Lazy Ad Students Crowdsource Their Books

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Seriously? You go to ad school. You drop out (lazy? flunked? too expensive?) to finish your books on your own. When you can't, you ask the ad industry to crowdsource it for you. What happened to good old fashioned hard work? Oh right, laziness reigns supreme these days. Can't cut it on your own? Open it up to the internets and surely someone else will cover your ass by doing your work for you.

Why are Eric Stiles and Nick Larson doing this? To challenge the current portfolio school system, they claim. Granted, the schools aren't perfect but if you two want to succeed in this business, you might just want to do some of your own work. Oh wait, we're all a bunch of lazy-ass delegators in this business so you'll both fit in perfectly.

by Steve Hall    Feb-19-10    
Topic: Social, Worst



Toyota Digs Itself A Deeper Hole With Avalon Singers

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We've sat through our fair share of meetings, helplessly observing the birth of what would, sadly, become...A REALLY BAD IDEA. Oh, we'd do what we could to get things back on track but, as everyone in this business knows, the client, no matter how smart or how stupid they are, almost always gets their way. And if they don't, some pompous creative director does.

We'd really love to have been in the concepting meeting for what resulted in the disaster known as the Toyota Avalon Singers. If only to witness the absurd platitudes which must have been uttered during the creation of this embarrassment.

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by Steve Hall    Feb-13-10    
Topic: Brands, Video, Worst



Yawn. Times Two. GoDaddy Ad Banned From Super Bowl

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Seriously? Seriously? Are we actually writing about this? Are we actually going to give GoDaddy's Bob Parson's the time of day for yet another "banned" Super bowl commercial stunt? Oops. We just did. Dammit.

"Of the five commercial concepts we submitted for approval this year, this NEVER would've been my pick for the one that would not be approved," said Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. "This is about a guy who starts an online business and hits the jackpot. I just don't think "Lola" is offensive, in fact we didn't see this one coming -- we were absolutely blindsided!"

Oh the horror, Bob! The shock! The dismay! The utter incredulity of it al!

Make it stop.

by Steve Hall    Jan-28-10    
Topic: Super Bowl 2010, Worst



GM Embarrasses Itself With Painfully Bad Video

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OK so yea, a car company has to do crazy things at a show to get attention and attract people to their booth. But this dance routine performed last month at the LA Auto Show is a disaster. The music is awful. The lyrics are corny. And the dance routine looks like it was choreographed by a kindergarten teacher.

This is how you promote a new car? Maybe GM should go out of business just for horrifying us with this stuff. At least the person responsible for this disaster has been "reassigned" according to AutoBlog.

by Steve Hall    Jan-22-10    
Topic: Brands, Video, Worst



Doritos Perpetuates Male (And America's) Idiocy

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Here's
one of the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl XLIV commercials. Called The Smackout, it's predictably idiotic. You know the concept. Girlfriends sit by while boyfriends perform stupid stunts as if they were five year old retards bullies on the playground during recess. No wait, five year olds aren't stupid, they're just young and inexperienced. When 30 year old guys do this sort of thing, it becomes clear why America trails the rest of the world in IQ.

This commercial's only redeeming quality? Cleavage.

by Steve Hall    Jan- 8-10    
Topic: Commercials, Super Bowl 2010, Worst



And You Thought the Method Shiny Suds Ad Was Offensive

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Oh look! Just in time to counteract all the hoopla over the Shiny Suds "rape scenario" fiasco. Tit for tat as they say. If you believe the woman in the Method Shiny Suds commercial was somehow being sexually assaulted by those leering, dirty-minded bubbles, you'll definitely relate to the horrific plight of the man in this Orangina commercial who is verbally taunted, assaulted with a whip and forced to strip while he fears for his life.

Oh the horror of it all! The insensitivity to the plight of men! Reducing a man to nothing more than a caged plaything! How dare Orangina portray men as sexual objects for S&M-fixated women! It's as if sexually assaulting men is an acceptable form of behavior! Good God. What has this world come to?

What? No cause group outrage over this one?

by Steve Hall    Dec- 9-09    
Topic: Commercials, Racy, Strange, Worst



Thank God Idiocy Still Reigns Supreme (Or We'd Have Nothing to Write About)

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Oh please. Seriously? It's one thing to groove to a song while driving. But to film it as if it's the coolest thing in the world is just an indication of your inanely idiotic stupidity. Rather, the idiocy of the ad agency that came up with this crap for What UR Missing, some kind of car audio retailer.

And a website with horizontal navigation??? And a store locator that doesn't work? And a contact email URL that's parked? And the most ridiculously fake YouTube video description ever written? And in case the creator's realize how stupid this is, we'll share the description with you here:

"Check it out, we were cruisin around the other day and we were sitting at a stop light when all these people in their cars were dancing to a song by of Montreal called Suffer for Fashion (www.polyvinylrecords.com). It was wild; almost like we were in the Twilight Zone! My buddy grabbed his camcorder so we could shoot it because no one would have believed it if we told them. It was crazy. You gotta see this. www.whatURmissin.com"

Seriously?

by Steve Hall    Nov-30-09    
Topic: Video, Worst



Corporate Idiocy: Verizon Slams Phone It Will Sell in Two Years

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In the latest version of its iPhone-bashing commercials, McGarryBowen compares the Verizon Google Droid phone to a robot. A robot that crushes rocks. A robot that punches holes walls. Why? Because we don't need smart phones. We need robot phones. Why? Because robot phones do.

So...the Droid is an un-smart, idiotic brute that can kick ass and take names? Is that really what we want in a phone?

This ad is so far off the mark it falls into comical territory. The comparison to a rock crushing robot is absurd. Phones don't need to crush rock. They need to smartly do digital things with ease. Kinda like this thing from Apple called the iPhone. Heard of it?

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by Steve Hall    Nov-10-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Commercials, Worst



A Halloween Promotion Disaster Detailed in 14 Easy Steps

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"Not only am I a terrible copywriter but my client actually approved this shit." That's the apparent confession of a DeVito Verdi New York creative during a Copywriters Anonymous meeting earlier this week. The copywriter was referring to recent television commercial created for client Meijer, a Midwest-based retailer. You can view the disaster here.

But that's not what we're really talking about here. The retailer recently launched a Halloween promotion that, OMG, lets you make a video of yourself wearing a Halloween mask! It's really easy. Here's what you do.

1. Fire up your webcam (Oops, don't have one)
2. Go to http://meijerhalloween.com and oops. You have to give Adobe Flash Player permission to access your webcam and microphone which you don't have. No worries, we'll just check it out anyway.
3. Click Allow and oops. "Total Immersion D'Fusion Web Plug-in Installation Required." Say what? Never heard of that. (Why do we need yet another plug in when Flash would have worked just fine?)
4. Throw your hands up and download the plug in anyway.
5. Refresh.
6. View screen as it reload and, again, tells you, "Total Immersion D'Fusion Web Plug-in Installation Required." (Um, say what? We already did that.)
7. Oh wait. Note onscreen verbiage, "You have to manually launch it."
8. Proceed to waste more time digging around your hard drive to find out where exactly that weird ass plug in downloaded to.
9. Give up and move on with your day.

And if you're the one reviewing this less than wonderful Halloween promotion:

10. Feel sorry for the creator who sent you the work and link to what one of these video creations would look like.
11. View the video and, again, feel sorry for the person who sent you this work because you know them.
12. Don't publicly out them because your not a dick and don't want to hurt their feelings by telling them this is one of the lamest pieces of shit you've reviewed in a long time.
13. Have second thoughts about mentioning this at all.
14. Then click the Publish button. Because it's your job.

by Steve Hall    Oct-13-09    
Topic: Consumer Created, Online, Social, Video, Worst



World's Worst 'Viral' Makes Debut

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OMFG. This has to be the worst "viral" ever created. It's filled with repetitive fake laughter, an overly long lead up and a painfully lame conclusion. It's like a bunch of 13 year old boys got together to film what they thought would be a funny joke on a friend. So stupid. So idiotic. Such a waste of time...and, unfortunately, some marketers money.

We can't blame 7thChamber for this. They're just seeding it.

by Steve Hall    Oct- 7-09    
Topic: Viral, Worst