# Commercials with unintended messages **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 16, 2017, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539 "2017-04-16T02:10:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/21 "2017-04-17T00:11:03Z")
> [@Wolf333](#): > > I believe the claim is that the burgers ARE 100% beef. From their site, the Quarter Pounder pattie is: Oh, sure. The _burger’s_ 100% beef. It’s just everything else on top and underneath it that’s made from sugar, salt, fat, ground kittens and orphans’ tears. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/22 "2017-04-17T00:43:50Z")
> [@Grither](#): > > …? The linked commercial is a remake of an 80s-era Folgers ad that depicted the older brother coming home and being greeted by a really little sister. Cute. The new commercial made the brother a touch younger and the sister a lot older; that, combined with the delivery of the lines, gives the whole thing a bit of an incest vibe to some people. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/23 "2017-04-17T03:25:54Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > I hope this was accidental, but years back, there was a tampon commercial with the slogan, “Look for the box with the dots.” :eek: :smack:it took me all day to figure this out:o Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever Head on! got a head ache? Use our ineffective pain reliever If I have to use it this many times for one headache, then it’s not working good enough for me to waste time with. as an aside, am I the only one that wants to punch Jimmy in the throat instead of buying a syphilis or whatever it is he’s shilling? ---
**Author:** ![Lorne\_Armstrong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@Lorne\_Armstrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorne_Armstrong)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/24 "2017-04-17T04:06:34Z")
A few years back the was a commercial for pop tarts that used CGI to create a boy so happy that his mother was making him pop tarts that he begins to dance around the kitchen. One of his dance moves was the moonwalk. So Kellogg’s just linked a product aimed a kids with Michael Jackson. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/25 "2017-04-17T04:20:37Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > There’s a recent State Farm [commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM_zTNOvPLI) where a guy tells his wife various things, only to later do those exact things (have kids, buying a minivan, moving to the suburbs). His last line, where his kids and wife are all asleep in his arms while he’s sitting on the couch, is “I’m never letting go.” > > Since every other thing he says becomes untrue due to circumstance, his pattern seems to indicate that he will, in fact, let go. +1 Hate that commercial. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/26 "2017-04-17T04:22:26Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > There’s a recent State Farm [commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM_zTNOvPLI) where a guy tells his wife various things, only to later do those exact things (have kids, buying a minivan, moving to the suburbs). His last line, where his kids and wife are all asleep in his arms while he’s sitting on the couch, is “I’m never letting go.” > > Since every other thing he says becomes untrue due to circumstance, his pattern seems to indicate that he will, in fact, let go. There’s a thread about this topic somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/27 "2017-04-17T05:01:37Z")
As near as I can tell, Liberty Mutual insurance is looking for customers with no understanding of how insurance works, and Jack Link’s beef jerky is for people who are complete and total assholes. ---
**Author:** ![Azeotrope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/0ea827/32.png) [@Azeotrope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Azeotrope)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/28 "2017-04-17T16:46:55Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > There’s a car ad where the potential buyer and a salesman are out on a test drive. He tells her about the turbo engine, she floors it. He tells her about the lane assist and she lets go of the steering wheel making the car drift into another lane before the correct stops it. Finally he tells her about the braking assist and she goes “You mean this car can stop itself?” and heads off, presumably right at a tree. > > These are safety features, not see how your car can save you features. And she’ll probably end up on one of the Liberty Mutual commercials whining about how her mean ol’ insurance company won’t give her a brand new car, a million dollars, and a puppy, because apparently the point of auto insurance is to reward you for driving like a lunatic. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/29 "2017-04-17T17:29:10Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > The “can you hear me now?” guy switching from Verizon to Sprint just makes me think he’s a sellout, it doesn’t make me think Sprint is better. I think that actor just comes across as pathetic, the pinnacle of his career was being the “can you hear me now guy” and he’s still clinging to it. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/30 "2017-04-17T17:30:10Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Before the most recent Canadian federal election, the Conservative party had a radio ad condemning the Liberals idea of making marijuana consumption legal for adults. The ad had a concerned mother arguing that if marijuana was legal for adults to consume, then children would be able to illegally purchase marijuana. I wasn’t under the impression that children found it particularly difficult to purchase marijuana in the first place, so the ads seemed kind of pointless to me. I was always under the impression one could go to any school yard and purchase as much marijuana as he wanted from any school kid. (The hardest part would be going to the school yard - maybe as school lets out?) We supposedly have medical m.j. here, and it’s supposedly very expensive and very hard to get a prescription for. Whereas, a young person of my acquaintance assures me if I ever need some for cancer or whatever, they can get me as much as I want - ‘it’s everywhere!’. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/31 "2017-04-17T17:47:53Z")
The latest Sonic commercial where the guy complains that “owning a smart phone hasn’t made him any smarter”. Then he tries to drink his milkshake through the cherry stem. Oh yeah, I want to eat where this guy eats:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/32 "2017-04-17T17:51:19Z")
I hated [this commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxAo8_JySkM) with the fire of a thousand suns. it basically says “you may suck at being a dad, so at least you can hand him down a VW later.” you know how many kids would love to have a dad who pays attention enough to do things like play catch with them, even if badly? Nope, VW thinks it’s better to give him a car which will be a used up, money pit piece of junk by the time he’s old enough to drive it. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/33 "2017-04-18T00:09:43Z")
I had a friend who, in the 1980’s, became obsessed with cigarette ads, which he claimed were full of death symbology. He had a collection of print ads that he had saved. (This friend, BTW, never smoked tobacco, but he had several other much worse bad-health habits.) One ad he showed me portrayed a cigarette carton which, he claimed, was drawn to look something like a coffin. (I couldn’t see the coffin in it.) Another ad showed the Marlboro Man, standing on the prairie, staring vacantly off into the distance. Even I could see the problem with that. My friend’s premise was that there was nothing unintentional about it. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/34 "2017-04-18T00:35:30Z")
> [@tripthicket](#): > > Well, there _ **is** _ that famous [Folgers Christmas commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZnqBL6iYjA)… Best thing is the first YouTube comment: > [@](#): > > His eyes moved to the red ribbon she had planted on his right pectoral muscle. He saw something in her eyes when she touched him. A recognition of firmness. After all, he was toned to perfection from weeks of rebuilding a church in Rokoray, along the northern banks of the Great Scarcies River. He had met a woman there who reminded him of his sister. He cared for her, taught her a fledgling example of English, had even found himself feeling love for her. That was not a sisterly love however. Then again… was this? > [@running\_coach](#): > > It’s for a psychiatric medication. Right when the voiceover is mentioning suicidal impulses as a side effect, the visual is two women standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. lol Honestly, I find commercials with meaning, however unintended their messages, somewhat refreshing. I don’t see many ads these days, but when I do, my general response is ''WTF was that?" Because they really don’t even seem to make sense these days. ---
**Author:** ![tenacious\_j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/439d5e/32.png) [@tenacious\_j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tenacious_j)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/35 "2017-04-18T01:07:48Z")
> [@Donegal\_Dragon](#): > > My problem with ads is using our poor understanding of the English language to mislead us as to what the company is presenting as true. Such as, McDonalds burgers made “with 100% beef”, this only means that one of the ingredients used in their manufacture is 100% beef. So if I took a sawdust pattie and dipped it into weak beef stock brewed with an ounce of 100% beef, then their ad would be true. > [@Wolf333](#): > > I believe the claim is that the burgers ARE 100% beef. From their site, the Quarter Pounder pattie is: It’s the “made with” that gets me, and probably **Donegal Dragon**. Burger King chicken fries advertise “made with white meat chicken” but leave out of the ad the starch, water, and whatever else, they toss in there. Not 100% white meat chicken at all. Along the same lines, one of the buttery spreads- maybe Country Crock?- uses “real ingredients.” No shit, everything in there is real? Doesn’t say anything about real _what_… ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/36 "2017-04-18T02:18:27Z")
Another one that still makes me wonder what the hell they were thinking: Cialis decided to make, as their PRIMARY ICONIC IMAGE, a scene of two older adults, out in the country side somewhere, naked (we assume), sitting in side by side bathtubs. What is it about taking Cialis, that makes it necessary to remain forever in a bathtub, outside where the wind can keep the air fresh, carefully separated from your spouse? Is this some rather gross disagreeable side effect they don’t want us to know ahead of time? ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/37 "2017-04-18T02:22:03Z")
This new AP called “Letgo” has rather nasty ads, too. They have yet to have had one where the person who actually OWNED the whatever, WANTED TO SELL IT. Someone else always sold it out from under them, without their permission. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/38 "2017-04-18T11:10:50Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > Another one that still makes me wonder what the hell they were thinking: > > Cialis decided to make, as their PRIMARY ICONIC IMAGE, a scene of two older adults, out in the country side somewhere, naked (we assume), sitting in side by side bathtubs. > > What is it about taking Cialis, that makes it necessary to remain forever in a bathtub, outside where the wind can keep the air fresh, carefully separated from your spouse? Is this some rather gross disagreeable side effect they don’t want us to know ahead of time? Another ad agency noticed this. At least it placed the couple in the same [hot tub](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wu6Ry2vcOA). ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/39 "2017-04-18T13:10:03Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > The thing about that ad that hits me - he says Sprint’s reliability is practically the same as Verizon, which is fine if you live somewhere that has Sprint coverage. But he doesn’t say anything about coverage - just reliability. What good is reliability if you can’t get a signal at your house? With modern phones, you should be able to use your home wifi for cell calls at home. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539/40 "2017-04-18T14:04:19Z")
I could never buy a Chevy Cruz after one of the ‘real people’ in their ad refers to the car as, essentially, a mulletmobile. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commercials-with-unintended-messages/784539.md?page=3)