Least effective adverts of all time

[ajsmith]

Surely it would be hard to beat this abjectly pathetic Vimto advert from 1993: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdfdulurwpg

[Jockice]

Josh, dad's found your scooter.

[Puce Moment]

I can't imagine anyone wanting to date either of these two irritating twats:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z4aguu4Ex0

"Like godfavver free"

[BlodwynPig]

Surely it would be hard to beat this abjectly pathetic Vimto advert from 1993: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdfdulurwpg

A young Shoulders!-Stomach? at 18 seconds

[An Actual Propeller]

Surely it would be hard to beat this abjectly pathetic Vimto advert from 1993: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdfdulurwpg

I stubbornly didn't buy Vimto for at least fifteen years after I saw this advert.  I bet Ian Vimto was kicking himself that he turned me away as a customer.

Despite moneysupermarket.com still persisting on having the catchphrase "You're so money supermarket!" in their adverts, I have never heard anybody utter this slogan, ever.  The web site's probably doing well mind, but I doubt it's from the catchphrase.

[Phil_A]

I feel the same about O2's BE MORE DOG, which absurdly they are still forcing on us even though it will never, ever become something people say.

The pirate-shaming "Knock-off Nigel" campaign also failed utterly to have any impact on piracy at all, because people who download or buy bootleg films generally aren't subjected to humiliating singalongs from complete strangers. And even that probably wouldn't convince them to stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TbqBPmInjQ

Here's the 1992 equivalent, "Don't Copy That Floppy", which has got one of those rap singers they have now. I like how it says that even if you copy some software you've previously bought for another computer in your own house, YOU are solely responsible for killing the entire computer industry, and you don't get to join Craig Dykstra's "team" and are a horrible bad bastard.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI

[BlodwynPig]

Why is Facebook doing adverts now - terminal decline?

[An Actual Propeller]

Here's the 1992 equivalent, "Don't Copy That Floppy"

Funny you should mention "Don't Copy That Floppy" - a few years back I tried to license it for a vinyl release.  The SIIA (what the Software Publishers Association are known as these days) went to the trouble of locating the masters before I got cold feet about how much I would spend on releasing it and thus I didn't bother hassling them any more after realising.

[chand]

Despite moneysupermarket.com still persisting on having the catchphrase "You're so money supermarket!" in their adverts, I have never heard anybody utter this slogan, ever.  The web site's probably doing well mind, but I doubt it's from the catchphrase.

It's an incredibly weird slogan because it doesn't scan or even sound superficially pleasing, let alone make sense. As far as anyone can figure out it's an homage to 1996 Jon Favreau film Swingers, in which Vince Vaughn's overbearing loudmouth character repeatedly peps up his dumped friend by reminding him that he's "so money". I can't remember that movie ever being on TV in the last five years, it's pretty much several rungs below Clerks on the cult classic recognition ladder. I associate it entirely with a now-deceased friend who made me watch it (on VHS no less) because he was so into it, literally to the extent of going to see soul-patch-havin', fedora-sportin' swing revivalists Big Bad Voodoo Daddy live because they were the jazz band in the film. I can only assume one guy in the marketing department was a Swingers evangelist and got his mates into it so they all thought it was a great idea.

[Chriddof]

One of the absolute crappiest adverts I've ever seen was the original ad for Knorr Micro Noodles. It was set in a village hall, with a bunch of middle aged people singing a zany, non-scanning and completely tuneless musical theatre kind of song about the product. It was clearly meant to be deliberately bad and deeply ironic and all that, but it just ended up being genuinely bad and crap. It got pulled pretty sharpish and they replaced it with a more conventional but far more effective ad shortly afterwards. The first ad was so terrible, in fact, that no one's bothered to upload it to Youtube.

[Chriddof]

Oh, and re: the tag about "Friendchips" - when my sister attended art college, she had to sit through a guest lecture given by the man who came up with that fucking thing. Apparently he was an Eastern European bloke who went into enormous and unnecessarily long detail about how "friendchip" sounded like "friendship" and how amusing that was. At one point he asked the audience, "What do we think of when we think of Doritos?" and the only person to respond said "They taste nice". Apparently everyone in the lecture hall was ready to murder him within five minutes.

[madhair60]

And "N"... is for not in my food.

[Thursday]

Bull Boys Shoes. I mean it does actually have a memorable song, but they just seemed so laughably naff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYGgaqCY0Lw

[gatchamandave]

I thought the classic example was the Leonard Rossiter/ Joan Collins adverts for Cinzano that drove up sales of Martini ? Anyone know if that's true ?

[Uncle TechTip]

Interesting, I guess they looked very similar and if pressed I'd say they did adverts for Martini. The adverts themselves were quite memorable.

This is a classic of the genre...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf0j3Oz6gGY

[Vodka Margarine]

'Mastication for the nation'.

[Mr Banlon]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kvenmWEhFE can't imagine this advert shifted many units

[Obel]

Bull Boys Shoes. I mean it does actually have a memorable song, but they just seemed so laughably naff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYGgaqCY0Lw

!!!!!!!!!!!


All these years I thought they were Ball Boy shoes! Fuck.

[SavageHedgehog]

Kind of similar to the Vimto one, I always hated the "Dr Pepper, so misunderstood" adverts in the 90s, not least as their sexual undertones made for uncomfortable viewing when they popped up on the big screen during family trips to see Space Jam and Men In Black and such.

[The Region Legion]

Kind of similar to the Vimto one, I always hated the "Dr Pepper, so misunderstood" adverts in the 90s, not least as their sexual undertones made for uncomfortable viewing when they popped up on the big screen during family trips to see Space Jam and Men In Black and such.

I hate that they didn't bother writing a new jingle when they dropped So Misunderstood, instead just shoehorning "what's the worst that could happen?" into the same space despite being a full 2 syllables longer. Doesn't parse Doctor, shit off.

[Vodka Margarine]

Drench brazenly attempting to put a random new spin on the ultimate emperor's new clothes of products - bottled water. Their ad campaign featured Brains from Thunderbirds busting some moves to the Turbo B rap on Snap!'s 'Rhythm Is A Dancer' (editing out the 'serious as cancer' line, of course). It succeeded in getting Snap! back into the lower reaches of the charts but I haven't seen Drench in the shops for a while now.

[Phil_A]

Drench brazenly attempting to put a random new spin on the ultimate emperor's new clothes of products - bottled water.

Speaking of which, does any remember Jimmy the shit-bearded gonk and his attempt to complete "The Volvic 14 Day Challenge"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOxtWKM4Yeo

WATCH OUT, BOYS!

[non capisco]

And "N"... is for not in my food.

Being sombre seems to take years off Captain Birdseye, though.

[finnquark]

Speaking of which, does any remember Jimmy the shit-bearded gonk and his attempt to complete "The Volvic 14 Day Challenge"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOxtWKM4Yeo

WATCH OUT, BOYS!

Just having a cheeky Volvic.

[Phil_A]

While we're here, maybe someone can explain something to me - why are there still so many adverts for Freeview? It would've made sense ten years ago when it was still a new thing and required the purchase of a special box, but not now it comes as a feature in all new TVs by default. It's something almost the entire country can easily access already, and yet we still have to put up with this infuriating "cat and budgie" wannabe viral shite. Who are these adverts supposed to be for? Is the idea to try and lure customers away from Sky & Virgin? Because I don't think that's going to happen.

[chand]

While we're here, maybe someone can explain something to me - why are there still so many adverts for Freeview? It would've made sense ten years ago when it was still a new thing and required the purchase of a special box, but not now it comes as a feature in all new TVs by default. It's something almost the entire country can easily access already, and yet we still have to put up with this infuriating "cat and budgie" wannabe viral shite. Who are these adverts supposed to be for? Is the idea to try and lure customers away from Sky & Virgin? Because I don't think that's going to happen.

Yeah, this confused me as well. It's been 7 years since every TV set had to come with Freeview, and two years since the analogue signal stopped. I could be wrong, but I can't think of anyone for whom Freeview wouldn't represent either a) the thing they're watching already or b) significantly fewer channels than they currently have access to.

[black_betty]

This was effective, but in the wrong way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjBHUQEiTPw

[Catalogue Trousers]

A new challenger is that one for some car or other wherein a dad(?) and his daughter(?) chat uninteresting fart for a bit before dad asks kid about their singing lessons. And they both start singing a crap a capella version of Karma Chameleon because LOLZRANDUMBZ REMEMBER SPANGLES EH STEW