Are there any ad campaigns, on TV, pamphlets, newspapers, posters etc. etc. that have had rather the opposite effect to that which was intended. In other words, they caused you to stop buying the product/using the service etc instead of buying more of it like you were supposed to!
May I make 2 exceptions to the sort of marketing this thread is designed to discuss:
This thread is about advertising, rather than aggressive marketing such as unsolicited phone-calls, spam, junk mail, doorstepping etc.
Please let’s keep US Electoral politics out of this thread–it’ll lose its way very very quickly indeed if people bring up Republican, Democrat or Third Party campaign strategies, I’m sure.
Finally, my example: SpecSavers. I’m not sure if this occurred in the US too, but in Britain early this year, this discount spectacle store chain made a string of TV advertisements which in my opinion condoned and perhaps even encouraged verbal bullying, showing the ridiculing of people wearing old-fashioned spectacles with the tagline “Should’ve gone to SpecSavers”. I was amazed there wasn’t a big outcry, but I guess some forms of bullying aren’t yet completely unacceptable :mad:. I wear glasses, but no matter how cheap they are I’ll never buy any from this store in the future.
In my teens, I used to buy clothes at Hennes & Mauritz. Then they started a sexist advertisment campaign (huge posters with women in underwear and “fuck me” expressions and positions), and I’ve boicotted them ever since. They run a similar campaign each year, and have single handedly pushed the limit on speculative advertisments in Norway. (At first, the posters were controversial. Now we’ve gotten used to them, and other companies are following their lead.) (A sample here, probably work safe (woman in underwear)).
It was ironically amusing to see the contrast the one year they also used some posters of men in underwear. The male posters were in black and white, and the man was standing with his arms crossed, staring sternly at the camera, looking as if he was considering what kind of armour he should put on before riding out to concuer- conq- (aargh) take over the world. While the women (in full colour) were looking as if they were posing for soft core porn, but had forgotten to take off the last pieces of clothing.
I don’t know what the hell Quizno’s was thinking when they had those infernal mutated singing rats in their commercial. This ad campaign is long gone but it has kept me from ever wanting to set foot inside a Quizno’s ever again.
andymurph64: Seriously? I know that there was a weight loss candy called Ayds that was discontinued/renamed following the discovery and naming of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, but I had no idea they had run an ad campaign as tasteless as this in the later years of the product.
PizzaHut ran a commercial in the early 90s that made me not call them for delivery for some time. It was about there was a goup of people and somehow being the only woman in the group made her responsible for providing food when they were hungry. So she ordered pizza because it was easier than cooking and she was tired too.
At the time I was the only female in the group I hung out with. None of them ever implied that I should be the one feeding them because I was female. They knew better.
I already refuse to ever think about doing business with AOL, but that new commerical of their’s which basically has this woman wanting to abdicate all her responsibility of raising her kids and supervising their online activity is seriously pissing me off every time I see it.
Local, but any Bob’s Discount Furniture store commercial just reinforces my motivation to not buy from them. Simply because they’re annoying as hell.
TJ Maxx had a string of commercials that pissed me off to no end. I’m no feminist, but these ads all showed women who were supposedly women of importance (CEOs, etc) dropping everything to go to a sale. The message that I got was, well, they may be in power, but they’re women, and we all know what that means - Shopping! Bullshit.
A commercial for peaches that put me off peaches in a very big way because the stupid people in the commercial were suckling and slurping at them. It made my skin crawl, and killed my appetite for peaches.
In UK Kia cars had ben getting bad press reviews for the quality of their cars. So they made an advertising campain basically saying that anyone who didn;t buy a Kia was racist for not doing so! I guess I must be racist against Korea, Japan, America, and England, since I bought a German car So no way am I buting a Kia any time soon.
Quiznos radio commercials put me off, they have a mad chef inventing new recipies, and yet the recipie ends up being turkey cheese and ham, boring!
The car radio advert for Infinity where a supposed BMW salesperson phones Germany, annoys me for the pretty racist depiction of Germans.
America’s Best - the Eyeglass place - they have these cartoonish people with big heads and animated mouths that just go open and shut and open and shut and a really aggravating announcer who really overdoes it with the dramatic stuff - I can’t really explain it but it really cheeses me off.
McDonald’s. Until I’m lovin’ it stops, I’m leavin’ it.
I’m sure if I give this some thought, I could come up with a host of others, but I have to go smoke. It’s my cigarette break, I’m not on fire or anything.
Forgive the digression, but do you think the makers of Spam are worried about their image? The only mention of spam you ever hear nowadays is “anti-spam”, “spam-blockers”, legislation to ban spam, etc.
I understand there isn’t a worry of confusing a meat-flavored product with junk e-mail, but morale has to be down over at Spam inc.
btw- I remember Ayds diet chocolate. Talk about bad timing.
Back on topic, here in Philadelphia years back, when the Cosby Show was coming to syndication, there was a big ad blitz (bus ads, radio, billboards) saying “Philadelphia is Bill-adelphia!”
This got a strongly negative reception, and was soon dropped.
I laugh when I see commercials of crazy young people wildly partying with Coors Light, which is basically one can of beer divided among six cans of water.
Equally funny are the Pepsi commercials with “zany” football tailgaters chugging cola. Not at any tailgate I’ve ever been to.
I would imagine Hispanic communities could take offense at the blatant pandering by Dr. Pepper commercials. The Onion did a good job of skewering this, blaming Coke, but I think Dr. Pepper is the bigger offender.
That Acura commercial cracks me up…in it you see Nigel and Reginald taking their test car (Acura SUV) on their test ride to France, while a cretin in the back seat stares (openmouthed) at the video screen (displaying “Finding Nemo”).
Of course, ACURA wants you to think that the two bozos from JAGU-AARR" (plus their moron backseat companion) are just out of their minds in love with the stupid car.
The message I got from it was that Jaguar employs a lot of low-grade morons!
If anyone actually wants to see that K-fee ad, I can’t link directly to it (of course) but this link will get you started. From there, click on “creepy car commercial”.
I did a double check through google, and am now not certain if it was Kia, Daewoo, or Hyundi. But the advert was saying something allong the lines of
“Why don’t you consider the new (luxury version trashed by the press), is it the alloy wheels, wood interier, (list of other features …), or is it because it’s Korean.” can’t remember if they used the word racist in any of the adverts, but the suggestion was there, and quite strange considering everyone was buying Japanese cars at the time.
So no way am I buting a Kia any time soon.