OT: Favorite/Least Favorite Ad Campaigns
I sing this everytime I'm back in Michigan visiting family. My Wife (from Illinois) has never seen the commercial but knows the song well.
Once we see a sign for Telegraph road she immediately rolls her eyes and says "Oh, God"
I have a shirt from downwithdetrroit that has a picture of the little guy and dog from the commercial. I love it.
downwithdetroit is a tremendous website. HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend to all who haven't checked it out, especially if you are a true Detroiter.
As far as my favorite ads, I don’t know how to embed, but look up,the old Ameriquest “Don’t Judge Too Quickly” commercials. Those were pretty funny.
Head On. Apply directly to the forehead.
Head On. Apply directly to the forehead.
Head On. The only product ever sold that is made necessary simply by watching the television ad for that very product. Genius. Sheer, evil, genius.
Ollie was my least favorite
Favorite was anything invoving Sunny Elliot.
They reminded me of one of the all-time worst ad campaigns which came to be known as the "Drink Schlitz or I'll Kill You" campaign.
http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-worst-advertisement-ever-drink.html
The current NHL ones are pretty good, but those History Will Be Made ones are classic.
Those ads are annoying but brilliant. Nobody would know who JG Wentworth is but for their incredibly catchy and annoying jingle. If anyone ever said to me "I have structured payments but I need cash now" I'm pretty sure I'm completely programmed at this point to automatically say "Call JG Wentworth, 877-CASH-NOW."
I'm not a fan of how much car companies and dealerships advertise. They advertise cars that cost anywhere from $15,000 to $45,000 and act like you go and buy new ones every week like they are groceries. There's obviously a few that are way worse than others. Looking at you Summit Place Kia.
I enjoyed the Erin Esurance campaign in the mid 2000's. Apparently I wasn't the only one... LOL
https://priceonomics.com/how-esurance-lost-its-mascot-to-the-internet/
"Fitted in a leather catsuit and sporting a spunky pink haircut, the 2D-animated secret agent navigated her way through a variety of 30-second national commercial spots. The face of insurance start-up Esurance, she battled giant robots (who represented “overpriced competitors”), scaled her way up buildings, and occasionally took showers on screen for no apparent reason.
Designed to be hip, exciting, and fast-paced, Erin stood for everything Esurance believed in. She was not only the company’s answer to Geico’s ubiquitous gecko, but a formidable marketing tool for recruiting their intended demographic — 18 to 24 year-old males — into insurance policies.
Unfortunately, that demographic liked Erin so much that they made porn of her. Lots of porn. So much porn that, at the height of the mascot’s popularity, 9 of the top 10 image results in an unfiltered Google search for “Erin Esurance” ended up being these amatuer artists’ racy renderings."
My Favorites were the Detroit Pistons ads from the late 90s with the two little white kids acting like they were NBA stars. "Who led the league in ass-ists last year"... "shoulda been you, dog". I wish I could find a video of that one. Triple T, Office Linebacker is also a classic.
There are too many to list that are terrible, but almost all of the insurance ones (except Mayhem), all of the car ads and the Bud Knight ones make me flip the channel really quickly.
A teenage Mary Tyler Moore as "Happy Hotpoint" for Hotpoint Appliances on The Ozzie and Harriet Show.
That was . . . weird.
This one shows up in my head sometimes and makes me nostalgic, as I was probably six years old when it was on. Has an Alphaville/Flock-of-Seagulls thing going on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIIU2JvoMX4
I am generally contemptful of most advertising, but especially painful are these radio commercials:
- Lady Jane's
- That one on WTKA where a guy talks over some sort of awful whistled tune
- Any commercial where they repeat the phone number at least three times
Good: The Lighting Boutique
"Doesn't anybody drink anymore?"
"Not with fixtures like those"
And of course the bafflingly minimalist one with the guy standing next to the refrigerator.
I always liked this one from Highland Appliance
"50 watts per channel, babycakes!"
Also Helga Piscopo, keeping the girlish figure with Miller Lite