Blizzard's "Do you guys not have phones?" blunder during the Diablo Immortal reveal
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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.
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The latest I can think of is Gwyneth Paltrow's ad for a luxury condo project on stolen Palestinian land by Israel.
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Amazon spent millions on a single Ring ad during the Super Bowl that was so poorly received it killed a multi-million dollar business deal.
To be clear, all the companies involved are the worst of the worst, so fuck them, but all they had to do was nothing and it would have turned out better (for them, worse for the rest of us).
That Pepsi ad during BLM.
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I still think that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) remarketing themselves after decades of abuse scandals, and they settle on the name "Scouting America" or... SA...
I get that they wanted to make scouting an all gender thing. That's good.... but they probably shoulda workshopped that name a bit more given the history and context of the organization.
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I live in a neighborhood where every day I see more and more people who can't make ends meet. Shops and services are closing every month and the storefronts stand empty.
The bank near me has signs up in their window "Celebrating 250 Years of the American Dream!"
Read the fucking room.
And
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There was an ad from Coke entirely generated by AI last Christmas. It wasn’t even cute or on point, there was editing error, etc. People complained so much that they pulled out the ad
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I remember General Electric got a lot of flak for a commercial of theirs, meant to "celebrate America's hard workers" or whatever.
They used the song Sixteen Tons.
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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
That shitty PSA Ajit Pai made when he helped kill Net Neutrality during his time on the FCC.
the "don't hire people" ones
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I have one I still remember 20 years later. Although the stupid decision wasn't made by the company buying an ad, but where the newspaper placed it.
A newspaper placed an ad by eon how they "securing tomorrow's gas today" under an article about an exhibition of the fate of Sinti people in Nazi Germany (the fate was Auschwitz).
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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.
Decades ago, Coca-Cola was trying to enter the market in Saudi Arabia. They ran an ad where "pilgrims" walked around a giant coke bottle, in the same way that Muslim pilgrims in Mecca walk around the Kaaba during Hajj and Umrah. It was very, very poorly received, to say the least, and many attribute it as the main reason why Pepsi has dominated the market instead of Coca-Cola.
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I believe Starbucks right now in Korea wins something with stupidity
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I once saw a billboard that only had text and a picture of some guy.
The text read "You can't block this ad"
It made me so irrationally angry and I still to this day don't even know what they were advertising for.
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IMO, the easiest answer is always gonna be literally any pro genAI ads, so I'mma go with something different.
I don't remember the brand, but it was this car ad where someone sealed themselves in their car in their garage and was doing the thing where you set it up so the emission fumes backfire into the vehicle and you commit suicide that way. The ad basically boiled down to how their car was so clean you couldn't kill yourself off the emission fumes and shit.
I really hope anyone involved with it and/or approved it were either fired and/or had to take some sensitivity course because suicide is something you should never joke about.
[deleted]
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How convenient!
Another one near me, not technically an ad but a name: The Dead River Company. They deliver oil.
Was in a flyer I got years ago.
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Every time the self checkout prompts me to donate to charity.
Sir this is a Loblaws, why don't you donate.
(They've jacked the cost from "round up to the nearest dollar" to like $4.95 for some reason too)
Amazon Climate Pledge Arena
after they fired the two women who organized the internal protest campaign to pressure Amazon leadership to make a pledge to improve their climate impact
I once saw a billboard that said somethimg like: if ads for cigarettes are gonna be illegal, it's not gonna be long and you won't see an ad of a sausage anymore.
Like i saw that and was like: good
Who is driving by that and foaming out of their mouth: NOT MY SAUSAGE!
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NVidia recently:
"... Like how everyone has a home cinema."
"The 2070 is too old! Buy a new GPU, I need the money."
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That one Pepsi ad where there is a protest and a woman gives a cop a pepsi so they're all friends now. This was around the time of the first Trump admin and BLM protests.
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.
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"It's all about good jeans." - Sydney Sweeny
The old Apple ads in the UK that had Mitchell and Webb, where Webb was the 'I'm a PC' nerd. If I wanted a computer, I'd sooner have one like Mark Corrigan than Jez.
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