Does anybody else remember a short-lived McDonald’s advertising campaign from the early 1990s that emphasised the appetite-sating quality of their food? It featured the line “get stuffed.” I laughed myself hoarse the first time I saw it.
A good thread just never dies.
I loved this joke. It’s absolutely brilliant. I’m still sick with laughter four years after I first read it. “I’ve risen, And I can’t get down.” That’s just beautiful.
Moderator coughs lightly:
I just want to point out that Hypno-Toad’s post (#68) is from 14 October 2004; the next post was a resurrection by elmwood on 17 March 2008. Generally speaking, we don’t mind zombie threads too much in Cafe Society (there are different standards in different forums) but please remember that if you’re responding to someone who posted earlier, it could have been over three years ago. That person may not be around any longer, and even if they are, they probably don’t remember what they posted so long back.
Rite-Aid pharmacy’s menacing, vendetta-like slogan: “With us, it’s personal.” :eek:
I saw one just the other day on the Toronto subway that had me in tears of laughter.
It was for one of these companies that helps people deal with debt, and it featured a guy’s smiling face with the tagline “Now, I’m In Charge!”.
The message, I presume, is that the fellow is smiling because he is now “in charge” of his finances with the help of this organization. However, the guy they chose is a dead ringer for Tony Soprano. :eek: 
This changes the message somewhat. 
The Coldstone’s near me has a poster depicting one of their ice cream cakes. The cake is decorated with wafers or chocolate or something wrapped into cylinders and placed on the top of the cake. It looks like an ashtray with cigarettes in it.
We recently had a new billboard put up in our town. It says,
“Stoves should only be used for cooking.”
When I first read it, I thought it was a PSA for people in town who use their stoves to heat their houses.
But no.
It is an ad for the Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse.
Disturbed/s me so much, I can’t tell you.
A while ago, the city of Ottawa did a rebranding campaign in which it was decided to emphasize two positive aspects of the metropolitan area:
- its natural and architectural beauty
- its bustling high-technology economy
And what was the slogan they chose? “Ottawa: Technically Beautiful.”
Yeah, just technically. This actually caused a mini-scandal: you spent however-much tax money on that?!
“Mom…do you ever get that…not-so-fresh feeling?”
Ayd’s helped me lose weight!
{ early 80’s during a documentary about the new disease called ‘Aids’ that was up and coming…and what made it worst is that right before the comercial they showed a dying man in the hospital with so little weight he looked like a concentration camp survivor}
I hate ads like that, that go over the line from “make you think” to “profoundly disturbing”. Recently, the Quebec cystic fibrosis association has been running an ad campaign with the theme “you can give the breath of life”. There’s a series of TV ads, where a person is shown to deflate like a balloon. That’s bad, but at least there’s context. There’s also stand-alone posters in metro stations, each of which features a deflated person. They look so much like childrens’ corpses that I can’t stand to look at them. (Link to one of the posters, link to the whole campaign (in French), SFW but disturbing.)
The first time I saw this on a shelf as a kid I just had to laugh, and so did my friends:
Citroma : The Sparkling Laxative.
Ooh, I’m fresh, and tingly.
Not copy but there’s an ad for one of the allergy meds right now, possibly Zyrtec, that features a sculptor talking about how he can’t work while feeling drowsy and with this med he’s always sharp and focussed. Meanwhile he’s working marble with chisels and a grinder while not wearing safety glasses or a mask. Goodbye allergies, hello lung disease and blindness!
Carl’s Jr. has the worst series of ads running on TV now. They make their food look disgusting and messy, and the people who eat it look like ravenous slobs. A guy dropping chili all over the place from his chili burger, a girl shoving three french fries at a time into her mouth (as her boyfriend’s entire face is covered in chili from the burger he’s eating!) etc. Blech. Count me out.
Also, even though my wife and I are the target market for the Toyota Yaris, we are so turned off by the mean-spiritedness of their one commercial that I would never even consider getting the car now. It features a Yaris coming up to a cute, animated piggy bank—that’s COWERING IN FEAR—and smashes it with a hammer … so it can get a single penny. Yes! Let me buy the evil fucking scrooge of cars, that kills a sympathetic cartoon character for a single fucking penny. Let me go kick some puppies, and knock the crutches out from under some crippled orphans while I’m at it, too! Good thing to associate your brand with.
My beloved alma mater once had a recruiting commercial that said, “A year at Kent State can last a lifetime.”
It sure seemed that way sometime, I’ll admit.
In the same spirit, remember those commercials for the Oreo Cookie pizza at Domino’s? The one where people had beards made out of cookie crumbs? Blech.
I noticed that, but did you also see him lowering the giant stone statue, with his dog running free mere inches away?
I love the “Come visit the Oregon Coast” ads. Played to the tune of a Ukulele, the last line is “'Cause it’s a whole lot closer than Hawaii!”
Uh, yes, it’s also a whole lot COLDER than Hawaii.
I loved that commercial! It was so absurd how the guys oreo facial hair was growing exponentially every time they cut to him. Classic.
I saw an ad that, while it wasn’t bad in itself, was inappropriate in context.
I was watching some show on the History Channel about the Holocaust… They were talking about how the gas chambers and crematoria worked and so on. Cut to a Volkswagen commercial that starts, “Germans have always been known for their engineering skills…”.
S.P.C.A.??? :rolleyes: They need more than a new agency. They need a new name.