Advertisements are the #1 victims of this Trope. There are many reasons for advertisement pulling, most notably public outrage over something considered "in bad taste." Fortunately, some missing advertisements have survived over the years through VHS tapes and recordings, and as a result, they are widely shown throughout the Internet. Otherwise, you're shit out of luck if you miss your favourite advertisement and want to see it again.
- A federal law, the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, banned the advertising of cigarettes on television and radio in the U.S., effective January 2, 1971. Fun Facts! A 1967 FCC decision had required stations to air anti-smoking ads, and those ads continue to this day. As for the tobacco ads themselves, only a handful of them (most notably the Flintstones Winston cigarette ads) are widely available on the Internet, and others may be lost forever. The History Channel once aired a documentary on tobacco ads featuring over a dozen of them from the 1950s and 1960s, which they could get away with since the ads were shown in an historical context with no intent to advertise (and several of the brands were long-gone anyway).
- A Burger King commercial featured a scientist chasing the The Burger King himself and shouting out "Stop that King. He's crazy!
". It was pulled following legal threats by various mental healthcare groups and hasn't aired since then. Supposedly, McDonald's may have also shared displeasure with the ad, but that was for a completely different reason (possibly the price it advertised in the commercial). - Apple's famous "1984" commercial, which introduced the Macintosh. Originally shown as a Super Bowl Special, it was pulled from circulation following copyright infringement accusations from the George Orwell estate. That doesn't stop it from showing up in "Best Ads" compilations, though.
- Speaking of Apple, the famous Get a Mac (aka "Mac VS. PC") campaign had hundreds of ads shot and only a few that ever went on air due to Steve Jobs's getting final approval on which ads go to air. In a Time Magazine interview, Justin Long said that they were shooting 4 to 6 ads every day and that only 15% of what they shot ended up on TV. Many of these ads featured celebrity cameos, such as Gisele Bündchen, Paul F. Tompkins, and Jenna Fischer: the most talked-about one within the advertising industry featured Zach Galifianakis as an alcoholic Santa Claus and was cited by Long as his personal favorite of all the ads he did.
- The huge majority of commercials, however, may never be seen again after they end their run due to a lack of home video compilations. Commercials are only preserved by accident by people recording particular shows and not skipping the commercials, on top of that having enough interest in the commercial to save it in the case of digital recordings. However, now that advertising has shifted in favor of an online presence and most companies have entire social media accounts on which they post ads, it's becoming easier to preserve the recent advertisements.
- The Hire, a series of short films produced by BMW (featuring Clive Owen as an unnamed driver of BMW cars who gets involved in various adventures), was originally intended for Internet broadcast. The series proved so popular that BMW eventually put out a few different DVD versions. But Forrest Whitaker had a clause in his contract that stated that the segment he appeared in ("The Follow", directed by Wong Kar-wai and also featuring Mickey Rourke and supermodel Adriana Lima) would only be distributed on the Internet, so some DVDs lacked that segment. Anyone wanting a complete DVD (and you should, as "The Follow" is one of the best in the series) is advised to be cautious in purchasing it.
- Many commercials from the 1960s that were originally produced in color only have the black and white versions of them, with many of the colored versions lost. The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show, for instance, has many of their 1960s commercials preserved, but only in their black and white versions; the colored versions are considered lost.
- Many Kellogg's Froot Loops commercials from the 1960s and 1970s, other than those that surfaced on YouTube, are lost with no uploads online at all with only the animation cels to some of them having resurfaced. This also extends to the commercials from 1967 to about 1970 where Mel Blanc was still voicing Toucan Sam before he ended up being replaced by Paul Frees when the character was reinvented and revamped.
- Dairy Queen advertisements featuring a group of animal mascots called the Fun Bunch Munch, exclusive to the chain's Texas branch. DQ's Wikipedia article doesn't mention them at all, and very little evidence of their existence exists across the internet or YouTube.
