The kind of thing which makes you say “how could they possibly have thought this was a good idea?”
The latest I can think of is Gwyneth Paltrow’s ad for a luxury condo project on stolen Palestinian land by Israel.
shes been selling scams for quite a while, not surprising she is willing to do this.
That’s a good one.
Just in general, I get the feeling that she’s not all there. You can probably sell her on anything.
Holy shit I already hated the woman but this is next level. Got any proof?
Just search for it on YouTube. Gwyneth Paltrow Israel ad.
Didn’t think she could sink any lower and yet here we are
the “don’t hire people” ones
constant bombardment of AI this or that tech, business ads.
I JUST read an article about Starbuck’s bungled Gwangju promo in Korea. I’m betting that inspired this post, but if not, look it up, it’s a great example.
The timing of the post was a coincidence (the actual inspiration is in a separate comment), but this is indeed a great example of the title. I just read up on this incident, and oof…😬
The coffee chain triggered an uproar when it attempted to promote a series of stainless-steel tumblers it called “SS Tank” by declaring May 18 to be “Tank Day.” The date marks the anniversary of the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southern city of Gwangju. It was violently suppressed by Seoul’s military government at the time, which deployed troops, tanks and helicopters, leaving hundreds dead or injured.
The campaign further fueled outrage by using the slogan “Thwack it on the table!” which many read as a reference to a notorious 1987 police statement that attempted to cover up the torture death of student activist Park Jong-chol. Authorities had falsely said Park died after investigators “hit the desk with a thwack.”
🤦♀️
What inspired the post: a cigarette lighter that was handed out as part of an election campaign with the slogan “FOR OUR CHILDREN” on it. The lighter is too bulky for children’s hands /s
Rugs a million having a closing down sale for over 20 years.
It’s been 20 years. You clearly aren’t closing.
Needs to be more high tempo
There is a carpet shop having “final sales” or “closing sales” in the next town since I started reading newspapers 50 years ago. The carpet shop survived the newspaper. And it is still having “final sales”.
There’s a furniture store near me that’s always going out of business and having closing sales (at least for the last few decades). But the name on the store always seems to change every year. I’m wondering if it’s just the same owners that shut the business down and rotate out names every now and then.
I guess that’s one way to get out of fulfilling warranties?
There’s a lot of those. There was one near me that did the same thing (maybe still does, I have looked in a while).
We’ve just had a campaign on our city’s public transport trams that said “I’m identifying as a trolleybus”.
During pride month, nonetheless.
We had something similar, but it was just a play on the word transport and was just a normal bus and only for the pride parade we had, thankfully.
tramsgender
Don’t be so tramsphobic!
Is this a slur against the autistic?
That old Saturn Ion commercial. A car ad about a world without cars, accidentally showing what a complete waste of space their own product is.
The Lorax movie tie-in ads
This ad honestly reads like satire. I can’t believe this came out of Texas.
Wow, it gets worse the more you read!
Much like current events in that way 🫤
or the peddling AI detection software, by using AI.
Another one near me, not technically an ad but a name: The Dead River Company. They deliver oil.
I was abroad recently. At the radio I got an ad for a company from my country. At the end of the ad, they said their slogan… in their own language. How do you expect people to get your slogan if it’s in a language they don’t speak!?
I remember a good take on it! An ad in one of Nordic languages where a happy family sings to a metal or punk(?) radio tune which refrain went “I want to f*** you in your ***”.
It was an ad to promote learning foreign languages.
Your country doesn’t speak English, by chance?
No no of course not xD
Slogans in foreign languages are sometimes considered prestigious or exotic. They’re saying it for the vibes, not for the literal meaning of the words.
Rock and Roll Hairstyle USA
Wow, really? I’d never heard a slogan in a foreign language before. It must vary by country
Volkswagen had “Fahrvergnügen” in the early 90s. I can remember that campaign took off for a while.
Fun fact: That word didn’t exist in the German language before, it was created specifically for this ad.
Blizzard’s “Do you guys not have phones?” blunder during the Diablo Immortal reveal
that wasn’t really a campaign or ad, just a gaff made by an out of touch dipshit during the reveal. It was still tonedeaf, sure, but it was hardly Blizzards marketing intention.
An out of touch dipshit? It was the principal game designer from blizzard lol. Plus pretty certain the “dipshit” in question was also not a fan of the mobile only idea.
SNL made a sketch about it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn8pwoNWseM
We have a new contender
