These people all tried to market something - whether that something was good or not is debatable, but they all produced some pretty WTF-worthy ways of pushing their services.
(Sidenote: these are not real ads - check out Alan Wagner for more).
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Do you ever just stop to think about how we're living in a dystopian nightmare and that life doesn't matter at all? You go to work every day to make money just to pay for your miserable life, and then you die without ever retiring. Enjoy these tidbits from our corporate overlords!
Suddenly, Black Mirror doesn't seem so crazy.
We get a little bit closer to that dystopian future of our dreams everyday, and sometimes an advertisement notices how close we are.
A subway billboard in Beijing has done just that.
The advertisement is for a sports haze mask and features a female running with a face mask that looks like a souvenir from Fury Road. A sports haze mask is for people attempting to exercise in heavy smog areas, like Beijing.
Twitter reacted, as it's wont to do, welcoming the new oncoming dystopia.
Via John Lewis
While not the holiday tradition in America, in England, the British department store John Lewis crushes it with the Christmas commercials. You’re probably thinking, is this better than the Hess Truck commercials? Yes. Or maybe you’re thinking, what’s a Hess truck commercial, because that might be a regional reference. Anyway, this is a Hess truck.
That’s not how this was supposed to go. John Lewis, right.
This year’s John Lewis ad continues the store’s legacy for delivering holiday cheer at discount prices. The price today? Free. For no money at all, you can watch this commercial that features a bunch of really cute animals bouncing on a trampoline.
In these despondent times of confusion and uncertainty, isn’t that we’re all looking for, a couple of computer-generated animals bouncing on a trampoline? There's a really cute boxer pup named Buster. Buster.
TripAdvisor is sending one lucky Harry Potter fan around the world. You can enter at TripAdvisor.com.
The site provided these details on what the winner can expect from this excursion:
Your adventure begins at the Grand Opening of The Wizarding World of Harry PotterTM at Universal Studios HollywoodSM and continues to Universal Orlando® Resort and Universal Studios Japan®. Plus, experience a behind-the-scenes look at where the Harry PotterTM films were made at Warner Bros. Studio Tour London.
Apparently the sweepstakes is in honor of the grand opening of the Wizarding World in Hollywood.
Via Target
When you go to Target for one item, you'll end up leaving with a shopping cart full. That's just basic science.
But thanks to an actually delightful Halloween campaign from the store, you might just need two shopping carts on your next visit.
In a new campaign for Target's Halloween merchandise, the retailer takes viewers on an immersive, 360-degree video "choose your own adventure."
You just start at the video above, and follow the story from room to room in a haunted house.
In a world that's full of advertising, it's nice for a change of pace.
Just make sure to not block the entry way into the Dollar Spot, or some soccer moms could get violent.
Via Vox
Digging through whatever magical suitcase they have in their possession, Vox found this old ad showing Pepsi bragging about having more calories than a pork chop.
The 1942 ad placed in the New York Times tells a lot about the struggles facing America in that time period. The country had just entered World War II the year before and the war effort was scrambling to out fit a military fighting in Europe and the Pacific, while trying to overcome the economic devastation of the previous decade.
To the fledgling nutrition science and popular assumptions out there, what America needed was more energy, so the advertisers tried to highlight that in its pitch.
Why eat a crummy ol' tomato when you can get so much more food energy from a bottle of Pepsi?!
Apparently, this was part of a larger campaign.
They wholly embraced this image, using the slogan "The Drink with the Quick Food Energy".
So, it's not like they were hiding anything...
Via Ad Council
Never before has a bunch of skeletons been so heartwarming.
A new ad from the Ad Council shows people of all different ages, genders, races, sexualities, ethnicities, disabilities and religions coming together behind a digital screen.
The viewers only see their skeletons at first kissing, dancing and hugging with Mary Lambert’s “She Keeps Me Warm” playing in the background, until the real people step out to reveal themselves.
The spot is part of their “Love Has No Labels” campaign, and it already has over 1.5 million views since it was released on Tuesday. It was shot on Valentine’s Day of this year.
From the Ad Council:
Subconscious prejudice—called “implicit bias”—has profound implications for how we view and interact with others who are different from us. It can hinder a person’s ability to find a job, secure a loan, rent an apartment, or get a fair trial, perpetuating disparities in American society. The Love Has No Labels campaign challenges us to open our eyes to our bias and prejudice and work to stop it in ourselves, our friends, our families, and our colleagues.
You will cry. So be prepared.
Via Ads of the World
Sriracha pizza pretty much sells itself, right? But an ad agency in Israel thought Domino’s needed some promotional material with a bit more kick.
Hence this severed tongue, dressed in leather with a ball gag in its mouth, ready for a good whipping.
“You’re going to suffer and enjoy every moment,” the text warns.
The image, from advertising agency McCann Israel, was reportedly “leaked” online even though the ad was never intended to be published and never was.
Tim McIntyre, a rep for Dominos, told People Magazine that it was pitched but never approved.
“It never ‘officially’ appeared anywhere, because it was ill-advised, unfunny and not brand-appropriate,” McIntyre said. “In a word, it was stupid.”
I bet it doesn’t seem so stupid to them now that it’s getting all this online attention.
On Twitter, Domino’s is telling people that the ad was “unauthorized.”
You know those little pizza snacks that burn the hell out of your mouth as soon as you bite into them? How could you forget?
Just in time for a weekend-long celebration marijuana legalization in Oregon and Washington, D.C., Tim and Eric have put out a new ad for Totino's Pizza Rolls.
And it is so Tim and Eric.
It's called "Pizza Freaks Unite," and freaks doesn't even begin to describe what is going on in this video.
Old Spice and the Portland-based ad agency Wieden + Kennedy have teamed up again for its latest digital campaign "Believe in Your Smellf," which features a web-based video game starring the retired NBA star Dikembe Mutombo who must save the world from the Mayans' doomsday prophecy by taking on a series of odd missions like stopping Americans from dancing to "Gangnam Style" and defending the planet from the invasion of mysterious monster-like creatures known as "Blurgies." Click here to play now!
Via Shanghai Daily
An online classified ad offering Shanghai women as much as 3,000 yuan ($588) per day to "test condoms" while having sexual activity with men was removed from Baixing.com, the Chinese equivalent of Craigslist, after netizens on Weibo began speculating that it could be a recruiting advertisement for prostitution. According to the Youth Daily's interview with an employee of the condom manufacturing company, normally machines are used to test condoms but the firm can't afford to buy as many as they would need. On a side note, human condom testing has been offered as a job in other parts of the world.
Meanwhile in (X) of the Day is a feature series bringing you the latest buzz from all over the continents with a special focus on non-English speaking parts of the world.
