# Worst advertising campaigns ever **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** commercials-ads\ **Created:** [April 16, 2022, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932 "2022-04-16T22:12:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/121 "2022-04-25T13:48:03Z")
Mayonnaise is much better than salad cream! ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/122 "2022-04-25T14:36:48Z")
Is that from your perspective? Or that of the salad? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/123 "2022-04-25T14:52:20Z")
To be honest, I wouldn’t put either on a salad. A sandwich, yes; a salad no. But I’d still prefer mayonnaise, unlike this little creature: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/KIiOmq-UcDk/hqdefault.jpg "Fawlty Towers Salad Cream") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIiOmq-UcDk) ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/124 "2022-04-25T14:54:27Z")
Green Goddess dressing is the best choice. Of course, Green Goddesses are less available than they should be. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/125 "2022-04-25T15:00:37Z")
I don’t remember the name of this service, but it’s some kind of app where you can order groceries delivered to you. I suppose its intended audience is lazy millennials, because the ad uses TikTok-style videos of customers saying things like “I don’t have time to chop vegetables” and “I’m so glad because my fridge is super empty.” Then it shows the customers becoming overjoyed at opening packages and squealing “Oh my God” when they pull out a carton. I can understand this would be valuable to the elderly, the disabled, or people who don’t have access to transportation, but no, they’re targeting _lazy-assed millennial underachievers._ /barf ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/126 "2022-04-25T15:12:33Z")
Various grocery-delivery services grew during the height of the COVID epidemic for obvious reasons, and are now scrambling to maintain their position as the threat recedes and/or people get more complacent. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/127 "2022-04-25T15:36:15Z")
Hungry Root ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/128 "2022-04-25T15:45:38Z")
The advertising campaign for Coca-Cola’s [OK Soda](https://www.metv.com/stories/ok-soda-the-strange-nihilistic-nineties-soda-that-only-lasted-seven-months#:~:text=OK%20Soda%3A%20The%20strange%2C%20nihilistic,that%20only%20lasted%20seven%20months) was so bad the product only lasted seven months. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/129 "2022-04-25T15:50:52Z")
Well, that must’ve flown under my radar. I’ve never heard of “OK Soda”—and now that I have, it still looks like a parody rather than a real thing. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/130 "2022-04-25T18:35:26Z")
Dan Clowes frequently celebrated weirdness in his comics, and this ad looks like something he’d do as a parody of a product designed to appeal to mundane normalcy. Even before algorithms, marketing slime were never able to detect irony. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/131 "2022-04-25T20:39:43Z")
The new thing is grocery delivery in fifteen minutes. This [New York Times article](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/nyregion/online-grocery-delivery-nyc.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWna3HMDm4TiOIEGYWP-kDLIq1lY9o10nGUXthKPaU-AfB_yu5BMlZ8Dg-5qd2EhJEBaW0TmL6EY1kXjdjLTKxqtnjjdHW4I-Nyg-fktEPeOjW9RKOP1XA-IFlvoI9vdw6hxXxZlPvPR7Yl3NIu2ewzRcwvHUd2byGAuvDvDwwve4nVK0GBtXRlHr1RSjrRntWD6r8fcwk0ClvOTnl342dU-8oLcZpMf_65d0h8DZK41bYBCWVoL5OrA4kxQ-XUlrZrs73MoH-c2dSemBNuqR917uwlemfEjWE&smid=url-share) (paywalled, but that’s a gift link) talks about several services that deliver stuff in a quarter hour. Not sure how sustainable that is. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/132 "2022-04-25T23:01:15Z")
If you have a new product that you introduce with an ad campaign celebrating “mundane normalcy,” you’re pretty much guaranteeing its failure. About a decade before the “OK Soda” fiasco, Pepsi tried to launch “Jake’s Cola” with a series of faux-folksy commercials that made it seem like was a micro-soda made by good honest people in Smalltown, USA. Of course, at no point in the commercials did Pepsi indicate they were behind the product so Coke took out full-page ads in newspapers revealing who really made “Jake’s Cola” which, not long afterward, disappeared from supermarkets. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/133 "2022-04-25T23:25:53Z")
I don’t either (it was also competing with Crystal Pepsi, which came out around the same time) and the Wiki page said it was sold in test markets, and discontinued when it flopped. > **[OK Soda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda)** > > OK Soda is a discontinued soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company in 1993 that courted the American Generation X demographic with unusual advertising tactics, including neo-noir design, chain letters and deliberately negative publicity. After the soda did not sell well in select test markets, it was officially declared out of production in 1995 before reaching nationwide distribution. The drink's slogan was "Things are going to be OK." > In 1993, Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta rehired Sergio Z... As for people claiming it tasted like carbonated tree sap - bubbly maple syrup? Okay (no pun intended). I, too am getting a lot of advertising, both online and in the mail, usually as inserts in my utility bills, for those pre-prepped meal kits. I suspect they’re trying to offload overstock, on top of getting new subscribers. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2022, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/134 "2022-04-27T02:17:06Z")
“Progressive can’t save you from becoming your parents.” They’re dreadfully unfunny. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/135 "2022-04-28T00:53:39Z")
All Progressive ads are sucking big time, anymore. Flo is blah, the above ad is lame and the one with the roommate parents and their 40 YO son makes me stabby. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/136 "2022-04-28T15:08:17Z")
Agree to disagree there. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/137 "2022-04-28T16:24:36Z")
If any insurance company just came on the air and said, “In 2021 we paid 80% of claims within 24 hours,” (or similar) I think I would fall over from surprise. (And buy their insurance). Instead, they try to “entertain” us, each company’s ads being stupider than the others. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/138 "2022-04-28T16:27:35Z")
I don’t know about worst, but I’m very annoyed by NJM insurance ads. Their slogan is “No Jingles Or Mascots”. Their ads are nothing but jingles and mascots. For a while State Farm Insurance had ads that actually attempted to educated and just be informative. They really stood out. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2022, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/139 "2022-05-01T17:45:33Z")
I have a new nominee . Those ads telling you why you need a realtor. Previously I had no opinion on the matter. Those ads have me 90% convinced that the average home buyer does not need a realtor and that the profession is unnecessary and dying. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2022, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932/140 "2022-05-01T17:52:06Z")
Cannot edit properly on phone. That should be “is NOW unnecessary “ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-advertising-campaigns-ever/962932.md?page=8)