# Astonishingly poorly conceived and executed ad(s). **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 20, 2010, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643 "2010-01-20T01:32:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/21 "2010-01-20T17:27:25Z")
> [@koufax](#): > > I never understood what “NBC News…Now more than ever” meant. > > I still don’t. “Now more than ever” was used in Pres. Nixon’s reelection campaign. That’s what I always thought of… not that that makes it a better slogan. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/22 "2010-01-20T17:30:36Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > I may be too dim to get it, but can anyone explain this to me? Ferries = fairies (homosexuals). Cruise. Heck, maybe even “straits” could be a play on words. One of my mom’s favorite “jokes” when referring to the ferries in Washington State was “I didn’t know Liberace had a navy.” (She got better.) There’s an ad playing for something (maybe a phone service) and the first lines of the jingle are "There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done, there’s nothing you can sing that can’t be sung . . . " It sounds to me like they’re saying anything you can do or sing has already been done or sung, so why bother? ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/23 "2010-01-20T17:31:03Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > I may be too dim to get it, but can anyone explain this to me? [This referred to the earlier post "Then there was the great advertising campaign in British Columbia in the 80s, ‘Cruise the Straits with BC Ferries!’ "] Something to do with cruising for straights, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/24 "2010-01-20T17:37:25Z")
> [@](#): > > There’s an ad playing for something (maybe a phone service) and the first lines of the jingle are "There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done, there’s nothing you can sing that can’t be sung . . . " It sounds to me like they’re saying anything you can do or sing has already been done or sung, so why bother? Those lines are from the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love,” so it was a choice of a song to use rather than something that was written specifically for the ad. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/25 "2010-01-20T17:38:43Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > There’s an ad playing for something (maybe a phone service) and the first lines of the jingle are "There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done, there’s nothing you can sing that can’t be sung . . . " It’s not a jingle… it’s Beatles song [All You Need is Love](http://allspirit.co.uk/allyouneed.html) ETA: shakes fist at **GaryT** ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/26 "2010-01-20T17:48:13Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > Ferries = fairies (homosexuals). Cruise. Heck, maybe even “straits” could be a play on words. Ferries = fairies (homosexuals) Straits = straights (non-homosexuals) Cruise = to go looking for sexual partners ---
**Author:** ![Umbriel2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/4af34b/32.png) [@Umbriel2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Umbriel2)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/27 "2010-01-20T17:53:56Z")
> [@Death\_of\_Rats](#): > > Ferries = fairies (homosexuals) > Straits = straights (non-homosexuals) > Cruise = to go looking for sexual partners Depending on one’s pronunciation, “Ferries” could = “Furries”… ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/28 "2010-01-20T18:03:53Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > Those lines are from the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love,” so it was a choice of a song to use rather than something that was written specifically for the ad. Oh. ::embarrassed:: Those lines still don’t make sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/29 "2010-01-20T18:21:48Z")
Backstory: I work at the U.S. headquarters of a German company. It used to be a British company, but the German company acquired it 3 years ago. Since then, there have been huge amounts of layoffs and cutbacks and attempts to make things work in a more Germanic way, as well as lots of jobs and functions being relocated to Germany. Things have escalated lately, and everybody is feeling extremely pessimistic and grumbling about “the Germans.” So I’m not saying this one was “astonishingly poorly conceived or executed” or anything but [this article](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8469347.stm) is making the rounds at work today, to much muffled hilarity. So I figured I’d throw it in the mix. Aggressive, overpowering, and tyrannical? Hmm… ---
**Author:** ![Rrose\_Selavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@Rrose\_Selavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rrose_Selavy)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/30 "2010-01-20T18:34:41Z")
Hit and miss but you get a few visual howlers here at this site: ## [http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/](http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/31 "2010-01-20T18:47:47Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > I happened across [this magazine ad](http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2603/kelloggsb.jpg) today, and I _have_ to believe that it was never intended as a serious suggestion by the ad agency, and never expected to actually make it to print. > > The actual ad is in colour, of course. For the full effect, you must know that all of the elements in the pile are three different shades of brown. It is a one-page ad; there’s nothing cut out. > > Given what springs to mind when the [health benefits of muesli](http://www.vitacost.com/FeaturedHealthTopic/Familia-Muesli-Swiss-Muesli-Organic-Cereals-for-Regular-Bowels-and-Digestive-Regularity-1) are evoked, taken together with the colour and relative scale of the discrete components of the pile, this ad seems to me to suggest something unmarketable about the taste of Kellogg’s product. The ambiguous lead copy and the less-than-enthusiastic expression on the face of the woman on the receiving end seals it for me.\ Not to mention the comma splice. I wonder at pretty much all the Kraft ads - so very, very lame. I hope they aren’t paying their ad agency very much. ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/32 "2010-01-20T20:09:25Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > Oh. ::embarrassed:: > > Those lines still don’t make sense to me. You got my interest piqued so I looked up a few analyses (sp?) of the lyrics. Here’s one: > [@interpretation](#): > > I think it’s not as simple as saying “there’s nothing you can do that can’t be done” = “you can do anything”. Grammatically, they don’t mean the same thing anyway. More literally - it just means you can do things that can’t be done. Eg it’s not possible to walk to the Moon, so you can’t walk to the Moon. The point is, then, I think - he’s saying “you can’t do the impossible” - all you can do is things that can be done. But that’s ok - the important thing is love - that’s all you need. So I think it’s meant to be about accepting yourself and loving yourself and everyone else. That loving people is the most important thing - he’s saying don’t worry about the rest. This makes more sense when you move beyond the early part of the lyrics and notice: "Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time - It’s easy: and “Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be. It’s easy.” So he’s ending the song saying just try to be you, just let yourself be where you are meant to be, and let it happen by letting love happen. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/33 "2010-01-20T20:24:15Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I’ve posted this one before. A few years ago, the Pork marketing council of Saskatchewan ran this advert on billboards in the major cities: [Pork. The One You Love.](http://whi.s3.leg.entries.lg1x8.simplecdn.net/20090214211342.jpg) > > Of course, when driving by, that first period often got missed, so the advert was interpreted as, well, a slang phrase encouraging intimacy … in a loving relationship, of course. > [@Mindfield](#): > > I recall a billboard campaign I read about ages ago (and have seen on the 'net since) about how this one company was much better than their competition. The important bit of the billboard said: > > “We beat our competitors [picture of the lower half of a man with his pants dropped around his ankles] off” > > Of course, on seeing the billboard your first instinct is to read the words verbatim, not solve it like a rebus, so your brain initially ignores the image of the pantsed guy and reads only, “We beat our competitors off.” Call me a cynic, but I don’t believe the advertisers were unaware of those connotations. In their “innocent” senses, the slogans are both vapid and contrived, but the “accidental” interpretations are much more meaningful and memorable. > [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Then there was the great advertising campaign in British Columbia in the 80s, “Cruise the Straits with BC Ferries!” Now this seems much more innocent. “Cruise,” “strait” and “ferry” are all common words that would logically appear in the company’s advertisements but happen to have other meanings that relate to each other in a smirk-inducing way. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/34 "2010-01-20T20:38:21Z")
> [@Rebo](#): > > You got my interest piqued so I looked up a few analyses (sp?) of the lyrics. Here’s one: These lyrics always made more sense to me in light of knowing something about Eastern philosphy, in that there’s nothing you can do by active effort which will bring enlightenment or happiness - i.e. nothing done through active effort can break you from your ego – it can oly be done through passive surrender of the ego, i.e “love” (which allows you to “learn how to be you in time”). Language like “There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known” is very typical in certain kinds of Indian and Buddhist literature. As a caveat, I came to this interpretation while listening to the song on acid. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/35 "2010-01-20T20:43:20Z")
Any commercial for a food product which shows the food smeared on a person’s face is a fail to me. There’s some kind of Beefaroni commercial that shows a guy going “wild” for a can of Beefaroni and ending up passed out on his back in a tent with tomato sauce all over his face. Not appetizing at all. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/36 "2010-01-20T21:16:51Z")
Song choice b/c the tune is catchy, but they’re hoping no one thinks about the lyrics, always bugs me. For example, Carnival Cruise lines using “Lust for Life” by Iggy Pop. Lovely how in the commcercial they go from “Here comes Johnny Yen again” straight into “I’ve got a lust for life,” helpfully leaving out the part about the liquor and drugs, and the flesh machines, and doing another striptease. Or going back a few years, there was an ad for some SUV where they show up in the dark to rock climb, and use the headlights to illuminate the rock. They used the dreamy intro to the Velvet Underground song “Heroin.” Needless to say they cut it off before the chorus. I’m just waiting for “She don’t mind, she don’t mind, she don’t mind…Talking Rain!” ---
**Author:** ![Eman\_Resu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bc8723/32.png) [@Eman\_Resu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eman_Resu)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/37 "2010-01-20T21:19:03Z")
The enraptured fellow in the upper right-hand corner of [this](http://www.upperroomdfw.com/service.html) page is featured prominently on billboards that I see on my way to work. Every time I see it, I can’t help but imagine that the “Upper Room” is an illicit upstairs area of a strip club or massage parlor where, by the looks of his expression, one might expect to have a humdinger of a good time. They didn’t help themselves much this month by advertising their new sermon series, “Satan’s Dirty Little Secret,” in distractingly large letters (previously the ads made more effort to indicate in text that the Upper Room is a “spirit-filled church”) with an image our fellated friend set against a background of red and orange flames. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/38 "2010-01-20T21:35:15Z")
[![](https://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q315/kimandchris2/Funny%20Signs/Funny%20Billboards/PinchALoaf.jpg) ](https://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q315/kimandchris2/Funny%20Signs/Funny%20Billboards/PinchALoaf.jpg) OK, so it’s not a real ad campaign. It’s still funny. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/39 "2010-01-20T23:07:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Song choice b/c the tune is catchy, but they’re hoping no one thinks about the lyrics, always bugs me. Or when they pick a song for a small portion of the lyrics, and ignore the rest of them. My favorite example of this is Philadelphia Cream Cheese (made in Chicago, incidentally) using “New York, New York” in its ads, just for the first line (“Start spreading the news”). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643/40 "2010-01-20T23:25:15Z")
> [@Spectralist](#): > > Microsoft’s current ad campaign is pretty bad. First they had the “I’m a pc and I’m 4 and a half” type ads with little kids showing how easy Vista is to use. Now they have the “I’m a pc and Windows 7 was my idea” where morons claim Microsoft stole their vague “make it crash less” type ideas when making Windows 7. I agree that the Windows 7 ads are terrible, but especially because they give the impression that the dopes in Redmond couldn’t figure out that an OS shouldn’t be a piece of crap by themselves. Which may be true, but you don’t brag about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astonishingly-poorly-conceived-and-executed-ad-s/525643.md?page=3)