre as a whole]], as afterwards only ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' continued to see new theatrical installments in the years that followed before ''Film/ParanormalActivity'' completely changed the direction of horror, finishing the work this ad campaign had started.

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqPokOx5aIM notorious 2012 ad]] for Canadian beer '''Uptown Girl''' is one of the most complained-about and ridiculed commercials this side of Grey Power. The commercial is horribly obviously low-budget -- there are two pieces of narration throughout (the sole difference between them being the presence of a cringeworthy {{tagline}}), and extremely boring techno music accompanies rather creepy shots of girls dancing in slow-motion (with emphasis on boobs) and [[{{Squick}} shots of condensation- and handprint-covered beer bottles]]. The ads were pulled after a month and it still is routinely recognized as one of the worst Canadian commercials of all time.
* [[https://youtu.be/NlMyk60Mtys The commercial]] for '''''Waialae Country Club: True Golf Classics''''' on the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 takes the [[GrossOutShow gross-out]] fad of TheNineties to new extremes that are downright unsavory. In it, a man named Gary is playing the game on his N64, while his pregnant wife tries to tell him she's going into labor. Gary [[{{Jerkass}} callously disregards her]], being more invested in the game than he is with her situation, and it eventually results in a GrossUpCloseUp of the woman's water breaking, and TheStinger implies that she gave birth in the process. The fact that the game is [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids rated E]] and the commercial aired on daytime television makes it a heavy case of [[WhatWereTheySellingAgain confused advertising]], but it also goes the extra step to [[TakeThatAudience insult the audience]] by having a jerkass like Gary be an AudienceSurrogate, with the game's {{tagline}} in the commercial being, "[[ThisLoserIsYou for people who put golf above all else]]." [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyATSlztEDY A shortened version]] was later made with an alternate ending that skipped the water breaking scene and ended with Gary's reaction when he hears a baby crying, proving that the concept could be done without the gross-out water breaking. When LetsPlay/YoVideogames [[https://youtu.be/o6xg1B50AXE reacted]] to the commercial live on stream, everybody involved was [[NauseaFuel visibly disgusted]], with [[LetsPlay/TheOnlineWarrior Maximilian Dood]] decreeing it as the "most insensitive and disgusting commercial ever".

* '''Creator/{{Nintendo}}[='s=] UsefulNotes/WiiU''' is one of their least successful consoles, and part of it was due to their marketing campaign on how the system was being presented. The commercials often focus too much on the [=GamePad=] rather than the system itself and, combined with the similar name and logo, made people assume the Wii U was just an add-on to or peripheral for the Wii. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4SYeDArez4 The original E3 reveal]] mostly showed ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosU'' and ''VideoGame/WiiFit U'', both of which could be confused as HD ports or the originals. Nintendo didn't put their commercials on TV and made it [[InvisibleAdvertising mostly exclusive to online instead.]] Even when the ads were on, they often featured bad writing and acting. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SChWdprUnzw This video]] showcases some of them, and the first one refers to the system as an upgrade rather than a whole new console, adding more to the confusion. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPM4OOS5g_A A discussion video]] in a five-part series about the system explains what went wrong in the advertising. Thankfully, Nintendo learned from their mistakes, as seen with the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5uik5fgIaI reveal trailer]]. It was made clear within the first 30 seconds that it was advertising a hybrid home/portable console, as well as some games either being ports or sequels. Nintendo also repeated the fatal mistake they made with the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube; their advertising was geared entirely towards children and their families, leaving older gamers out in the cold. Nintendo had already spent the last several console generations battling a stigma of being "kiddy", and the Wii U commercials by and large [[NotHelpingYourCase did not help their case]]. This was another mistake the Switch reveal trailer rectified; it featured young adults playing the Switch in a variety of social settings, without a preteen in sight.
* "The Memesteins", part of a 2018 ad campaign for Comcast's '''[=Xfinity=]''' internet provider, absolutely ''embodies'' the much-hated "[[TotallyRadical How do you do, fellow kids]]?" style of advertising. The most infamous ad, "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiQSD_mB4GE Success]]", uses memes from 2011 ([[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/success-kid-i-hate-sandcastles Success Kid]]) and 2012 ([[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sweet-brown-aint-nobody-got-time-for-that Ain't nobody got time for that]]), giving the impression that the people behind the ad [[TwoDecadesBehind were five years late on understanding what memes were popular]]. The ads were made private on Xfinity's [=YouTube=] channel, and the reupload linked here has 80% dislikes and comments almost entirely dedicated to insulting the ad.

* The environmentalist short film '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOmLcSeU2UY No Pressure]]''' by 10:10 (directed by Creator/RichardCurtis, known for his work on ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' and ''Film/FourWeddingsAndAFuneral '') is perhaps the most catastrophic failure in the history of "edgy" humor. It depicts several groups talking about ways to reduce carbon emission, with those who don't want to participate or are simply uncertain about the whole matter being told "That's okay -- no pressure." or a variant thereof. The authority in the group pulls out or is given a small black box with a red button and presses it, causing those who opted out to ''explode into LudicrousGibs''. The deaths, and the compliants' reactions, are realistic and played completely straight; said authorities (and, in the next-to-last scene, the complaints as well) carry on as though they didn't just murder people ([[FridgeHorror possibly because]] [[{{Dehumanization}} they didn't consider said people as actually being people]]). To make things even scarier, the first clip played includes ''[[WouldHurtAChild two children at a school]]'' getting blown to pieces, all because they were unsure about cutting down their emissions by 10%. This is also ignoring that fact that these people, especially the kids, just need it explained to them more compared to senseless their murders. Even worse is the ending -- a voiceover by Creator/GillianAnderson, who herself is blown up for believing the voiceover ''was'' her contribution to 10:10. It conveyed such a clear contempt for those who don't toe their line on climate change that, coupled with all of the above and the many similarities to a terrorist bombing, meant [[DontShootTheMessage not even fellow environmentalist groups were willing to side with 10:10]].

** In February 2020, PETA came out with [[https://youtu.be/2XbCoOIEJ7s this]] turned-down Super Bowl PSA intended to end speciesism. [[note]]The somewhat controversial civil rights movement to end the belief that humans are more important than animals.[[/note]] It shows animals taking the knee to an unintentionally creepy rendition of the US National Anthem ala Colin Kaepernick, who took the knee during the anthem to protest police brutality. Backlash was ''immediate'' from all sides of the political spectrum, with liberals despising the comparison of oppressed African Americans to animals, conservatives despising the political stance PETA was taking, and everyone [[DontShootTheMessage including PETA's own supporters]] finding the decision to include animals without knees like snakes and fish kneeling rather awkward and [[{{Narm}} narmy]]. Needless to say, the NFL turned it down and it was not played at the Super Bowl that year, causing PETA to try PlayingTheVictimCard as a censorship victim, despite attempting to censor works like ''Videogame/SuperMario3DLand'' and ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory4'' in the past due to finding them cruel against animals for various contrived reasons.
** In July of that same year, PETA once again [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200716155458/https://www.indy100.com/article/pete-sick-joke-graphic-cat-image-caption-cake-9617301 faced backlash]] for a tweet intended as a PSA against animal dissection that was seen as far too gruesome and tasteless to be effective. The tweet[[note]]which will '''''not''''' be linked as it contains explicit animal gore; the article linked does not depict the image[[/note]] references the then-recent meme of cutting items open and revealing them to be cake, by depicting a cat's head being cut open with the caption "Not cake #[=CutOutDissection=]". The combination of an innocuous meme with an image of animal torture was considered cringeworthy at best and horribly tasteless at worst, with some declaring that PETA [[DiscreditedMeme ruined the meme]]. The depiction of animal gore without any sensitive content warning (which violates Twitter's policy) upset many people, especially animal lovers (the exact people PETA would want on their side), some reporting panic attacks as a result. The message also falls flat; dissecting animals (many of whom ''already died from natural causes'') is an important way to conduct medical research to ''help'' sick animals, but the ad and its response mislead the public to believe all animals used in dissection were abducted, or that live animals are used in dissection. In response to the backlash, PETA insisted the gruesome pictures were necessary to get the message across, but instead of sparking conversation about animal dissection, it just sparked anger towards the already-contentious organization.
* '''The UK's Home Office''' tweeted a parody of the infamous "Piracy. It's a crime." (better known as "You Wouldn't Steal A Car") PSA in early 2021, complete with slogans and imagery relating to the country's [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic COVID-19 restrictions]] -- such as "You Shouldn't Make Your Own Pub" and "You Shouldn't Go To Raves", interspersed with footage of people being arrested for breaking these rules. [[MisaimedMarketing It did not go down well]] and was deleted a day or so later, but the video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6AaBdt_Xcw has been preserved for all to see.]]

* German TV channel '''SWR Fernsehen''' is well-known for its [=PSAs=] encouraging parents to be mindful of their children's viewing habits. This was presumably the intent behind [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGkuXIbrV_M "Amok"]], released in 2000 shortly after the Columbine shootings, but the PSA's message was botched horribly and instead managed to embody all the worst aspects of the whole MurderSimulators hysteria of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Done in the style of a video game, it starts with a TitleScreen and character select screen, before showing ''actual uncensored footage of the Columbine Massacre'', shortly after the disaster, no less. The final {{tagline}} is [[MurderSimulators "Do not underestimate the power of video games."]], which is particularly insulting as it's now widely known that video games don't brainwash people into being murderous psychopaths. That aside and needless to say, it was ''extremely'' disrespectful to the victims for SWR to show uncensored footage of the traumatic event on German television. [[https://youtu.be/EUGCXsw-Mvc EmiLightning]] was so disgusted by it that while she showed clips of other [=PSAs=] from SWR in her review, she only showed still images of this one.
* In late 2019, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucVy6YlpMDw a PSA]] from '''World Animal Protection USA''' began circulating on [=YouTube=]. Beginning with the line “Ever heard the sound of suffering?”, the ad then [[SchmuckBait instructs users to turn their volume up as far as they can]] as the [[SensoryAbuse wondrous sounds]] [[NightmareFuel of a factory farm play and two pictures showing a chick and pig respectively suffering briefly flash on the screen.]] The ad was heavily criticized for how tasteless its execution was, especially since [[UsefulNotes/UserOperationProhibitFlag you couldn’t skip it.]] It was also accused of preying off of epileptics and people with anxiety disorders, one user even commenting that it caused their friend to break down and have a panic attack.

* Pete Hoekstra's infamous '''Debbie Spend It Now''' ad, made for his campaign in 2011. It blamed Michigan senator Debbie Stabenow for every single American job outsourced to UsefulNotes/{{China}}. It featured some of the most outright-racist depictions of the Chinese in this day and age, from its setting (a rice paddy) to its scriptwriting (broken English in a thick, generic Asian accent). The campaigners also built a website around it, one even more offensive than the TV ads -- among other things, the coding describes their mascot as "yellowgirl" (apparently, a third party made that mistake, referring to her shirt). After two weeks, the actress apologized for her role in the ad; on Election Day, Stabenow defeated Hoekstra by 21 points. Furthermore, it was aired during the UsefulNotes/SuperBowl in Michigan, which meant that it eventually aired nationally when the news did their "what unique local ads aired during the Super Bowl" rundowns. Watch it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f69VmIgmhOk here]], if you dare.

Yes, even a still image can count as a horrible ad, as these offenders prove:
* It's one thing to make ad campaigns that turn viewers off with offensive content, but '''the 2007 ad campaign for ''Film/{{Captivity}}''''' took things even further. The film itself is a survival thriller about a model (Creator/ElishaCuthbert) who's abducted and tries to escape from her captors. Bad enough that the distributor [[ExecutiveMeddling mandated the shooting]] of several {{gorn}}-filled scenes just so they could market it as TorturePorn, but what really sends the ad campaign into Horrible territory is the blatantly NSFW--and possibly ''illegal''--way they went about said marketing: they created a series of posters showing Cuthbert's character being abducted, tortured, and murdered (it should be noted that [[NeverTrustATrailer Cuthbert's character actually survives the events of the film]]), and when the MPAA rejected the campaign they went ahead with it anyway, even putting it in public places where it could be easily seen by children. The outrage was so great, the MPAA outright refused to rate the film until the ad campaign was dropped completely, resulting in a two-month delay. Even with the threat of a nationwide ban averted, the ad campaign still lingered in the minds of those who had to put up with it, resulting in a miserable performance at the box office, complete with three nominations for a Razzie, [[GenreKiller and the ad campaign has gone on to be seen as the beginning of the end for the torture porn genre as a whole]], as afterwards only ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' continued to see new theatrical installments in the years that followed before ''Film/ParanormalActivity'' completely changed the direction of horror, finishing the work this ad campaign had started.

* Nintendo of America's "'''This Game Stinks'''" print campaign for '''''VideoGame/EarthBound1994''''' was a failure. It tried to emphasize ToiletHumour as a selling point, which is a [[NeverTrustATrailer fundamental misrepresentation of 99% of the game's content]] and failed to appeal to the young adult audience they were going for. While ToiletHumour was considered a hallmark of TheNineties, Creator/{{Nintendo}} [[GoneHorriblyRight took it too far]] by putting scratch 'n' sniff cards into gaming magazines, which were intentionally made to smell [[NauseaFuel bad]]. This didn't win any laughs from anyone. The ad is cited to be a contributing factor to the game's commercial failure in North America; [=GamePro=], who ran ads for the game in its magazine, reported that readers ''hated'' the ad campaign. The campaign is remembered as an embarrassing chapter in the series' history, one of the worst video game ad campaigns of all time, and a possible reason why the ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' series never did better than CultClassic status in the West.
* February 2020 saw otherwise-beloved pop-punk/alt-rock band Music/GreenDay releasing '''[[https://external-preview.redd.it/oq0P-KRRQiAR1bEnr39GU9pc5fR3ww4lbWkoH47rScc.jpg?auto=webp&s=c7d3e333d9e4c6850885ddf26e5dc3811791d1d2 this billboard]]''' in anticipation for their then-latest album '''''Father of All Motherfuckers'''''. With it boldly proclaiming that the record contained "no features, no Swedish songwriters, no trap beats" and "100% pure uncut rock" (and with thick lines of cocaine underlining each point for the sake of a lazy pun, to boot) what was most likely meant as a lighthearted jab at mainstream pop music was instead [[https://i.redd.it/jv4ldezngqf41.jpg widely]] [[https://pics.me.me/nothing-more-punk-than-adopting-boomer-talking-points-69151320.png chided]] [[https://pics.me.me/green-day-used-to-be-my-favorite-band-a-decade-69144439.png for]] [[https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/green-day-gets-dragged-for-bizarre-anti-trap-billboard-for-new-album-news.103362.html coming]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LSW5uKZLHQ across]] like a textbook case of blaming their audience for falling out of touch, by way of played-out retro rockist snobbery. The ultimate irony of all: the album released to [[BrokenBase sharply polarized reviews]], with even its most forgiving of fans and critics noting FOAMF's [[ClicheStorm strict adherence to every single rock music trope of the past thirty years]].

* In 2006, Todd Davis, CEO of '''[=LifeLock=]''', put out an extremely gutsy ad campaign to boast the security company's effectiveness: he publicly posted his ''real social security number'' on billboards and his personal website and dared people to steal his identity, guaranteeing that [=LifeLock=] would make stolen information "useless" to criminals. Needless to say, Davis [[HoistByHisOwnPetard successfully had his identity stolen]] -- [[https://www.wired.com/2010/05/lifelock-identity-theft/ at least thirteen times]], to be specific. To make matters worse, the Federal Trade Commission fined [=LifeLock=] not long afterwards for falsely advertising the security of customer data, likening them to "con artists."
* '''Creator/{{Netflix}}[='=]s [[https://www.vulture.com/2020/08/netflix-cuties-twerking-poster-drama-explained.html promotion]] of their release of''' '''''Film/{{Cuties}}''''' [[TaintedByThePreview immediately tainted the movie's name]] in the public eye due to a case of MisaimedMarketing. The film set out to make a statement about child exploitation through sexual and female-objectifying media--the [[http://www.impawards.com/intl/france/tv/mignonnes.html original poster]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0O7lLe4SmA trailer]] [[DontShootTheMessage made it out to be exactly what it decried]]. The titular dance troupe's skimpy uniforms are placed front and center on the poster, and the trailer focused mostly on the girls' sexually suggestively dance moves and surface-level similarities to ''Film/StepUp''. This got Netflix accused of promoting pedophilia (despite only being the distributor) with a petition being made for the service to cancel the release and [[https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/cuties-backlash-netflix-cancellations-record-levels-1234769354/ cancellations increasing roughly 800%]]. The director wound up being chased off of Twitter, and some ImageBoards strictly banned the movie as a topic of discussion. Even politicians from both sides of the political spectrum expressed their disgust towards Netflix's promotion of the film, wanting to discuss the film before Congress to see if Netflix had violated any laws regarding the production and distribution of child pornography. Netflix [[https://twitter.com/netflix/status/1296486375211053057?s=20 quickly apologized]] once the backlash started (though they were not quick to say who was to blame) and started making efforts to try and correct it, [[https://twitter.com/theycallmeDSK/status/1296301343066423296?s=20 down to the on-site description]], but by then the film had already been criticized worldwide, with some reviewers accusing the film of [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing indulging in the sexual content it was criticizing,]] and outside of France it either got adults-only ratings or banned outright ''on principle'' across the board.
* In 1967, '''Pacific Air Lines''' teamed up with Creator/StanFreberg to launch [[http://brandedskies.com/2010/12/why-safety-isnt-safe/ a campaign]] embracing the public's fear of flying instead of trying to dissuade it. This began with a print ad targeted towards "you with the sweat on your palms," which not only acknowledged the reader's likely fear of flying, but claimed that the ''pilots'' were afraid of flying too. This campaign extended to the PAL flights themselves, with flight attendants distributing "survival kits" containing survival blankets, lucky rabbit's feet, and books on positive thinking. While intended to be sympathetic and tongue-in-cheek, it only made passengers ''less'' confident about airline safety. Stockholders weren't happy, at least two ad execs lost their jobs over the affair, and PAL ended their relationship with Freberg.
* In March 2014, Irish bookmaker Paddy Power ran an ad titled "'''It's Oscar Time'''" in regards to Paralympic and Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who was on trial at the time for the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. The ad featured an Academy Award statuette edited to show Oscar's head, alongside a promise to refund all losing bets if he were found not guilty.[[note]]Oscar was eventually found guilty six months later.[[/note]] The ad was condemned right off the bat, resulting in a record 5,525 complaints being made to the Advertising Standards Authority, and the ad was taken down not shortly after. Adam Hill from ''Series/TheLastLeg'' ranted about the ad [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c42QsVem7K4 in one episode]].
* In 2006, Sony launched a series of billboards in the Netherlands advertising the '''[[UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable PSP White]]''' that ended up sparking worldwide controversy. In it, the words "[=PlayStation=] Portable White is coming" are overlaid [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_4467_7.jpeg atop an image]] of a white woman [[VillainousFaceHold aggressively grabbing]] a black woman by the chin. While the intent of the ad was to show that the PSP White is superior to the older, black PSP models, people were instead quick to point out the [[UnfortunateImplications racist undertones]] surrounding the ad, noting that it looked as if it was advocating violence towards black people. The backlash was so severe, that it prompted global news coverage from outlets such as [[https://money.cnn.com/blogs/browser/2006/07/sony-psp-ads-spark-cries-of-racism.html CNN]] and [[https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2006/jul/05/sonyadcasues The Guardian]], and ultimately did nothing to help the PSP's already-dwindling sales numbers. Sony would eventually [[https://www.eurogamer.net/news050706whitepspad respond to the racism allegations]] by pointing out the intent of showing the contrast between the PSP and PSP White, but they did nothing to address how the ad not only could easily be taken as racist without that knowledge, but also did so in [[DadaAd such an abstract fashion]] that it's hard to tell what the purpose of the ad is.[[invoked]]
* In 2007, the NYU Child Study Center launched the '''"Ransom Note" campaign''' to raise awareness of childhood psychiatric disorders, putting up billboards in the form of ransom notes from various mental illnesses holding children hostage -- for example, the one for autism said "We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. This is only the beginning." Although the ads were meant to encourage parents to seek help for their children with mental illnesses, they came across as [[DontShootTheMessage insulting and demeaning to the people they were trying to speak to]], describing a child with depression as "imprisoned in a maze of darkness with no hope of ever getting out," a child with ADHD as "a detriment to himself and those around him," and a child with Asperger’s syndrome as "doomed to live a life of complete isolation." The backlash was immediate and fierce, with the CSC receiving 3,000 emails and phone calls, 70% of them expressing anger and hurt over the campaign. Advocates for people with disabilities blasted the ads for reinforcing negative stereotypes and increasing stigma around mental illness. The campaign was canceled after two weeks.
* The '''initial ad campaign for''' '''''Animation/RedShoesAndTheSevenDwarfs''''', specifically [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/redshoesandthenogoodverybadmovieposter.png this poster]] showed at Con-Can Movie Festival in 2017, depicting the heavyset Snow White and her thinner self caused by her magic shoes alongside the slogan "What if Snow White was no longer beautiful, and the 7 Dwarfs not so short?". The poster garnered ''loads'' of [[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/animated-snow-white-parody-slammed-critics-fat-shaming-n767151 criticism]] the moment it hit the Internet, as it [[invoked]][[UnfortunateImplications implied the fatter Snow White was inherently ugly because of her weight]], turning many off from the movie; the poster even ''hit the news'' due to the backlash. The English voice actress for Snow White, Creator/ChloeGraceMoretz, stated she was appalled that the advertising team thought the poster was a good idea, while the movie's team apologized and pulled the entire campaign. The movie itself was delayed from its original 2018 release date to July 2019 -- notably, despite an English dub being recorded and available, it wasn't released in English-speaking countries like the U.S. and UK until Creator/{{Lionsgate}} picked up the distribution rights a year later, presumably due to the controversy. Ironically, the movie's moral is the very opposite of what the poster implied, being about loving your body and not treating people differently just because they aren't conventionally beautiful -- a poignant [[AnAesop Aesop]], especially in UsefulNotes/SouthKorea -- but most [[OvershadowedByControversy don't think of it as anything but the "fat-shaming Snow White movie"]] due to its terrible ad campaign. WebVideo/{{Saberspark}} looked at the ad before doing [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TyQYt-6Nlw his review on the film]], and noted that after finishing the film, he blamed the failure of their advertising in particular for having it fail more than anything else with the film at hand.
* In the April 2, 1999 edition of ''USA Today'', '''Wrestling/WorldChampionshipWrestling''' ran an [[https://i.imgur.com/KQkiK.jpeg inexplicable print ad]] with a vaguely-spiked silhouette, the logo for the Creator/{{TNT}} channel, a date, and the phrase '''"Looks like something a bird left on the hood of my car"'''. It was an ad for ''WCW Monday Nitro''[='=]s new set on the April 5 episode, but nobody unfamiliar with the company would know that from the ad's layout. As you can probably guess, it did not win the company any new or returning fans. The ad was so absurd and off-putting that no one believed [[Wrestling/WrestlingObserverNewsletter Dave Meltzer]]'s report about it until a scan of it surfaced several years later.

* When legendary Irish rock band {{Music/U2}} released their 13th studio album, '''''Songs of Innocence''''', on 9 September 2014, '''Apple''' saw fit to download the album onto millions of people's iTunes libraries without their consent. This meant that those who had auto-download enabled had the album added to (and later pointlessly taking up space on) the device itself. The stunt was met with widespread public derision as Apple initially offered no real way to delete the album rather than just hiding it; it took Apple almost a week to come up with a solution, which amounted to leading iTunes users to a [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200524054328/https://buy.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/offerOptOut specially-created link just to remove it]]. The campaign ultimately 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 [[SoOkayItsAverage decent-at-best for a band of U2's caliber]], it'll more than likely be [[OvershadowedByControversy remembered for its incredibly botched marketing campaign]].
* In 2018, '''Build-A-Bear Workshop''' announced an event called "Pay Your Age" to be held on July 12 where patrons could "build-a-bear" and pay a price equal to their age instead of normal prices (for example, an eight-year-old child would only have to pay $8 for their new fuzzy pal). It sounded like a novel concept on paper, but when July 12 came [[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/12/build-bear-workshop-bargain-teddy-offer-sparks-chaotic-scenes-across-britain the event ended up a complete and utter disaster]]. Lines of thousands of people and families wanting to take advantage of the deal at Build-A-Bears across the US, Canada, and the UK either filled indoor malls entirely or stretched for blocks on end outside as the hot Summer temperatures (and tempers) began to heat up. Fights broke out among parents and children in lines around stores. Making matters worse was when stores were forced to close up shop due to either running out of materials for the stuffed animals or overcrowding, resulting in distraught customers, having been waiting for up to hours on end to take advantage of the promotion only to be turned away, getting angrier and, in some places, causing riots (with the police being called to mediate the situation around a UK location in Leeds). Build-A-Bear attempted to save face by apologizing and giving out vouchers for free stuffed animals, but the damage had been done, and disgruntled parents and upset children took to the internet in droves to express their disappointment in the beloved toy company. Michael Hann for UK news site The Guardian [[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jul/23/fluffed-it-the-truth-about-build-a-bears-day-of-mayhem gives a post-mortem to the heavily botched promotion here]] and gives out insight for why the promotion failed as spectacularly as it did, criticizing Build-A-Bear for not adequately preparing their stores for the massive crowds the promotion brought. WebVideo/{{Chadtronic}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZPab7OV30 has also given his two cents]] on the debacle, accusing the promotion of being a scam. Build-A-Bear quickly reworked the "Pay Your Age" idea by introducing a birthday-specific promotion where kids pay whatever age they're turning, but this came with many more restrictions[[note]]Only one specific bear qualifies for the discount, it's only a deal for children under fourteen since that's the normal price of the bear, the deal is only eligible the month of the child's birthday, and it requires prior sign-up online[[/note]] to prevent the rush that happened on July 12; this promotion would prove ''much'' more successful.
* The notorious '''''"Where's Herb?"''''' '''Burger King''' ads from 1985-86. The gimmick was that Herb was a man who had never eaten a Whopper in his life, and customers were to be on the lookout for Herb at their local Burger King for a chance to win $5,000. In addition, customers could get Whoppers for 99 cents if they told the cashier "I'm not Herb." (or if they ''were'' named Herb, that "I'm not the Herb you're looking for."). After initial mass confusion caused by people not being given any hints as to what Herb looked like, Burger King revealed him at the Super Bowl in January 1986... at which point most people didn't care anymore (and those few who still did were insulted -- especially if they really had never eaten a Whopper or were named Herb -- when [[ThisLoserIsYou Herb turned out to be a dorky-looking schlub]]). Not helping was a controversy stemming from the fact that an 11-year-old boy spotted Herb at a Burger King in Alabama, but as he was underage the prize had to go to a friend of his who was in the restaurant at the same time, which in turn led to the Alabama state senate declaring consumer fraud. The campaign lasted only three months, and Burger King's profits plummeted by 40% as a result. [[note]](Still, Herb did get to be a guest timekeeper at Wrestling/WrestleMania 2, for all that's worth.)[[/note]] ''Literature/WhatWereTheyThinkingThe100DumbestEventsInTelevisionHistory'' lists this campaign at #42.
* In 2016, Comcast announced its unpopular 1 TB data cap and released a promo video titled '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE9OuNK-QWg What Can You Do With A Terabyte?]]''' to try to make it sound more palatable. It did not work ''at all''. It starts off with an explanation of what a byte is and that a terabyte is a trillion bytes, and then lists random facts like "you can upload 60,000 high-resolution photos with a terabyte" and "a terabyte is 1.8 billion [[Website/{{Twitter}} tweets]]" while making no attempt to understand why anyone would actually want more than a terabyte of data [[note]]4K videos, large game files, and frequent updates to online games, among other things; this goes doubly if multiple members of a household use any of these.[[/note]], and failing to realize that most people who'd be unhappy about a data cap are already perfectly aware of what a terabyte is. The video's not even remotely entertaining, either, as the few jokes that the narrator throws are horrendously unfunny. The whole video comes across as a condescending attempt to [[NeverNeedsSharpening pass off a restriction as a good thing]]. As of August 2020, the video has only 567 likes compared to ''71,000'' dislikes.
* In January 2022, '''Advertising/{{Cryptoland}}''' released an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x26fUL_YB14 infomercial]] to promote a resort in UsefulNotes/{{Fiji}} for cryptocurrency investors. It caught on for all the wrong reasons; that it was padded out with pitch videos from the very beginning is the least of its problems. The animation is lousy and full of blatant shortcuts, defying the claim that one-time Creator/{{Pixar}} employees were involved. It's cheap and loaded with stolen assets, from the anthropomorphic cryptocurrency mascot to ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'''s trademark LosingHorns and other stolen sound bytes. Its attempts at a plot are outright baffling, even by industrial stage show standards, with loads of {{flat character}}s, [[Horrible/MusicSoundtracks Godawful musical numbers (mostly all covers)]], and outright stupid references to cryptocurrency (not least of all, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitconnect BitConnect Memorial Pyramid]]). And on top of that, most of the features hawked just boil down to working while on an island with non-investors. WebVideo/CynicalReviews looked at it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjsteRFA57M here]] in his video about [=NFTs=] and NFT cartoons. Creator/ThoughtSlime and Sophie From Mars also reacted to it in [[https://youtu.be/OBz3o_RO0sU this]] episode of Cringe Corner.
* A sales promotion that caused a national scandal and killed a company was the British '''Hoover "Free Flights" promotion''' in the 1990s. The company offered free air tickets to anybody who spent over £100 on a Hoover appliance, [[TemptingFate gambling that the complex redemption procedure would lead to only a minority of the claims being redeemed]]. This worked until they got over-confident and extended the offer to free air tickets to the USA, a much more generous offer (customers worked out that you could buy a £100 vacuum cleaner and get air tickets worth six times that). The £30 million in extra sales did not measure up to the £50 million worth of air tickets the company had promised to give away, and predictably they tried to weasel out of the offer leading to years of litigation and massive media hostility to the company and its US parent Maytag. In 1995, the much-diminished Hoover brand was sold off to European competitor Candy.

** "This is absolute tragedy", said sports commentator Joseph Tait of the '''Ten Cent Beer Night''', the name of a promotion for a 1974 baseball game between the Cleveland Indians[[note]]later renamed Cleveland Guardians in 2022[[/note]] and the Texas Rangers at UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}} Stadium. The promotion promised cups of beer for only ten cents, something that drew massive crowds to the stadium (more than even anticipated, one of the first red flags). Previous beer discount promotions had gone without incident, but a combination of security and personnel being unprepared for the massive crowds, no limit on how many beer purchases could be made during the game, and tension between Indians and Rangers fans created the perfect storm of events that eventually resulted in [[AlcoholInducedIdiocy alcohol-induced chaos]]. There were already incidents occurring before the final innings of the game (mostly from drunk people flashing or mooning the spectators, fans throwing food or firecrackers onto the field at players, in one instance throwing a gallon jug of Thunderbird wine, and one man streaking to second base). When the game was tied up in the bottom of the ninth inning, the straw that broke the camel's back was the Rangers' teammates thinking that their outfielder had been attacked by a drunk fan who ran out onto the field and running out to intervene. This didn't sit well with the drunk crowd, who either stormed the field en masse wielding blunt objects or flung everything from food to broken chairs from the stands onto the field. Several players, umpires, referees, and other fans were injured before both the Rangers and Indians teams could flee the field and the Cleveland police arrived to diffuse the mess. The game ended on a forfeit with the score stuck at a 5-5 tie. Future events of this sort would put a ''hard'' limit on how much beer fans were allowed to purchase. [=YouTuber=] Qxir gives a humorous summary of the whole debacle [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=tKrBY5WlCxs here]].
** 1979's '''{{Disco}} Demolition Night''' would go down in history as not only one of the most infamous ball game promotions in history and being credited for [[GenreKiller killing disco]] [[CondemnedByHistory stone dead]] for decades afterward, but as a mismanaged promotion GoneHorriblyWrong to boot. In the late 70s, [[DiscoSucks anti-disco sentiment]] was reaching a fever pitch. In response to this, UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} ShockJock Steve Dahl and the Chicago White Sox arranged for this event, wherein a ton of disco records donated by his listeners would be blown up, to happen between games at a double-header between the White Sox and the UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}} Tigers in Chicago's Comiskey Park as a publicity stunt. Things were already shaping up to go wrong from the start when nearly 50,000 people who wanted to see disco get what they thought was coming to it loaded up the stadium when the personnel were only prepared for only just over half that many. Security was overwhelmed; if they didn't watch the stadium entrance, people would hop the fences or start record disc bonfires outside the stadium, and if they didn't watch the playfield, fans would throw their records into the field like razor sharp frisbees. Because most of security was instructed to watch the stadium entrances, nobody was still at the field to prevent what happened after the end of the game when an army-fatigue-clad Dahl rode out into the baseball field on a jeep and blew up the donated disco records (leaving a massive crater in the middle of the field in the process). The worked-up and by now severely inebriated anti-disco fans stormed past security onto the field and either danced around the area of the explosion and burning debris or began destroying the parts of the field and stadium that hadn't already been destroyed by the explosion. While Dahl, his companions in the jeep, and the White Sox and Tiger players escaped the chaos unharmed, the fans who didn't want any part in the mayhem going on in the stadium and field weren't as lucky, as all but one of the gates were padlocked due to the people jumping the gates and sneaking in. It took the Chicago police arriving in riot gear to get the crowd to knock it off, but by this point the baseball field was such a mess between the initial explosion and subsequent riot that the White Sox could not play on it and had to forfeit the next game to the Tigers. The event has been examined in the years since for its impact on disco and American music culture as a whole and what it might have said about music fans at the time, but due to the immediate repercussions of the promotion, events of this sort have pointedly never been held at sporting events again.

** [[https://laist.com/2016/10/11/mcdonalds_olympics.php During the 1984 Olympics]], [=McDonald=]'s launched the '''U.S. Wins, You Win''' promo. How it worked was that a customer would get a scratcher ticket for an Olympic Sport, and if the U.S. won any medal, a customer would get a free menu item (a Big Mac for Gold, French Fries for Silver, and a Coke for Bronze). The company had earlier used this campaign for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, to much greater success; [[SpannerInTheWorks however]], [=McDonald's=] was not expecting the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]], who were athletic powerhouses at the time, to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Summer_Olympics_boycott boycott the 1984 Olympics]][[note]](officially to protest the commercialization of the games and out of concern for their athletes' safety, among other things; however, a more likely reason was retaliation for the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Summer_Olympics_boycott U.S.-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan]] -- [[DidntThinkThisThrough meaning McDonald's should have anticipated the possibility of a Soviet boycott of the next games in Los Angeles]] -- and possibly fear that their doping program would be exposed)[[/note]], leaving the U.S. unopposed in enough events to take home 174 medals, 84 of them being Gold. This led to millions getting free meals (with some even being able to sustain their families with the winning tickets they had) and 6,600 restaurants running out of the items being offered, and the blunder cost [=McDonald=]'s millions. The incident would be parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E10LisasFirstWord Lisa's First Word]]", with Krusty Burger taking the role of [=McDonald's=].
--->'''Krusty:''' I, personally, am gonna spit in every fiftieth burger!\\

** In October 2017, [=McDonald's=] announced that for one day only they'd be bringing back Szechuan [=McNugget=] dipping sauce, which was originally a limited-time promotional tie-in for the movie ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'' in 1998, after [[Recap/RickAndMortyS3E1TheRickshankRedemption the Season 3 premiere]] of ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' [[TheRedStapler sparked a huge interest in it]]. However, [[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mcdonalds-szechuan-rick-morty-fans-pissed_us_59d95604e4b046f5ad98aab3 there was a series of problems]]. Not all the restaurants got it, and some locations advertised as having the sauce didn't have it. The ones that did have some got a mere 20 packets apiece, despite crowds of hundreds. Inevitably, stores ran out, sometimes even ''prior to the restaurants' opening''. The backlash was so severe that police had to be called to numerous locations, and others reported riots as pissed-off fans yelled catchphrases from the show outside. This also damaged the reputation of ''Rick and Morty'' itself, with its fanbase, once notorious for being very loud and outspoken, becoming more reserved about their enjoyment of the show in order to avoid associating themselves with those who participated in the riots. If the [[https://twitter.com/McDonalds/status/916752002268450816 responses to their half-hearted apology on Twitter are any indication]], "Where's Herb?" might have some competition. The ''WebVideo/DoubleToasted'' crew had [[https://youtu.be/FepNoh_Hi1Q a field day when discussing the chaos that transpired]]. WebVideo/RebelTaxi ranked the incident at #5 on his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXAL6mRACA&t=8m17s "Top 10 WORST CARTOON News of 2017" list.]] WebVideo/AniMat's "[[https://youtu.be/36cT4e-3rrw Pick of the Week]]" on ''The Animation Podcast'' was about the aftermath and called out the fans for taking the meme too seriously and [=McDonald=]'s for being responsible for the whole thing. Even a second rollout (''five years later'') didn't save the reputation of the promotion or ''Rick and Morty'' fans.
* '''Pepsi Number Fever''' was a 1992 promotion exclusive to the UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} where the bottle caps of various Pepsi products had 3-digit numbers printed on them, with certain numbers being redeemable for cash prizes which were announced nightly, and two grand prize winners of one million pesos (equal to roughly 23 years of working at minimum wage). The promotion went swimmingly... until an error led to ''800,000 bottles'' having that night's grand prize number printed on them, as opposed to the mere two bottles that were supposed to have them. Pepsi couldn't afford to give everyone who had the number the grand prize (which would have totaled ''800 billion pesos''), so they stated that only the caps with the proper serial code could be claimed and those without incorrect serial codes could claim a compensation prize of a mere 500 pesos. As you could imagine, many people refused this offer and boycotted Pepsi products with peaceful protests. However, these protests quickly turned into violent riots, with over 30 Pepsi trucks being stoned or pushed over and at least two instances involving a ''grenade'' being thrown. In the end, Pepsi lost around 190 million pesos, 22,000 people took legal action against Pepsi, and at least 5 people were killed in the riots.
* In January 2015, the then-CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz started a campaign called "'''Race Together'''": Starbucks employees would write that phrase on coffee cups and when a customer asked what it meant, the customer and employee would start a conversation about race issues in America. While this was an interesting idea, there was a bit of a problem: there's a time and place for a discussion like this, and that place is most certainly ''not'' a crowded coffee shop full of impatient customers running late for work. Unsurprisingly, this campaign was universally lambasted, with many groups objecting to how blatantly out-of-touch Schultz had to be to even propose this. The actual questionnaires that were given to the customers weren't much better, as [[https://medium.com/the-social-reader/crisis-management-101-did-the-good-intentions-behind-starbucks-racetogether-pay-off-d39ffc6ece70 several of the questions]] were variants of "how many [[SomeOfMyBestFriendsAreX friends of a different race]] do you or someone close to you have?". [[FromBadToWorse It didn't stop there]]: Fast-forward to March when [[https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VJo8-Kkus2w/VQpbSVyNmdI/AAAAAAAAWm8/0ffInxzP0t8/s1600/leadership.jpg photos of Starbucks' higher-ups surfaced,]] and press photos endorsing the pro-diversity campaign featured white people almost exclusively. These images only served to further the already negative impression of the campaign. Backlash was quick and severe -- the initiative was cancelled after less than a week, with Schultz learning absolutely nothing. If you want to learn more, check out [[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/business/starbucks-race-together-shareholders-meeting.html this NY Times article]], [[https://www.businessinsider.com/howard-schultz-failed-race-together-campaign-2019-1 this interview with Schultz for Business Insider]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NFJbc9RSSk and this lovely video of John Oliver bashing this campaign]] on a segment of ''[[Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver Last Week Tonight]]'' while ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' parodied this with their fake commercial of a similar campaign launched by Pep Boys (an automotive repair shop and car parts store) called [[https://youtu.be/cNvEWxbLSEA "Genderflect"]], where auto mechanics try to discuss sexuality and gender identity issues with their customers. WebVideo/PhantomStrider and WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic list this as [[https://youtu.be/IRJGFGyvgoE?t=749 the fifth most controversial fast-food commercial]] (despite the promotion not having an official commercial), and summed up the campaign's problems with a tweet from April Reign:
--> '''[=@ReignOfApril=]:''' Not sure what [=@Starbucks=] was thinking. I don't have time to explain 400 years of oppression to you & still make my train. [=#RaceTogether=]
* '''Shaqtoons''' was a contest launched in 2019 by Creator/ShaquilleONeal and Creator/{{TNT}} to promote a new television series airing on the network called ''Shaq Life'' and to gain some animated material to use on the show. The contest was announced on television and social media, with a website set up that hosted multiple "story-time" narrations that were each somewhere from 30 seconds to a minute long, all of them recorded by Shaq and to be animated by the participants. After TNT received all the submissions by the deadline of September 20th, it would pick a winner for each narration, each of which would be broadcast on the show and whose creator would receive a cash reward. From the very start, the idea was [[DidntThinkThisThrough horribly flawed at best and incredibly shady at worst]], given that only the winner would receive any payment for their work despite how time-consuming and expensive a process animation would be for all the contestants involved. However, while this was already pretty bad, [[FromBadToWorse it turned out that the grand prize for the winner of the contest]] [[UndesirablePrize was an utterly pathetic payout of $500]], an amount well beneath the minimum wage for most freelance animators to produce an animation of the same length, especially at television-grade quality. It was such a terrible prize that the ungodly amount of backlash it caused eventually convinced TNT to reluctantly raise the prize to a more palatable $10,000. But the true final nail in the competition's coffin was when [[ReadTheFinePrint a few cautious people interested in the contest did a careful read-through of the participation terms]], and discovered that absolutely anything submitted as an entry to the contest became the sole property of Turner Broadcasting. This meant that none of the participants could use their submissions for so much as a personal work portfolio without risking the wrath of Turner and a subsequent lawsuit. That, and the clips themselves were simply unremarkable and below-par for even a first draft. The resulting criticism and drama over the utterly awful terms was so immense that TNT wound up quietly dropping the contest altogether before any submissions could be made, with Shaq and TNT [[CreatorBacklash never so much as mentioning it in passing ever again]] afterward. WebVideo/{{Saltydkdan}} tears apart the whole fiasco [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwZEjT0vA8s here]], even going so far as to make his own {{Parody}} of a Shaqtoon for the video, and Pam Maz, an animator who had created their own submission for the contest, relate their experience and all the red flags they noticed throughout it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLUS4KuGVrU here]].
* To hype up their first [[note]][[https://www.androidauthority.com/oneplus-oppo-relation-373820/ Well, sort of]][[/note]] smartphone, '''[=OnePlus=]''' decided to release the aptly titled [=OnePlus One=], under an invite system. Most of these invites were given out via contests. While the phone itself was a major success and established [=OnePlus=] as a serious player in the market, some of these contests wound up being major PR disasters that could've easily tanked them beforehand:
** The first one, the '''Smash the Past''' contest, granted the winner an invite for them and three others of their choosing to buy the phone for just $1... as long as afterward, they then posted a video of them destroying their current phone. This received immediate backlash and criticism, with the first reason being that it was incredibly wasteful to be encouraging people to destroy their perfectly good phones -- especially considering the list of devices that could be accepted for it consisted largely of then-current flagship phones -- instead of selling them or giving them away. Secondly, it was extremely dangerous, as the lithium batteries that are found in smartphones are effectively MadeOfExplodium and do not take kindly to being smashed. Third, unless they had a backup device, the winner would be presumably stuck without a phone for around the two weeks it would take to ship. Fourth, and most infamously, many who didn't fully understand the rules of the contest promptly took to destroying their phones without being picked and before the contest had even actually started. [=OnePlus=] hurriedly renamed the contest to "Donate the Past" and changed the rules so that they would merely have to donate the phones to a charity. This could also to be done after they had received the [=OnePlus=] phone, to prevent the "stuck without a phone" situation that the last contest invited.
** They then followed that up with the '''Ladies First''' contest, where women would draw a [=OnePlus=] logo on their body, and post it on the official [=OnePlus=] forum. The fifty women that got the most thumbs up on the forum would then get an invite for buying the phone (at full price, unlike "Smash the Past") and a free T-Shirt. This was met with immediate backlash for being degrading to women, and many of the entries were blatantly just fake submissions from men photoshopping [=OnePlus=] logos onto women's bodies, and others were women who protested the contest by holding up a sign calling out the contest for being sexist or just flat-out them FlippingTheBird. The contest was pulled after a few hours and [=OnePlus=] issued an apology, with the promotion being replaced by a "Summer Shots" photography contest.

* '''''VideoGame/TheCulling''''', despite having a solid start as one of the earliest entries in the BattleRoyaleGame genre, went on to have a rocky history[[note]]The full story is given in [=YongYea=]'s video linked at the end of this example, but the short version is: ''The Culling'' lost its popularity due to [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks negative reception of post-launch patches]] and shut down. Then, Xaviant made a sequel, ''The Culling 2'', which was a [[SerialNumbersFiledOff blatant rip-off of]] ''VideoGame/PlayerUnknownsBattlegrounds'' [[Horrible/VideoGameGenerationsSeventhOnwards and a massive disaster]] that shut down eight days later. In response to this failure, Xaviant brought back the first ''The Culling'' in a free-to-play format, but then shut it down again when its {{microtransactions}} failed to make enough money to pay for the servers[[/note]]. Despite having to shut down the game ''twice'', developer Xaviant decided to bring the game back a third time. However, '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DagyNvoA9DU the dev diary making the announcement]]''' was immediately hit with fierce backlash and killed off whatever goodwill people still had following ''The Culling 2'''s failure before the reboot even launched. In the video, Xaviant's director of operations, Josh Van Veld, announces that not only will the new version of the game ''not'' be free to play[[note]]although if you played the game in the past, including while it was free, you will keep it[[/note]], it will ''also'' require [[{{Microtransactions}} additional payment]] for ''every individual match played'' -- players were originally planned to get one free match token per day (later increased to ten, although this wasn't mentioned before launch), win one token if they win a match (which fortunately includes offline bot games, that ''don't'' cost anything to play), and must either purchase a timed subscription, token pack, or wait until the next day to keep playing after that, forcing players to pay for the right to keep playing the game ''they already paid for''. Josh tries to justify this system by pointing out that the game's older iterations did not make enough money to pay the server bills, but, as many comments point out, this double paywall will just alienate whatever few fans the game still had after the failure of ''The Culling 2'' (especially with the existence of more popular and polished BR games that don't charge you per round) and result in even less money coming their way. The video garnered a 1:50 like/dislike ratio, with most comments calling Xaviant out for their greedy monetization and pointing out that it makes even the worst {{Allegedly Free Game}}s seem reasonable in comparison. Xaviant [[https://www.pcgamer.com/the-culling-is-keeping-its-pay-to-play-system-but-xaviant-regrets-how-it-was-announced/ would later regret how they handled the announcement, although they insisted they had no plans to change the token system]]. [=YongYea=] comments on the history of the series and the announcement in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpH5Cdaf-RA this video]]. Jim Sterling also tears into the affair [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEmZuaeo1eY here]].

* '''The ads for the various mobile games created by Playrix''' (such as ''VideoGame/{{Gardenscapes}}'', most notably) underwent MemeticMutation in the late '10s for all the wrong reasons. The ads are often blamed for causing a decline of mobile game advertising in general, thanks to popularizing a number of tropes that quickly became widely hated. These include [[TooIncompetentToOperateABlanket laughably stupid gameplay]] (especially in the form of players ignoring blindingly obvious solutions to puzzles in favor of ones that cause an instant "FAIL" condition, most notably taking mallets to cracked aquariums or pouring gasoline on kitchen fires), [[NoBudget paper-thin budgets]], a bizarre fixation on relationship drama and infidelity and/or skeevy and overly sexualized humor and character designs (''Gardenscapes'' being a particularly glaring case due to the game otherwise completely lacking these sorts of elements), and [[VeryFalseAdvertising depicting gameplay that doesn't represent the actual product]] (all the puzzles and interactive story segments that involve fixing messy houses or getting main characters Austin and/or Katherine out of dangerous situations did not represent any sort of ''Gardenscape'''s gameplay in the slightest; the game is a MatchThreeGame). [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwSbO60HAss These]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwiAiKI1Ov8 videos]] compare the ads to the actual product, with nothing but ridicule over the disconnect between game and ad in the comments below. It was such that the [[https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/371747/UK_regulator_bans_misleading_Homescapes_Gardenscapes_pin_puzzle_ads.php Advertising Standards Authority actually spoke up against these ads]], deeming them misleading and banning them in the UK. The developers attempted to save face by implementing the infamous interactive story minigames in ''Gardenscapes'' as bonus minigames, but by then it was too late for the game's reputation and it's still best known for "😭 WHY IS THIS GAME SO HARD? 😭" and giant red "FAIL" buttons, which other game developers have adopted to even more questionable results.
* Sometime in 2022, a bizarre and disturbing ad for the mobile phone game '''''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxqleVLjZDo Primitive Era: 10,000 B.C.]]''''' was released. This ad shows a neanderthal male lustfully looking at two cave women, knocking them out with his club, then dragging their unconscious bodies back to a log cabin where [[RapeDiscretionShot he rapes them]]. When he leaves his home, he sees the tusks of a woolly mammoth sticking out of a bush and believes them to be part of an AmazonianBeauty's outfit, who he once again tries attacking with his club. Instead, the mammoth [[BestialityIsDepraved immediately falls in love with him]] and [[KarmicRape drags him into the bushes to have sex with him]]. None of what happened is considered subtext due to the constant emojis placed throughout the commercial, no actual gameplay is shown, and all of this makes one wonder why anyone thought it would be a good idea to make an advertisement featuring [[GratuitousRape copious amounts]] of BlackComedyRape. WebVideo/{{Vinesauce}} Vinny took a look at it in his first video where he willingly looked at awful mobile phone games [[https://youtu.be/tsHGPegWiSg?t=1010 here]], and not only [[ShockingMoments was he shocked at the ending]] of what he deemed "a fucking story" after first comparing it to something from WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones, but he also was unsure whether any actual gameplay was involved there.
* In October 2020, Creator/{{SNK}}'s licensing partners created an ad for their mobile phone app '''''SNK All Stars''''' that immediately drew backlash from everyone that saw it. The ad in question depicts a scene in which an extremely OutOfCharacter [[VideoGame/FatalFury Terry Bogard]] rides on a motorcycle and smacks the rear ends of three of SNK's female fighters ([[OffModel who are all the exact same height and have the same hands as Terry for no apparent reason]]) that he passes when he goes by a bar, before riding into an obstacle and wiping out, as the women walk to confront him. The shoddy animation and OutOfCharacter nature of the ad is bad enough in and of itself; what pushes it into Horrible territory is that one of the women is Kula Diamond, ''who is canonically underage''. SNK pulled the ad and apologized, but the damage was done. It's clear the ad company this was farmed to out had no idea who these characters were, took a shot in the dark regarding their characterizations... and missed completely. [[https://screenrant.com/snk-apologizes-gross-ad-sexual-assault-minor/ Screen Rant]] has more details in their article. WebVideo/{{Vinesauce}} Vinny also saw the video [[https://youtu.be/tsHGPegWiSg?t=2322 here]], noting the weird zoom-in transition from Mai's armpit to the game in particular.

* Although the 2007 adaptation for '''''Film/BridgeToTerabithia''''' was well received and successful, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DSGAeeDXO0 its trailer]] is notorious as perhaps the worst case of NeverTrustATrailer in movie history. It's an adaptation of the highly-beloved SliceOfLife novel about an outcast boy and girl who escape from the troubles of their lives by creating an imaginary fantasy world in the woods and is quite faithful to that story. But with epic fantasy films becoming big in the wake of ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'', Disney had the film's advertising all play up the fantasy stuff like it actually existed, which naturally made the book's fans furious at what seemed to be a disrespectful InNameOnly adaptation. The crew themselves (including the original author's son, who was also the inspiration for the main character) were quick to state their own anger about it and assure everyone it wasn't at all representative of the film. Ultimately, the film was a critical and commercial success, though it has been argued that it would have done much better without the whole scandal. Critics who vouched for the film, in particular, were perplexed by the decision to market the film as a fantasy, [[SciFiGhetto finding it deeper than that]].
* '''''WesternAnimation/TheEmojiMovie''''' is already considered one of the [[Horrible/AnimatedFilms worst animated movies]] of TheNewTens, but the advertising was not much better. Most infamously, they created a parody poster titled ''The Emoji's Tale''. The problem with this poster was that the [[Series/TheHandmaidsTale show it was based on]] is about the systematic oppression of women, and is set in a dystopian society where they have no rights and are legally considered the property of men; furthermore, said show is well-known enough that only mass PopCulturalOsmosisFailure could explain the poster making it past the initial ideas phase. Making matters worse, the emoji used in the parody poster is Smiler, who is not only the leader of the Emojis but is also the main villain of the film. The poster received backlash for carelessly invoking a work that was extremely inappropriate for both the subject matter and its target audience, quickly resulting in the tweet being deleted.
* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mFHRlVNP3Q trailer]] for '''''Gamer Girl''''', an InteractiveMovie game, was lambasted right out of the gate by multiple sources, and it's not hard to see why. The game's creators claimed that it's meant to be an "empowering" game criticizing misogyny against female game streamers... except that the trailer showcases a stereotypical GamerChick named [=Abicake99=] who's such an ExtremeDoormat that she relies on the player -- her "chat moderator" -- to tell her who she can hang out with or even ''whether to answer her own phone.'' The clips of the game we see feature terrible acting, gratuitous {{Fanservice}}, approximately '''two seconds''' of Abicake ''actually playing a game'' (the SoOkayItsAverage ''Coffin Dodgers'' by the same publisher), and a cheap JumpScare that just serves to highlight how much of a DamselInDistress Abicake is... which flies right in the face of how "empowering" this game supposedly is, and makes it feel more like an exploitation game than a serious commentary on the harassment female gamers and streamers receive in the gaming community in real life. LetsPlay/{{Critikal}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQuVbKlIwiU had nothing nice to say about it]], while ''Magazine/PCGamer'' and The Mary Sue [[https://www.pcgamer.com/this-fmv-game-trailer-was-so-poorly-received-the-publisher-took-the-whole-announcement-back/ gave their own]] [[https://www.themarysue.com/gamer-girl-trailer-why-tho/ takes on it.]] The backlash was so fierce that the developers, Wales Interactive, pulled the trailer from their own channel and wiped all trace of it off their website, before quietly [[{{Vaporware}} cancelling the project]].

--> '''Mother's Basement''': ...We got a short montage of interview clips that seemed precision designed to specifically piss-off the [=Anti-SJW=] crowd without actually providing the opposite side of that with any good ammo to defend it.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YngbHOz--oc The notorious "Masterclass" trailer]] for '''''VideoGame/MightyNo9''''' seemingly attempts to invoke nostalgia for TheNineties, but ends up recalling some of the worst [[TotallyRadical "X-Treme!!"]] ad campaigns from that decade. The trailer relies on an unfunny, neurotic narrator to show off game mechanics rather than [[ShowDontTell letting it speak for itself]], and at one point [[MisaimedMarketing insults a good deal of the game's demographic]] with the line "make the bad guys cry like an anime fan on prom night" [[note]](the game was developed in UsefulNotes/{{Japan}} and is based on a [[VideoGame/MegaMan much-beloved Japanese franchise]] with [[Anime/MegaManNTWarrior its own anime adaptation]] -- the [[FriendlyFandoms overlap]] in {{fandom}}s is a given)[[/note]], which is a juvenile insult to begin with. The video also prominently displays [[SpecialEffectFailure terribly-rendered explosions that several people compared to sloppily-made pizza]], and as a whole feels rushed. After being posted on Website/YouTube by publishers Creator/DeepSilver, it was roundly mocked by the gaming press and community alike, with a large amount of dislikes and [[https://twitter.com/t_aizu/status/735652527450947584 garnering ire]] from developer Creator/IntiCreates CEO Takaya Aizu, and wound up being another nail in the coffin. Even people who like the game don't like this ad.
* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwN4VYzD02g MyTeam trailer]] for '''''[[VideoGame/NBA2K NBA 2K20]]''''' features surprisingly little footage of basketball, despite being for a basketball game. Instead, the focus is on the game's many luck-based reward mechanics such as [[LootBox player card packs]], juxtaposed with streamers celebrating. Many of these mechanics are modeled after casino games (a slot machine, pachinko machine, and roulette can be seen in the trailer), which baffled and shocked viewers, as the gambling-like nature of loot boxes and the harmful psychological effects they could have on younger players was a very hot topic at the time. Even though the casino-style games don't actually cost real money to play[[note]]the slots and pachinko games are played after matches, while the roulette is a PlayEveryDay reward system[[/note]], this is not evident from the footage shown, leading to accusations that the game would teach children to gamble. Reception was immensely negative, with a ratio of about 200 likes to ''over 22,000 dislikes'' on Website/YouTube before 2K Sports set the video on their channel to private (the linked video, an alternate upload from [=GameTrailers=], also has an extremely bad like-dislike ratio). Even 2K Sports fans couldn't defend the extremely tone-deaf trailer, which made the game look more like a casino simulator than a basketball game and seemed to be specifically ''trying'' to draw attention to the series' heavily-criticized BribingYourWayToVictory feature while giving more ammunition to the "loot boxes are gambling" side of the argument by juxtaposing the card packs with gambling imagery. As you'd expect, Creator/JimSterling, one of the more outspoken opponents of loot boxes, jumped onto the trailer in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcGZQDOOU6Y this video]].
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PCWUCv1rnU The trailer]] for the 2020 revival of '''''ComicBook/NewWarriors''''' as part of ''ComicBook/{{Outlawed}}'' went viral mostly for being a blatant case of FadSuper, featuring characters such as an indigenous woman called Trailblazer; Screentime, a teenager exposed to "Internet gas" who is said to speak in memes; a vampire goth kid named B-Negative; and, most infamously, Snowflake, a non-binary character who, alongside their twin brother Safespace, had powers and names modeled on bigoted insults often thrown at LGBT people. The trailer was lambasted quickly for the ''incredibly'' cringe-inducing choice of wording used to describe the characters, with members of the non-binary community such as Creator/KateLeth [[http://web.archive.org/web/20200318231210/https://twitter.com/kateleth/status/1240314894160814083 speaking out]] against the patronizing and offensive rationale given for Snowflake's name and design. Likewise, people of the marginalized communities represented by the characters found it [[PoesLaw more reminiscent of satire of token representation in media than a sincere attempt to create a diverse cast of characters]]. The video sits with a dislike-like ratio of about ''forty-eight to one'' on [=YouTube=]. Even after the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic delayed the release date to October 2020, the comic wasn't released, and Marvel has been silent about the comic, indicating that the massive backlash most likely resulted in it being cancelled altogether.
* '''''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020''''' started on one ''hell'' of a wrong foot with its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfEpqmdXhiU first trailer]]. Audiences were repulsed by the terrible design for the iconic hedgehog, which fell into the deepest reaches of the [[UnintentionalUncannyValley Uncanny Valley]]. It looked like, to quote Creator/JohnOliver, "a furry potato with a corpse's face". It became a MemeticMutation from Sonic turning into AccidentalNightmareFuel after the first trailer dropped. [[note]]This design was later revealed to have been the result of ExecutiveMeddling from Paramount, hoping that general audiences would embrace it even if the fans didn't. Not only did this not happen, but general audiences hated it, too. What ended up happening here had [[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:Movie_Megatron_olduglyface.jpg previously]] [[https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/752880/Monster-Trucks-test-screening-Paramount-Pictures-family-film-box-office-flops happened]] with [[Film/Transformers2007 Bayformers Megatron]] and [[Film/MonsterTrucks Creech]], so they really [[PointyHairedBoss should've known better]].[[/note]] This was along with other strange thematic choices -- in particular, [[SoundtrackDissonance using Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" in the trailer, a song one would hardly associate with Sonic]]. The redesign caused such an intense reaction that director Jeff Fowler [[https://twitter.com/fowltown/status/1124056098925944832?s=20 announced]] that the animators would be going back to the drawing board, with the film's release being pushed back three months to February 2020. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szby7ZHLnkA The second trailer]] featured a more stylized and cartoony Sonic which looked much more in line with his video game appearance (designed by Creator/TysonHesse) and a more upbeat soundtrack. This trailer was received much better, with a like-dislike ratio of about 99:1, along with comments saying that the AuthorsSavingThrow in response to the criticism meant that people were now obligated to see the movie. Even so, the very negative reactions to the initial design for Sonic remain a warning of what can happen when ExecutiveMeddling tries to fix what isn't broken. While the new redesign allowed the film to be a solid hit and pave the way for its own franchise, the original Sonic design later showed up as a reoccurring character in, of all places, the live-action ''Film/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'' movie, where he is intentionally portrayed as creepy as a TakeThat, though also as [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap a very sympathetic character]]. The first trailer gained a bevy of reactions to it from both ''Sonic'' fans and non-''Sonic'' fans alike: Creator/JimSterling [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qacb7ZQoeYQ reacts in horror]], as did both [[https://youtu.be/q30Uxr5zp7I Vinny]] and [[https://youtu.be/pOa7_mgPhEQ Joel]] of WebVideo/{{Vinesauce}}, while WebVideo/{{Arlo}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiBjGt3Cepg spins a theory on whether its horrors were intentional]], though WebAnimation/TheOdd1sOut [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLzUtMiq1N4&t=291 disputes this]] on the basis that ''Film/{{Cats}}'' made it to release with similarly horrifying character designs intact. WebVideo/AniMat and Jamietud talk about the trailer [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO2M0Hogz74&t=6m2s here]]. Rob Boor of ''WebVideo/CinematicVenom'' reacts to it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyx2PD5D5wI here]]. Korey Coleman, Martin Thomas, and Billy Brooks talk about the trailer on ''WebVideo/DoubleToasted'' [[https://youtu.be/iqOFSC2wx64 here]].
* The trailer for '''Sony's [[UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 PS4]] Winter 2019/2020 Lineup''' was taken down almost as soon as it was posted for rampant plagiarism by the lead animator, Kevin Bao, with many of the animated shots being incredibly blatant traces of other works, most notably copied from sources such as ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseTheMovie'', ''Anime/{{FLCL}}'', and the animation school ''[[https://www.youtube.com/user/gobelins Gobelins]]''. These fragments are strung together within the video incredibly haphazardly, so one second the main character is engaging in a sword fight, and the next they're riding a bullet fired from a giant gun. A re-upload of the whole music video can be found [[https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm36020105 here]]. A side-by-side comparision of video and the source works (sans audio) can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZEthbq598I here]] Additionally, the animator in question [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnAoak6iWB8 was discovered shortly afterward to have been plagiarizing other animated sequences for trailers and the like]] for a good while before being caught red-handed with this one, [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor ensuring that no company in their right mind would ever hire him again]].
* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkPvATin4AQ 2017 trailer]] for the ''VideoGame/TimeSplitters'' FanGame '''''[=TimeSplitters=] Rewind''''' is probably the most lazy, barebones, zero-effort preview to have ever existed. Even ignoring how its claimed release date [[ScheduleSlip turned out to be a lie]], it consists entirely of time crystals with images of past characters in them. The images are blurry and nearly impossible to make out and there's no indication you're even supposed to be looking for anything, meaning most viewers saw nothing but two minutes of featureless green rocks. Given the game had been announced five years prior with absolutely no footage being shown since, the fans were understandably pissed. The developers apologized for the shitty trailer mere days afterwards, but wouldn't release a ''real'' preview until March 2019, with the original upload having since been unlisted. Creator/TheQuarterGuy went on to declare this to be the [[https://youtu.be/dUaYrVKDp1c 5th worst video game trailer]] he's even seen, due to it [[WhatWereTheySellingAgain doing nothing to demonstrate]] what the premise or tone of ''[=TimeSplitters=]'' is like, on top of not showing any in-game footage. Tellingly, when WebVideo/ScottTheWoz attempted to fix the trailer in one of his early episodes[[note]]which also featured a re-edit of the above mentioned ''Mighty No. 9'' trailer[[/note]], his re-edit got an ApprovalOfGod from the game’s project lead.

In order by product name, company name, or other type of name:
* In 1984, '''Creator/{{Apple}}''' made history with the beloved "Advertising/NineteenEightyFour" Super Bowl ad for the UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh computer. "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw76XpN8WcA Lemmings]]," their return to the 1985 Super Bowl to advertise the Macintosh Office, had [[https://www.wired.com/2014/01/tech-time-warp-lemmings/ the complete opposite effect]]. The commercial depicts blindfolded businessmen whistling [[WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs "Heigh Ho"]] as they walk in a single-file line off a cliff (once again [[CompetingProductPotshot mocking IBM consumers]] by depicting them as slaves to the norm, only now they're casually suicidal to boot), until one businessman lifts his blindfold and doesn't jump. The narrator advertises the Mac Office and tells the audience they could, "look into it... or go on with business as usual." Audiences found the SuicidalLemmings imagery [[NightmareFuel too bleak and offensive]] in contrast to the triumphant last note of "1984" and its premiere at Stanford Stadium received awkward silence rather than cheers. Even worse, the Mac Office wouldn't be fully ready until 1987, meaning there was nothing to "look into". Apple would not return to advertise at the Super Bowl until 1999, which became their first steps forward into not just profitability after many years of struggle from the ad, but also into being the technological juggernaut that they are today. Watch [=JaguarGator9=] talk about Lemmings and why it was such a failure [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R46vkNKJuA8 here.]]
* The marketing campaign for the '''UsefulNotes/AtariJaguar''' was a humongous misstep, in part responsible for the death of the Jaguar (and by extension, Atari themselves) and its impact on US console development.

** On top of this, there was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-NBFaNSDYs an infomercial]] produced which hammers in the "Do the Math" slogan, repeatedly portrays ownership of a 16-bit console as uncool, and has more blatant lying (the host says "I won't overpromise" before doing just that; the generic "video game sounds" used for the 16-bit console near the beginning seem remarkably similar to those from the early Atari 2600 era). At this point, the initial wave of popularity Sega had made with their Genesis was starting to settle down, and Nintendo had a firm hold in the market. Sega had learned that attempting to insult their business rival didn't work as well as they thought but managed to pull ahead and compete just fine. Atari, on the other hand, decided to double down on the insults, which especially looked bad given the Jaguar's poor performance and game lineup compared to the 16-bit systems it deemed "uncool".[[note]]The ultimate irony of all these insults against 16-bit consoles? The Jaguar was ''itself'' functionally a 16-bit console unless you used its architecture in the exact way that Atari intended. It included the same Motorola 68000 CPU as the Genesis as a companion chip to its 32-bit processors, but most developers just used the 68000 as the main processor, seeing how it was much easier to code for.[[/note]]

* '''Dwight the Knight''' (not to be confused with WesternAnimation/MikeTheKnight), a tax relief agency. For some inexplicable reason, Dwight's voice in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OifvTaAQ678 this minute-long ad]] is pitched up, so his voice quickly grates on the eardrums. Then add in the "animation", where the CGI Dwight looks completely stiff and unblinking, and does nothing but vaguely flail his arms back and forth. On the bright side, they learned from their mistakes, as the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eClMdDB_H0U 2017 version of the ad]] is narrated by a normal-voiced human and the creepy CGI Dwight only makes two brief appearances.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2_5325d_Hw The launch ad for the Tiger Electronics]] '''UsefulNotes/GameCom''' (which has an entry of its own in [[Horrible/VideoGamesOther the section for consoles]]) falls into many of the traps the Jaguar campaign did -- ridiculous {{mascot}}s, arrogant posturing, and [[TakeThatAudience insulting its own demographic's intelligence]], with the slogan "It plays more games than you ''idiots'' have brain cells!" [[note]]For the record, the system had just 21 games released for it.[[/note]] The ad also features several legitimate questions that potential buyers might be asking themselves, such as "What games is it compatible with?" and "How much does it cost?", and dismisses them by having the spokesman yell ''[[MathematiciansAnswer "MORONS!"]]'' in lieu of a real answer.[[note]](The proper answer to that cost question was actually $69.99, though the Internet connection added an extra $49.95 to the cost.)[[/note]] [[WebVideo/{{Rerez}} Shane Luis]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F14pBxcu6yY had quite the time riffing into that commercial indirectly in his review on the console]].

* In 1999, the fast-growing shoe retailer '''Just for Feet''' decided to create [[https://adage.com/videos/just-for-feet-kenyan-runner/978 an utterly racist commercial]] for the UsefulNotes/SuperBowl to tie into a contest where one lucky person who called in during the third quarter during the ad could win a Hummer. The ad depicted a group of white men and one dark-skinned woman in a Humvee [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame hunting down]] a barefoot black runner in the Kenyan savanna, then giving him a cup of drugged water and forcibly putting sneakers on him while he is unconscious [[note]]judging by the slogan "To Serve and Protect Feet", they were worried about him hurting his feet, but that only barely makes things better[[/note]], followed by him waking up and screaming as he tries to get them off, [[BrokenAesop thus invalidating the whole point of the ad in one fell swoop]]. Needless to say, it launched a major controversy and was so bad that the company sued their ad agency for showing the ad at the Super Bowl and insisting that it would have a ''positive'' reception among the public, even though they had the chance to see the spot for themselves before allowing its broadcast. Even worse, the ad wound up showing during the fourth quarter, and the website and contest hotline ''weren't updated to deal with this fact'', causing many to accuse the whole thing of being a scam. It led to the company becoming a pariah, despite having a great concept for their stores (and even then, the company was in a huge debt even before the infamous commercial was released, along with running a fraud scheme), and [[CreatorKiller a year later they filed for bankruptcy]] and were bought out by the also-now-defunct Footstar. It landed the #1 spot on Website/{{Cracked}}'s 2014 article "[[http://www.cracked.com/article_21245_5-creative-marketing-promotions-that-failed-spectacularly_p1.html The 5 Most Disastrous Marketing Failures of All Time]]", describing it as "creepy", "racist", and "insulting towards its own product". [=JaguarGator9=] calls it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E150CyGotrg the worst Super Bowl advertisement of all time.]]
* If you live in one of a handful of major cities in the United States, chances are you've heard the '''Kars-4-Kids''' ad on the radio at least once, which is one time too many. The incredibly grating jingle has two versions: one sung out of key by a child who sounds bored out of his skull, and another sung with heavy Auto-Tune. The ads also make no mention of where the money is going to [[note]]It goes to the Orthodox Jewish non-profit organization Oorah[[/note]], confusing viewers as to why and how they should donate their car. On top of that, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8UV7SAhvG4 video version]] of the ad (featuring precocious kids that seemingly were ripped out of a ''Life With Mikey''-esque casting room miming instrument-playing terribly) is played seemingly '''every inning''' during the local SNY broadcasts of Mets games (as well as Yankees games on YES) and has as much [[http://previously.tv/television/these-are-the-ads-that-try-mets-fans-souls/ hate by]] [[http://www.avclub.com/article/ira-kaplan-why-he-hates-worlds-most-annoying-jingl-223869 Mets fans]] as they have for the team's former owner, Fred Wilpon. A rival car donation charity even used the widespread hatred of the jingle to [[https://800charitycars.org/jingle-parody-ad/ advertise its own services]]. The jingle is also the official song of [[Series/TheGoodPlace The Bad Place]]. ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine'' ripped into it in the [[https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/05/23 May 23, 2021 strip]]. By the summer of 2021, it even made it onto [=YouTube=] as one of the worst ads to annoy viewers with.

* '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-v8zcokHlg Locker Room Meltdown]]''' is a failure on several levels. The ad shows a middle school coach scolding kids for not putting their dirty towels in the bin, and quickly getting exasperated. Eventually, he freaks out, starts throwing balls in the bin, then climbs in himself. It's badly acted, badly narrated, and [[WhatWereTheySellingAgain barely related to the product]] (Kraft Meltdowns, a short-lived line of microwavable nachos). The commercial is a spin-off of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvJFJz5N62o Principal Wilson's Meltdown]], but completely misses the point of the original ad -- that is, the person gets calmed by a plate of Meltdowns, the entire reason for the ad in the first place! (It also thusly renders the tagline "Don't have a meltdown. Have a Meltdowns." [[TheArtifact borderline nonsensical]].)

-->'''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic''': [[SarcasmMode Oh, great, because when I think of mourning and moving on from a tremendous loss, I think of clogging my arteries with the remains of something that barely resembles fish!]]

* Many of the ads for the '''National Collector's Mint''' [[note]]a [[InsistentTerminology "private mint"]] that, aside from selling uncirculated old US coins and banknotes, is best known for an array of printed paper money and minted coins for countries such as the Cook Islands and Liberia[[/note]] have several things in common: poor writing, obvious stock footage and deceptive tactics, combined with an assortment of {{author catchphrase}}s such as "Look closely", "History is being made" (or some variant thereof), and "Avoid future disappointment and regret". But by far their most infamous ad is their '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF3mzTpFCrU ad for a 2008 $20 Liberian "coin-certificate" produced for the seventh anniversary of 9/11]]'''. It uses cheesy "inspirational" music (which would be used in several of their other ads), clear splices in narration (such as when the announcer says "...of the World Trade Center tragedy") and poor writing such as "the frosted Twin Towers stand out against a mirror-light backdrop, much as they did in the gleaming sunlight of that fateful morning", with an inanely tasteless concept to boot. On top of all this, it is claimed to be "payable like a silver certificate in coin-of-the-realm", implying that it's worth $20 in US dollars. In reality, it's worth $20 in ''Liberian'' dollars, meaning that in 2008 (when the commercial was made), the exchange rate for one Liberian dollar was just [[RidiculousExchangeRates thirty cents, or in face value, six American dollars]] (in 2020, one Liberian dollar would be half a cent). Oh, and the ad flat-out admits that, rather than actually being made of silver, it's coated in silver leaf, meaning that it doesn't come even close to face value in US dollars.
* '''Nationwide Insurance'''[='s=] second contribution to the UsefulNotes/SuperBowl XLIX advertisement lineup[[note]]For those not versed in UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball, that was in 2015[[/note]] was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F77RBUBlZ80 an ad]] that attempted to school parents about preventable home accidents, but ended up backfiring ''spectacularly''. The advert starts off with whimsical {{Imagine Spot}}s, as it shows a young boy lamenting about how he'll never learn to ride a bike, catch cooties, fly, or get married... [[BaitAndSwitch not because he's intimidated]], but [[MoodWhiplash because he died in an accident]]. The advertisement then follows this with a grim montage of an overflowed bathtub, some spilled cleaning supplies, and a fallen-over television. The ad was horribly tasteless in its execution, especially within the context of Super Bowl advertising (which is usually funny at best and uplifting at worst), and came under fire for using dead children to sell insurance. Added FridgeHorror when you consider that plenty of parents whose kids had ''really'' died must have been watching certainly did nothing at all to help (the implication that the boy -- who looks to be about 10 -- died from any of those accidents shown, which are more like things a 2-year-old would die from, doesn't help matters either). Within minutes of the ad's airing, it received [[https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/worst-super-bowl-ad-ever--nationwide-s-jarring-dead-kid-ad-012344158.html tons of backlash]] on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, and many were quick to make its MoodWhiplash punchline into a meme (before the game was even over) as well as label it one of the worst advertisements ever. It was small wonder, then, that Nationwide was conspicuously absent from the Super Bowl ad lineup the following year. Creator/FunnyOrDie mercilessly mocked the depressing nature of the ad [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDsnyhpEGvI here]].

* In what seemed to be [[RippedFromTheHeadlines an attempt to connect with]] politically-active millennials during a time of major protests against police brutality, '''Pepsi''' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9x15lR9VIg released an ill-thought-out ad]] known as '''Live For Now''' featuring [[Series/KeepingUpWithTheKardashians Kendall Jenner]] that showed her watching a crowd of protesters holding vague, nondescript signs like "Peace" and "Join the Conversation", and culminated with ''Jenner walking up to a riot cop and handing him a Pepsi as the protesters cheer her on.'' Pepsi pulled the ad after fierce backlash, and [[https://twitter.com/pepsi/status/849679114416115714 released a public apology.]] The damage was done, though, as it was quickly spoofed by a ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn8pwoNWseM skit]], a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDWlMi14quY play-by-play commentary on the ad]] by Creator/StephenColbert on [[Series/TheLateShowWithStephenColbert his show]], and an "alternate ending" (Jenner is replaced by a black woman; the cop offered the Pepsi coldly stares her down and then calls for backup) on ''Series/LateNight with Creator/SethMeyers''. It was notoriously parodied in a season 3 episode of ''Series/TheBoys2019'', with a shot for shot parody starring A-Train mocking the Glurge of the original ad. WebVideo/{{Pyrocynical}} also tears into the ad [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=7BrN-jF-YyU here]], and WebVideo/PhantomStrider (along with WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic) list this as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRJGFGyvgoE&t=1203 the number one most controversial fast-food commercial]] while also showing it little mercy.
* The '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPNEoVSD3w8 Quietus]]''' ads for tinnitus, which [[SensoryAbuse attempts to emulate it throughout the whole ad]]. Lord knows why -- if you have tinnitus, you already know what the hell it sounds like; if you don't have it, you're not the one buying Quietus. It doesn't help that while the product's name is an archaic word for something calming, it also happens to be a euphemism for death. Fortunately, it seems like the makers of the drug have learned from this blunder, and produced [[https://www.ispot.tv/ad/7LFV/quietus-stop-the-ringing a version of the ad]] that lacked that incessant noise altogether. Unsurprisingly, this version is more effective in getting its point across.

* In January 2021, '''Ryanair''' [[https://youtu.be/K19ynlbXP84 ran]] a "Jab and Go" campaign, encouraging viewers to book cheap European summer holidays due to the then-current rollout of vaccines during the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic. The ad was immediately criticized for its poor timing and being tone deaf -- It aired during a period where several European countries' travel restrictions explicitly banned leisure travel, while the ad focused primarily on young adults, even though they were the least prioritized group to receive vaccinations at the time. The ad received over 1600 complaints in the UK, making it the third most complained-about ad campaign of ''all time'', and was [[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/03/ryanair-jab-and-go-ad-banned-covid-summer-holidays-complaints taken off the air]] shortly after when it was deemed too "misleading and irresponsible" to legally air in the UK.[[note]]Specifically, it suggests one dose of the vaccine is enough to prevent COVID-19; not only does this discourage other preventative measures, but the vaccine distributed at the time required ''two'' doses to take full effect.[[/note]]

-->-- '''James Randolph Adams'''

For a different variety of really bad advertising, see WhatWereTheySellingAgain. For otherwise-decent ads that had one horrid messup, see [[DethroningMoment/{{Advertising}} the Dethroning Moment page]]. British website Website/AdTurds was set up for just this sort of thing -- exposing, ridiculing, and stomping on this sort of advertising.

# This page is specifically about horrible advertisements, not cases where the advertised product is horrible, which should be taken to its respective subpage. A competent ad can sell a bad product or controversial idea, [[VeryFalseAdvertising even if they must lie]] or [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity generate controversy]] to do so. Also, an ad is not horrible because the product is shown honestly and is not to the [[AudienceAlienatingPremise audience's tastes]][[note]]Exceptions may be made if the product's premise was so bad as to prevent it from [[{{Cancellation}} ever being released]][[/note]]. The ad must be horrible even by the intended goals of an advertisement to qualify.

* In May of 2023, skin care company '''Bioré''' received heavy backlash for a sponsored [=TikTok=] they did with the user Cecelee Max-Brown as part of their ''Strip Away The Stigma'' campaign on mental health. In it, Cecelee discusses her experience as a survivor of the February 2023 Michigan State University shooting and the trauma she has experienced in a very nonchalant way as [[SoundtrackDissonance unfittingly cheery music]] plays in the background, claiming that peeling her skin with Bioré skin peels will "get it all out". There was great anger over the post, which many thought was dystopian and exploiting a tragedy that happened only 3 months prior. The post was pulled within 24 hours and both Bioré and Cecelee Max-Brown extensively apologized, but the damage was already done. [=FoxAkimbo=] discusses it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VIQTIKkd0U here]] in his video on deleted [=TikTok=] videos.
* Creator/HudsonSoft, in a last-ditch effort to advertise the [[Horrible/VideoGameGenerationsSeventhOnwards critically savaged]] ''VideoGame/BombermanActZero'', created an advertising campaign called '''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20101130114501/http://hudsonentertainment.com/features/detail/5-Reasons-Why-Bomberman-Act:-Zero-Rocks 5 Reasons Why Bomberman Act:Zero Rocks!]]''' that was 50% advertising ''Act:Zero'' and 50% [[DearNegativeReader attacking fans]]. The article is supposed to read like a hip teen trying to convince people to play ''Act:Zero'' but instead reads like a middle-aged man trying to "get down with the kids", with TotallyRadical wording and mild swearing. It also reeks of BlatantLies, such as calling ''Act:Zero'' the first [[UsefulNotes/HighDefinition HD]] ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman}}'' game (that honor actually goes to ''Hi-Ten Bomberman'', the first-ever released HD video game -- all the way back in 1993!). The most infamous part, however, is the attacks on fans -- it belittles the fan-favorite 10-player mode in ''VideoGame/SaturnBomberman'' by claiming that few played it[[note]](which was said in response to criticism leveled at the ''Act:Zero'' battle mode)[[/note]], attempts to invoke the AnimationAgeGhetto on the classic ''Bomberman'' design by comparing it to ''Franchise/HelloKitty'' toys, implying that people who play the Normal Game are [[TakeThatAudience losers]][[note]](this was a response to criticism leveled at the single-player mode. This enraged fans (especially ''64'' fans) because they often play the single-player modes. Ironically, since Hudson wrote this, it means that they're attacking themselves for making the single-player modes in the first place!)[[/note]] by saying that even people with no friends can grab random people to play with, and resorts to AdHominem by calling fans names instead of addressing their criticisms. Calling out misbehaving fans is one thing, but responding to civil criticism with insults is just low. The immediacy and intensity of the resulting backlash surprised nobody except Hudson. While they did make a toned-down version of the campaign before pulling it entirely and apologizing, the damage was already done -- fans felt so betrayed by this campaign that they stopped supporting the franchise, temporarily [[FranchiseKiller killing]] it and ultimately [[CreatorKiller dragging Hudson Soft down with the ship]].

* '''Kung Fu Gina''' is a music video parodying Carl Douglas's "Kung Fu Fighting", meant to advertise Kim Anami's sexual therapy service. It was roundly slammed by viewers and critics alike for using several outdated racist Asian stereotypes (including the Wonton font) and sexualizing Asian women. Not only that, the video and therapy service also promotes AnatomicallyImpossibleSex and questionable medical practices discredited by most doctors, for instance jade eggs. Here are [[https://www.hopclear.com/everybody-wants-a-kung-fu-gina/ a]] [[https://news.yahoo.com/kung-fu-vagina-parody-sparks-174950939.html few]] [[https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/amp35386745/racist-kung-fu-vagina-video-offensive/ articles]] tearing the ad apart.

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igMfYCqPQm0 Update 15 / Devotion to Duty trailer]] for the World War II tactical shooter '''''VideoGame/HellLetLoose'''''. After the game had been purchased from its original devs by Creator/Team17, fans of the game had generally been concerned about its subsequent direction, with a drift away from historical realism and a perceived decline in polish being cited as reasons, but this trailer blew every issue out into the open. The trailer was broadly criticised by fans and casual viewers alike for having an unfittingly lighthearted tone, poor visuals and voice acting (in terms of both performance and audio quality), and a massive amount of extremely obvious animation errors that should've rendered the trailer unreleasable, let alone given a spot in the 2023 Summer Games Fest's PC Gaming Show. To top it all off, the trailer focuses on a D-Day style paratrooper drop, [[TrailersAlwaysLie which wasn't even a new feature added to the game in Update 15]]. The trailer became not just an instant target of mockery, but also a helpful shorthand to illustrate the issues fans had with Team 17's treatment of the game, and it led to a public apology from them for the whole thing.

* In May of 2023, skin peel company '''Bioré''' received great backlash for a sponsored [=TikTok=] they did with the user Cecelee Max-Brown as part of their ''Strip Away The Stigma'' campaign on mental health. In it, Cecelee discusses her experience as a survivor of the February 2023 Michigan State University shooting and the trauma she has experienced in a very nonchalant way as [[SoundtrackDissonance unfittingly cheery music]] plays in the background, claiming that peeling her skin with Bioré skin peels will "get it all out". There was great anger over the post, which many thought was dystopian and exploiting a tragedy that happened only 3 months prior. The post was pulled within 24 hours and both Bioré and Cecelee Max-Brown extensively apologized, but the damage was already done. [=FoxAkimbo=] discusses it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VIQTIKkd0U here]] in his video on deleted [=TikTok=] videos.

* In May of 2023, skin peel company '''Bioré''' received great backlash for a sponsored Tiktok they did with the user Cecelee Max-Brown as part of their ''Strip Away The Stigma'' campaign on mental health. In it, Cecelee discusses her experience as a survivor of the February 2023 Michigan State University shooting and the trauma she has experienced in a very nonchalant way as [[SoundtrackDissonance unfittingly cheery music]] plays in the background, claiming that peeling her skin with Bioré skin peels will "get it all out". There was great anger over the post, which many thought was dystopian and exploiting a tragedy that happened only 3 months prior. The post was pulled within 24 hours and both Bioré and Cecelee Max-Brown extensively apologized, but the damage was already done. [=FoxAkimbo=] discusses it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VIQTIKkd0U here]] in his video on deleted Tiktok videos.

* In 2018, '''Build-A-Bear Workshop''' announced an event called "Pay Your Age" to be held on July 12 where patrons could "build-a-bear" and pay a price equal to their age instead of normal prices (for example, an eight-year-old child would only have to pay $8 for their new fuzzy pal). It sounded like a novel concept on paper, but when July 12 came [[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/12/build-bear-workshop-bargain-teddy-offer-sparks-chaotic-scenes-across-britain the event ended up a complete and utter disaster]]. Lines of thousands of people and families wanting to take advantage of the deal at Build-A-Bears across the US, Canada, and the UK either filled indoor malls entirely or stretched for blocks on end outside as the hot Summer temperatures (and tempers) began to heat up. Fights broke out among parents and children in lines around stores. Making matters worse was when stores were forced to close up shop due to either running out of materials for the stuffed animals or overcrowding, resulting in distraught customers, having been waiting for up to hours on end to take advantage of the promotion only to be turned away, getting angrier and, in some places, causing riots (with the police being called to mediate the situation around a UK location in Leeds). Build-A-Bear attempted to save face by apologizing and giving out vouchers for free stuffed animals, but the damage had been done, and disgruntled parents and upset children took to the internet in droves to express their disappointment in the beloved toy company. Michael Hann for UK news site The Guardian [[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jul/23/fluffed-it-the-truth-about-build-a-bears-day-of-mayhem gives a post-mortem to the heavily botched promotion here]] and gives out insight for why the promotion failed as spectacularly as it did, criticizing Build-A-Bear for not adequately preparing their stores for the massive crowds the promotion brought. WebVideo/{{Chadtronic}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZPab7OV30 has also given his two cents]] on the debacle, accusing the promotion of being a scam. Build-A-Bear would rework the "Pay Your Age" idea later that month by introducing a birthday-specific promotion where kids pay whatever age they're turning, but this came with many more restrictions[[note]]Only one specific bear qualifies for the discount, the deal is only eligible the month of the child's birthday, and it requires prior sign-up online[[/note]] to prevent the rush that happened on July 12; this promotion would prove ''much'' more successful.

* In 2018, '''Build-A-Bear Workshop''' announced an event called "Pay Your Age" to be held on July 12 where patrons could "build-a-bear" and pay a price equal to their age instead of normal prices (for example, an eight-year-old child would only have to pay $8 for their new fuzzy pal). It sounded like a novel concept on paper, but when July 12 came [[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/12/build-bear-workshop-bargain-teddy-offer-sparks-chaotic-scenes-across-britain the event ended up a complete and utter disaster]]. Lines of thousands of people and families wanting to take advantage of the deal at Build-A-Bears across the US, Canada, and the UK either filled indoor malls entirely or stretched for blocks on end outside as the hot Summer temperatures (and tempers) began to heat up. Fights broke out among parents and children in lines around stores. Making matters worse was when stores were forced to close up shop due to either running out of materials for the stuffed animals or overcrowding, resulting in distraught customers, having been waiting for up to hours on end to take advantage of the promotion only to be turned away, getting angrier and, in some places, causing riots (with the police being called to mediate the situation around a UK location in Leeds). Build-A-Bear attempted to save face by apologizing and giving out vouchers for free stuffed animals, but the damage had been done, and disgruntled parents and upset children took to the internet in droves to express their disappointment in the beloved toy company. Michael Hann for UK news site The Guardian [[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jul/23/fluffed-it-the-truth-about-build-a-bears-day-of-mayhem gives a post-mortem to the heavily botched promotion here]] and gives out insight for why the promotion failed as spectacularly as it did, criticizing Build-A-Bear for not adequately preparing their stores for the massive crowds the promotion brought. WebVideo/{{Chadtronic}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZPab7OV30 has also given his two cents]] on the debacle, accusing the promotion of being a scam.

* '''Shaqtoons''' was a contest launched in 2019 by Creator/ShaquilleONeal and Creator/{{TNT}} to promote a new television series airing on the network called ''Shaq Life'' and to gain some animated material to use on the show. The contest was announced on television and social media, with a website set up that hosted multiple "story-time" narrations that were each somewhere from 30 seconds to a minute long, all of them recorded by Shaq and to be animated by the participants. After TNT received all the submissions by the deadline of September 20th, it would pick a winner for each narration, each of which would be broadcast on the show and whose creator would receive a cash reward. From the very start, the idea was [[DidntThinkThisThrough horribly flawed at best and incredibly shady at worst]], given that only the winner would receive any payment for their work despite how time-consuming and expensive a process animation would be for all the contestants involved. However, while this was already pretty bad, [[FromBadToWorse it turned out that the grand prize for the winner of the contest]] [[UndesirablePrize was an utterly pathetic payout of $500]], an amount well beneath the minimum wage for most freelance animators to produce an animation of the same length, especially at television-grade quality. It was such a terrible prize that the ungodly amount of backlash it caused eventually convinced TNT to reluctantly raise the prize to a more palatable $10,000. But the true final nail in the competition's coffin was when [[ReadTheFinePrint a few cautious people interested in the contest did a careful read-through of the participation terms]], and discovered that absolutely anything submitted as an entry to the contest became the sole property of Turner Broadcasting. This meant that none of the participants could use their submissions for so much as a personal work portfolio without risking the wrath of Turner and a subsequent lawsuit. The resulting criticism and drama over the utterly awful terms was so immense that TNT wound up quietly dropping the contest altogether before any submissions could be made, with Shaq and TNT [[CreatorBacklash never so much as mentioning it in passing ever again]] afterward. WebVideo/{{Saltydkdan}} tears apart the whole fiasco [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwZEjT0vA8s here]], even going so far as to make his own {{Parody}} of a Shaqtoon for the video, and Pam Maz, an animator who had created their own submission for the contest, relate their experience and all the red flags they noticed throughout it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLUS4KuGVrU here]].

* February 2020 saw otherwise-beloved pop-punk/alt-rock band Music/GreenDay releasing '''[[https://external-preview.redd.it/oq0P-KRRQiAR1bEnr39GU9pc5fR3ww4lbWkoH47rScc.jpg?auto=webp&s=c7d3e333d9e4c6850885ddf26e5dc3811791d1d2 this billboard]]''' in anticipation for their then-latest album '''''Father of All Motherfuckers'''''. With it boldly proclaiming that the record contained "no features, no Swedish songwriters, no trap beats" and "100% pure uncut rock" (and with thick lines of cocaine underlining each point for the sake of a lazy pun, to boot) what was most likely meant as a lighthearted jab at mainstream pop music was instead [[https://i.redd.it/jv4ldezngqf41.jpg widely]] [[https://pics.me.me/nothing-more-punk-than-adopting-boomer-talking-points-69151320.png chided]] [[https://pics.me.me/green-day-used-to-be-my-favorite-band-a-decade-69144439.png for]] [[https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/green-day-gets-dragged-for-bizarre-anti-trap-billboard-for-new-album-news.103362.html coming]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LSW5uKZLHQ across]] like a severe case of [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons "Am I so out of touch?]] [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E20TheBoyWhoKnewTooMuch No, it's the children who are wrong"]] by way of played-out retro rockist snobbery. The ultimate irony of all: the album released to [[BrokenBase sharply polarized reviews]], with even its most forgiving of fans and critics noting FOAMF's [[ClicheStorm strict adherence to every single rock music trope of the past thirty years]].

* In 1993, the '''Progressive Conservative Party of UsefulNotes/{{Canada}}''' [[note]](henceforth the Tories)[[/note]] ran an ad perceived to be [[BullyingTheDisabled mocking Liberal leader Jean Chrétien's facial deformity, caused by Bell's palsy,]] by asking audiences if he is a prime minister and if he is even smart enough to answer questions the ad poses while accompanying the narration with stills of Chrétien's face; asking this sort of question on the basis that the subject made a slightly odd facial expression is ''incredibly'' ableist, whether that was the intention or not. The backlash was immediate, with the ad being pulled in 24 hours and then-Prime Minister Kim Campbell apologizing for it. Chrétien used the ad to his benefit, referencing his facial deformity and the bullying he had suffered in childhood because of it in speeches that moved the voting audience and caused support to swing to the Liberal party. Chrétien won the election in a landslide, and the Tories were decimated, losing all but two seats and, with it, official party status and all the benefits that come with it. Campbell, who lost her Vancouver riding, resigned soon after the election, to be replaced by future UsefulNotes/{{Quebec}} prime minister Jean Charest, who was in one of the two aforementioned seats. The Tories trundled on for 10 years, utterly unelectable because of the "face ad" among other things, before merging with the Canadian Alliance to form the modern Conservative Party. Chrétien was able to crack a famous joke about it, saying "It is true that I can only talk out of one side of my face. However, unlike a conservative I don't talk out of both sides of my face." [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D000Amn9CIA Here]] is the ad in question, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PikszBkfTHM here]] is a news report regarding the controversy.

* Creator/HudsonSoft, in a last-ditch effort to advertise the [[Horrible/VideoGameGenerationsSeventhOnwards critically savaged]] ''VideoGame/BombermanActZero'', created an advertising campaign called '''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20101130114501/http://hudsonentertainment.com/features/detail/5-Reasons-Why-Bomberman-Act:-Zero-Rocks 5 Reasons Why Bomberman Act:Zero Rocks!]]''' that was 50% advertising ''Act:Zero'' and 50% [[DearNegativeReader attacking fans]]. The article is supposed to read like a hip teen trying to convince people to play ''Act:Zero'' but instead reads like a middle-aged man trying to "get down with the kids", with TotallyRadical wording and mild swearing. It also reeks of BlatantLies, such as calling ''Act:Zero'' the first [[UsefulNotes/HighDefinition HD]] ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman}}'' game (that honor actually goes to ''Hi-Ten Bomberman'', the first-ever released HD video game -- all the way back in 1993!). The most infamous part, however, is the attacks on fans -- it undermines the fan-favorite 10-player mode in ''VideoGame/SaturnBomberman'' by claiming that few played it[[note]](which was said in response to criticism leveled at the ''Act:Zero'' battle mode)[[/note]], attempts to invoke the AnimationAgeGhetto on the classic ''Bomberman'' design by comparing it to ''Franchise/HelloKitty'' toys, implying that people who play the Normal Game are [[TakeThatAudience losers]][[note]](this was a response to criticism leveled at the single-player mode. This enraged fans (especially ''64'' fans) because they often play the single-player modes. Ironically, since Hudson wrote this, it means that they're attacking themselves for making the single-player modes in the first place!)[[/note]] by saying that even people with no friends can grab random people to play with, and resorts to AdHominem by calling fans names instead of addressing their criticisms. Calling out misbehaving fans is one thing, but responding to civil criticism with insults is just low. The immediacy and intensity of the resulting backlash surprised nobody except Hudson. While they did make a toned-down version of the campaign before pulling it entirely and apologizing, the damage was already done -- fans felt so betrayed by this campaign that they stopped supporting the franchise, temporarily [[FranchiseKiller killing]] it and ultimately [[CreatorKiller dragging Hudson Soft down with the ship]].

* In 1994, car manufacturer '''Fiat''' (now owned by Stellantis) came up with [[https://bettermarketing.pub/fiat-once-sent-creepy-love-letters-to-50-000-women-1c41a2a59013 a marketing campaign for their Fiat Cinquecento model]], aimed towards "the independent, working woman" in Spain. 50,000 Spanish women received an anonymous "{{love letter|lunacy}}" which addressed them by name, claiming that they "passed each other in the streets the other day", that the woman "glanced interestedly in my direction", then inviting her on a "little adventure". Rather than coming across as charming, most of the women who received those letters were [[ParanoiaFuel scared shitless]] at the prospect of being targeted by a StalkerWithACrush and locked themselves into their homes or refused to go out without someone to protect them; there are also reports of the letters leading to arguments between spouses. A few days later, another letter would reveal that it was all an ad for Fiat, but since the first letter lacked any indication that it wasn't from a real secret admirer, the damage was already done at this point. The auto maker was met with severe backlash from consumer protection groups and Spain's Minister of Social Affairs, and [[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/fiat-fined-for-sexist-mailshots-1416235.html one Zaragoza woman successfully sued Fiat]]. Website/{{Cracked}} discusses the marketing blunder, along with others, in [[https://www.cracked.com/article_20438_the-6-most-baffling-marketing-disasters-by-famous-companies.html this article]].

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkPvATin4AQ 2017 trailer]] for the ''VideoGame/TimeSplitters'' FanGame '''''[=TimeSplitters=] Rewind''''' is probably the most lazy, barebones, zero-effort preview to have ever existed. Even ignoring how its claimed release date [[ScheduleSlip turned out to be a lie]], it consists entirely of time crystals with images of past characters in them. The images are blurry and nearly impossible to make out and there's no indication you're even supposed to be looking for anything, meaning most viewers saw nothing but two minutes of featureless green rocks. Given the game had been announced five years prior with absolutely no footage being shown since, the fans were understandably pissed. The developers apologized for the shitty trailer mere days afterwards, but wouldn't release a ''real'' preview until March 2019. Creator/TheQuarterGuy went on to declare this to be the [[https://youtu.be/dUaYrVKDp1c 5th worst video game trailer]] he's even seen, due to it [[WhatWereTheySellingAgain doing nothing to demonstrate]] what the premise or tone of ''[=TimeSplitters=]'' is like, on top of not showing any in-game footage. Tellingly, when WebVideo/ScottTheWoz attempted to fix the trailer in one of his early episodes[[note]]which also featured a re-edit of the above mentioned ''Mighty No. 9'' trailer[[/note]], his re-edit got an ApprovalOfGod from the game’s project lead.

* In January 2022, '''Advertising/{{Cryptoland}}''' released an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x26fUL_YB14 infomercial]] to promote a resort in UsefulNotes/{{Fiji}} for cryptocurrency investors. It caught on for all the wrong reasons; that it was padded out with pitch videos from the very beginning is the least of its problems. The animation is lousy and full of blatant shortcuts, defying the claim that one-time Creator/{{Pixar}} employees were involved. It's cheap and loaded with stolen assets, from the anthropomorphic cryptocurrency mascot to ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'''s trademark LosingHorns and other stolen sound bytes. Its attempts at a plot are outright baffling, even by industrial stage show standards, with loads of {{flat character}}s, [[Horrible/MusicSoundtracks Godawful musical numbers (mostly all covers)]], and outright stupid references to cryptocurrency (not least of all, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitconnect BitConnect Memorial Pyramid]]). And on top of that, most of the features hawked just boil down to working while on an island with non-investors. WebVideo/CynicalReviews looked at it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjsteRFA57M here]] in his video about [=NFTs=] and NFT cartoons. WebVideo/ThoughtSlime and Sophie From Mars also reacted to it in [[https://youtu.be/OBz3o_RO0sU this]] episode of Cringe Corner.

* In January 2022, '''Advertising/{{Cryptoland}}''' released an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x26fUL_YB14 infomercial]] to promote a resort in UsefulNotes/{{Fiji}} for cryptocurrency investors. It caught on for all the wrong reasons; that it was padded out with pitch videos from the very beginning is the least of its problems. The animation is lousy and full of blatant shortcuts, defying the claim that one-time Creator/{{Pixar}} employees were involved. It's cheap and loaded with stolen assets, from the anthropomorphic cryptocurrency mascot to ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'''s trademark LosingHorns and other stolen sound bytes. Its attempts at a plot are outright baffling, even by industrial stage show standards, with loads of {{flat character}}s, [[Horrible/MusicSoundtracks Godawful musical numbers (mostly all covers)]], and outright stupid references to cryptocurrency (not least of all, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitconnect BitConnect Memorial Pyramid]]). And on top of that, most of the features hawked just boil down to working while on an island with non-investors.

* February 2020 saw otherwise-beloved pop-punk/alt-rock band {{Music/Green Day}} releasing '''[[https://external-preview.redd.it/oq0P-KRRQiAR1bEnr39GU9pc5fR3ww4lbWkoH47rScc.jpg?auto=webp&s=c7d3e333d9e4c6850885ddf26e5dc3811791d1d2 this billboard]]''' in anticipation for their then-latest album '''''Father of All Motherfuckers'''''. With it boldly proclaiming that the record contained "no features, no Swedish songwriters, no trap beats" and "100% pure uncut rock" (and with thick lines of cocaine underlining each point for the sake of a lazy pun, to boot) what was most likely meant as a lighthearted jab at mainstream pop music was instead [[https://i.redd.it/jv4ldezngqf41.jpg widely]] [[https://pics.me.me/nothing-more-punk-than-adopting-boomer-talking-points-69151320.png chided]] [[https://pics.me.me/green-day-used-to-be-my-favorite-band-a-decade-69144439.png for]] [[https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/green-day-gets-dragged-for-bizarre-anti-trap-billboard-for-new-album-news.103362.html coming]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LSW5uKZLHQ across]] like a severe case of [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons "Am I so out of touch?]] [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E20TheBoyWhoKnewTooMuch No, it's the children who are wrong"]] by way of played-out retro rockist snobbery. The ultimate irony of all: the album released to [[BrokenBase sharply polarized reviews]], with even its most forgiving of fans and critics noting FOAMF's [[ClicheStorm strict adherence to every single rock music trope of the past thirty years]].

* In 2009, the Peruvian company Caribu tried to sell bitter dark chocolate with a pair of print ads called '''[[http://mickeydoylechronicles.blogspot.com/2010/01/really-bad-ads-caribu-bitter-chocolate.html "The Dark Side of Sweetness."]]''' One of the ads shows a young girl, made to look as adorable and rosy-cheeked as possible, grinding up a live chick to use the meat in her play kitchen. In the other one, another equally adorable girl is about to poison her sister at their tea party. Besides being so disgusting that it fails to be humorous, even in a BlackComedy or CrossesTheLineTwice kind of way, it is also [[WhatWereTheySellingAgain almost totally irrelevant to the product]] with only a tiny, barely noticeable image of the chocolate in the bottom corner. The ads were roundly and thoroughly condemned, so much that the first things that come up when googling “Caribu chocolate” are articles about the controversy of the Dark Side of Sweetness ad campaign. [[http://persuasion-and-influence.blogspot.com/2013/03/template-ads-caribu-chocolate-and-dhl.html This person]] commented that the advert would probably turn people off of buying the chocolate because "nobody's appetite is particularly triggered upon seeing the gruesome insides of a baby animal."

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPj-loHu6LI The first]] shows an Indian telemarketer using the service to improve sales. This would be funny, if it wasn't for A) him speaking with a stereotypical Indian accent; B) him having to feed a stereotypically large Indian family; and C) the ad insulting Americans who were losing their jobs to outsourcing offices in India and China at the time. The company's CEO at the time, who was Indian, defended the ad by saying that [[DamnedByFaintPraise he was used to encountering stereotypes and mockery so he didn't find it offensive]].

* '''''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020''''' started on one ''hell'' of a wrong foot with its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfEpqmdXhiU first trailer]]. Audiences were repulsed by the terrible design for the iconic hedgehog, which fell into the deepest reaches of the [[UnintentionalUncannyValley Uncanny Valley]]. It looked like, to quote Creator/JohnOliver, "a furry potato with a corpse's face". It became a MemeticMutation from Sonic turning into AccidentalNightmareFuel after the first trailer dropped. [[note]]This design was later revealed to have been the result of ExecutiveMeddling from Paramount, hoping that general audiences would embrace it even if the fans didn't. Not only did this not happen, but general audiences hated it, too. What ended up happening here had [[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:Movie_Megatron_olduglyface.jpg previously]] [[https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/752880/Monster-Trucks-test-screening-Paramount-Pictures-family-film-box-office-flops happened]] with [[Film/{{Transformers}} Bayformers Megatron]] and [[Film/MonsterTrucks Creech]], so they really [[PointyHairedBoss should've known better]].[[/note]] This was along with other strange thematic choices -- in particular, [[SoundtrackDissonance using Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" in the trailer, a song one would hardly associate with Sonic]]. The redesign caused such an intense reaction that director Jeff Fowler [[https://twitter.com/fowltown/status/1124056098925944832?s=20 announced]] that the animators would be going back to the drawing board, with the film's release being pushed back three months to February 2020. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szby7ZHLnkA The second trailer]] featured a more stylized and cartoony Sonic which looked much more in line with his video game appearance (designed by Creator/TysonHesse) and a more upbeat soundtrack. This trailer was received much better, with a like-dislike ratio of about 99:1, along with comments saying that the AuthorsSavingThrow in response to the criticism meant that people were now obligated to see the movie. Even so, the very negative reactions to the initial design for Sonic remain a warning of what can happen when ExecutiveMeddling tries to fix what isn't broken. While the new redesign allowed the film to be a solid hit and pave the way for its own franchise, the original Sonic design later showed up as a reoccurring character in, of all places, the live-action ''Film/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'' movie, where he is intentionally portrayed as creepy as a TakeThat, though also as [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap a very sympathetic character]]. The first trailer gained a bevy of reactions to it from both ''Sonic'' fans and non-''Sonic'' fans alike: Creator/JimSterling [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qacb7ZQoeYQ reacts in horror]], as did both [[https://youtu.be/q30Uxr5zp7I Vinny]] and [[https://youtu.be/pOa7_mgPhEQ Joel]] of WebVideo/{{Vinesauce}}, while WebVideo/{{Arlo}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiBjGt3Cepg spins a theory on whether its horrors were intentional]], though WebAnimation/TheOdd1sOut [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLzUtMiq1N4&t=291 disputes this]] on the basis that ''Film/{{Cats}}'' made it to release with similarly horrifying character designs intact. WebVideo/AniMat and Jamietud talk about the trailer [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO2M0Hogz74&t=6m2s here]]. Rob Boor of ''WebVideo/CinematicVenom'' reacts to it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyx2PD5D5wI here]]. Korey Coleman, Martin Thomas, and Billy Brooks talk about the trailer on ''WebVideo/DoubleToasted'' [[https://youtu.be/iqOFSC2wx64 here]].

* The advertisements for the mobile game '''''Hero Wars''''' are a masterclass in both [[NeverTrustATrailer misleading bullshit]] and mind-numbing stupidity. The "misleading" part of this equation comes from many of the ads featuring pull-the-pin puzzles, a tower game wherein players are tasked with guiding a numbered character to lower-numbered enemies to defeat them, and other similarly simplistic games that ''are barely present in the game, if it's even there at all'': the actual game is a very simple PayToWin IdleGame that's not out of place with a fair amount of these mobile games one might find there. The "stupid" part, meanwhile, comes from these rather simple games (key word being "simple") that [[TooIncompetentToOperateABlanket the hypothetical player keeps failing at, even when the solution is flashing on the screen]]. This is actually a blatant attempt to annoy viewers into thinking they can do better (especially with dares like "98% fail this!") so they can download the game, even though, as mentioned, the games shown in the ad are barely present at all, just enough to avoid attracting government attention [[https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/uk-asa-upholds-misleading-pin-pulling-puzzle-ad-claims-against-playrix like other similar games]] have.
** These ads have gained such notoriety that other creators have created real versions of these games shown in their ads, such as Super Game Studios' ''Hero Rescue'', [[TakeThat just to spite them]].
** Not only that, but one ad has the main character [[{{Squick}} takes a dump in a lamp]] and some have sexual innuendo in them as well.

* In March 2014, the producers of the infamous 2015 film adaptation of '''''Film/JemAndTheHolograms2015''''' announced that fans of the original cartoon would have the opportunity to cameo in the film by just sending in a video that explained why they liked the show and how it impacted their life. While this was a very interesting way to generate interest in the film, it turned into a slap in the face when it was revealed that the videos were edited into the film's ending to make it look like the fans were praising the ''character'' of Jem in the ''movie'' instead of the original show, not helped by the fact that the movie was an extremely InNameOnly adaptation that had already pissed off the fanbase ([[Horrible/LiveActionFilmsGToM and general audiences and critics]]) by the time it was released in theaters. As a result, some of these cameos make no sense in context because the fans show off merch and wear cosplay from the original show, and in at least one video you can ''see the cartoon playing in the background''. Unlike many of the other examples on this page, which were caused by cluelessness, the people behind this publicity stunt knew exactly what they were doing and were willing to exploit fans just to promote their product. Both WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic and WebVideo/CinematicExcrement called out the producers for this horrible marketing stunt (while also pointing out how they similarly edited clips of celebrities like Chris Pratt and Dwayne Johnson mentioning Jem out of context) in their reviews of the film.

** In October 2017, [=McDonald's=] announced that for one day only they'd be bringing back Szechuan [=McNugget=] dipping sauce, which was originally a limited-time promotional tie-in for the movie ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'' in 1998, after [[Recap/RickAndMortyS3E1TheRickshankRedemption the Season 3 premiere]] of ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' [[TheRedStapler sparked a huge interest in it]]. However, [[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mcdonalds-szechuan-rick-morty-fans-pissed_us_59d95604e4b046f5ad98aab3 there was a series of problems]]. Not all the restaurants got it, and some locations advertised as having the sauce didn't have it. The ones that did have some got a mere 20 packets apiece, despite crowds of hundreds. Inevitably, stores ran out, sometimes even ''prior to the restaurants' opening''. The backlash was so severe that police had to be called to numerous locations, and others reported riots as pissed-off fans yelled catchphrases from the show outside. This also damaged the reputation of ''Rick and Morty'' itself, with its fanbase, once notorious for being very loud and outspoken, becoming more reserved about their enjoyment of the show in order to avoid associating themselves with those who participated in the riots. If the [[https://twitter.com/McDonalds/status/916752002268450816 responses to their half-hearted apology on Twitter are any indication]], "Where's Herb?" might have some competition. The WebVideo/DoubleToasted crew had [[https://youtu.be/FepNoh_Hi1Q a field day when discussing the chaos that transpired]]. WebVideo/RebelTaxi ranked the incident at #5 on his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXAL6mRACA&t=8m17s "Top 10 WORST CARTOON News of 2017" list.]] WebVideo/AniMat's "[[https://youtu.be/36cT4e-3rrw Pick of the Week]]" on ''The Animation Podcast'' was about the aftermath and called out the fans for taking the meme too seriously and [=McDonald=]'s for being responsible for the whole thing. Even a second rollout (''five years later'') didn't save the reputation of the promotion or ''Rick and Morty'' fans.