Bad Ads

Watch­ing TV means watch­ing adver­tis­ing, just like going online means racist com­ments from homo­phobes. You just have to put up with them, and will occa­sion­ally be forced to watch some really poor exam­ples of what the mar­ket­ing depart­ments and ad agen­cies think will make us drop every­thing and switch brands or try a new razor or buy a new car.

We watch a lot of tele­vi­sion at the World Dom­i­na­tion HQ, so we see a lot of shit, but some­times the shit that comes pour­ing off the screen is so egre­giously annoy­ing, offen­sive or igno­rant that we have to draw your atten­tion to it so you can hate it like we do, mak­ing us feel just a teensy bit bet­ter about the sewage seat we find our­selves in.

We can only imag­ine the con­ver­sa­tions that take place as these night­mares of Amer­i­can over­spend­ing are being bandied about between client and agency.

1. The “Because She Hates Him” ads for Chase Sapphire

The Pitch

“Okay, pic­ture an aver­age Amer­i­can house­hold.“
“You mean: White Anglo-Saxon Protes­tant split-level sub­ur­ban ranch circa 1956?“
“Exactly. She, the wife, comes into the liv­ing room where he, the hus­band…“
“Do they have names?“
“No, No names. We need to be able to place the audi­ence in these roles.“
“So… the house and stuff is some­thing to aspire to?“
“Right, right, and we do it all in black and white.“
“Classy!“
“Okay, so she comes in wear­ing a glam­orous dress and poses for him.“
“A ‘voila!’ kind of a moment.“
“And she’s…“
“What does the dress look like?“
“Do I know from dresses? Put in a silk shower cur­tain for all I care. The dress doesn’t mat­ter.“
“Okay.“
“So, she poses, Voila! And then he thinks about sex.“
“Why?“
“Because he hasn’t had any from her in, like, ever.“
“Right. Mar­ried cou­ple. How do we know he’s think­ing about sex?“
“Eye­brow arch.“
“I thought that meant he wants chicken tonight.“
“No, that used to mean that stuff­ing goes with every­thing, now it means he’s think­ing about sex.“
“Is stuff­ing at all involved?“
“Of a sort“
“Go on…“
“So, then he’s think­ing, wow, what a fan­tas­tic dress!“
“Wait, is he gay?“
“No, he’s not gay. This is a mar­ried cou­ple.“
“Then why does he give a shit about the dress?“
“Because.… because he sees her in a whole new light!“
“Because she usu­ally looks like shit.“
“Exactly! She’s usu­ally wear­ing some crap and now she’s all in a dress.“
“Okay, I’m lik­ing what I’m hear­ing.“
“So then… Fan­tasy sequence! He says, ‘honey, let’s go use…’”
“Does he actu­ally say ‘Honey?’”
“Not nec­es­sar­ily.“
“Okay, good.“
“‘Honey,’ or… some­thing… ‘let’s go use those valu­able Chase Sap­phire credit card dol­lars that have been pil­ing up and go on a great vaca­tion so I can show off that fuck­ing dress, yo!’”
“So, flash, flash, flash, Paris, Lon­don, Morocco…“
“Who the fuck goes to Morocco?“
“Well, what were you think­ing?“
“Like, boat­ing, ski­ing, stuff that gets the dude off his ass in front of the TV.“
“Because, like, every guy wishes he could get away from the TV?“
“Yeah.“
“Every guy wishes that?“
“Yeah!“
“I don’t think…“
“Any­way! So, flash, flash, flash, Vegas, boat shit, what­ever and then she gets this ‘oh, shit’ look on her face because…“
“Because she fuck­ing hates Paris!“
“No, because she already spent all their cred­its on that dress.“
“I thought you said the dress didn’t mat­ter?“
“Well, it mat­ters because she spent all their Chase shit on that dress.“
“Whoa. Wait. So, he thinks that they should go do some shit together, get out of the house, have some fun, and she’s fuck­ing bought a dress with­out even ask­ing him.“
“Right!“
“So… he fuck­ing kicks her ass to the curb? Like, it’s a com­edy com­mer­cial?“
“No! Well, yeah, it’s funny because, see, he sees her in that sexy ass dress and he’s think­ing, hells yes, time for some fun with the wife, and she’s gone and spent all the money on the very dress that inspires him to remem­ber she’s got boobs, so…“
“So, no vaca­tion.“
“Right!“
“No boat­ing. No Paris. Just the fuck­ing dress.“
“Right! Hilar­i­ous!“
“What, so, she’s some self­ish bitch who fuck­ing hates her hus­band and is try­ing to drive a wedge between them by spend­ing all their money on her­self?“
“No! No, no, no! It’s funny because…“
“What hap­pens next? Does she throw the cat on him when he’s sleep­ing and set his golf clubs on fire?“
“No, they end up going ski­ing, right? And then he says he can just call the bank and fix things with a cus­tomer ser­vice rep right now — like, actu­ally talk to some­one.“
“And what does she do?”

"So, she doubts his word because, like, no one ever gets a per­son on the phone, right?“
“Unless it’s some tikka masala dude.“
“What? Dude, that is racist!“
“What does Mrs. Right­eous Atti­tude do?“
“So, she takes the phone out of his hand and hears some nice Amer­i­can voice on the other end and real­izes he was right.“
“Wait, so she calls him a liar to his face, and then rather than lis­ten to his con­ver­sa­tion, she fuck­ing grabs the phone out of his fuck­ing hand?“
“Yeah! Hilar­i­ous!“
“Then he kicks her out of the ski lift and laughs at her ass in the snow, I’m hop­ing.“
“No, they have this bet and she has to give him a mas­sage back at the ski lodge!“
“Because oth­er­wise there’s no fuck­ing way she’d ever touch him, let alone in a com­fort­ing way.“
“No! Wait, what? No! Where the hell…?“
“And of course she can’t fuck­ing stand him at all so she barely even touches him and he rapes her.“
“Jesus! What? You’re sick!“
“Hey, I’m not the one wear­ing some fuck­ing dress I didn’t pay for.”

The “We So Didn’t Rip Off Christo” AT&T ad

The Pitch

“So, you know how, like, Ver­i­zon is like totally kick­ing your col­lec­tive ass about cov­er­age?“
“Yes.“
“So, imag­ine if you took that con­cept lit­er­ally!“
“I don’t fol­low.“
“Cov­er­age!“
“I still don’t fol­low.“
“Okay, so, Ver­i­zon is, like, say­ing how they have bet­ter cov­er­age than you guys. So what we do is, see, we cover every­thing.“
“Cover every­thing.“
“Yes! You got it!“
“No, I still don’t…“
“We cover every­thing in orange cloth. Like…everything.“
“In orange cloth.“
“Yes!“
“What are we cov­er­ing? The fur­ni­ture!“
“The fuck­ing… like… St. Louis Arch!“
“Okay.“
“Fuck­ing Vegas! And we show it hap­pen­ing! Everything’s get­ting cov­ered up!“
“Lit­er­ally.“
“Yes!“
“You’re cov­er­ing up things.“
“Fucking…Maine! And New York and…“
“But with­out the World Trade Cen­ter?“
“No fuck­ing way. No one fuck­ing touches that shit.“
“You just cover it all up.“
“It’s all CG, of course. Sheets of orange mate­r­ial drap­ing all over that shit.“
“Every­thing.“
“Yes!“
“Every­thing in the United States.“
“Yes!“
“So you’re say­ing that using AT&T is like mak­ing sure that every­thing is all cov­ered in orange cloth and you can’t see any­thing at all and you get buried under­neath it and every­thing from then on is just orange.“
“Well, sort of.“
“Because that means cov­er­age.“
“Yes!“
“Is Luke Wil­son still avail­able?“
“We cover him, too!“
“I don’t know. Feels more like suf­fo­ca­tion to me.“
“Like suf­fo­ca­tion?“
“Feels like, ‘We’re AT&T, and we’re gonna suf­fo­cate you.“
“No, that’s not.…“
“‘We’re AT&T, and we’re gonna wrap you up in orange cloth, and not just you, but your house, your swim­ming pool, your grandma…“
“No one is gonna…“
“‘…your dog, your wife’s vagina, every­thing.“
“That’s a dark place where you live, bro.“
“Count on it.”

The “Our Van is So Bad We’re Not Even Going to Talk About It” VW Routan Ad

The Pitch

“Hi.“
“Hi!“
“We have a prob­lem.“
“Tell me about it!“
“We have this van.“
“Right.“
“It’s… okay.“
“Right.“
“Not great.“
“Who buys vans, any­way?“
“Right, yes. Well, we have a van.“
“Got that.“
“But it kind of…“
“Yeah?“
“Sucks.“
“Ah.“
“But we have a lot of them.“
“Sure.“
“And we need to move them off the lots.“
“Ok.“
“So.…“
“So. Is there any­thing good we can show off?“
“Not really.“
“Noth­ing at all?“
“Kind of boxy.“
“Like, good Volvo-safety boxy, or bad dis­pos­able Toy­ota boxy?“
“Bad boxy.“
“Ooh.“
“Can you help us?“
“Let’s do a lit­tle blue sky. A lit­tle white board. A lit­tle think­ing out­side the box.“
“Great!“
“What if… say… okay. So, a van?“
“A van.“
“Okay. So there’s this mom… no! A dad. There’s this dad and he… He doesn’t.… The kids. Kids! The kids are. He has kids… and…“
“Kids are good. Kids and vans.“
“The dad… puts the kids in the van and he’s going… some­where.“
“Some­where cool?“
“He’s going to drive around the block.“
“Wait. What?“
“With the kids.“
“He’s just going to drive around the block.“
“Because that’s what this dad and his kids do for fun.“
“Where’s the mom?“
“The mom?“
“Yeah, vans are usu­ally mom’s vehi­cle.“
“But you want this van to be cool, right?“
“We just want to sell some. Or one.“
“Well, then it’s it’s dad and the kids, because mom is… I dunno, hav­ing sex with a Swif­fer or some­thing.“
“I’m not sure that’s an idea we want to con­vey.“
“Mom’s dead.“
“Mom’s dead?“
“Because if mom wasn’t dead she’d be dri­ving the van, right? So… mom’s dead.“
“Okay. But we don’t have to show that part?“
“No, we won’t, like, drive the kids to the funeral or any­thing.“
“Just around the block.“
“Will the van make it around the block?“
“We think so. But let me talk to the engi­neers about that. Let’s just assume it will.“
“Okay.“
“And why are they dri­ving around the block?“
“Why are they dri­ving around the block?“
“Why are they dri­ving around the block?“
“Because… when peo­ple get a load of this cool van…“
“Do they know the mom is dead?“
“Who, the kids and the dad?“
“No, the peo­ple in the neigh­bor­hood.“
“Let’s say… no.“
“Okay, great.“
“Um… what was I talk­ing about?“
“When the other peo­ple see the van.“
“Right. So, when other peo­ple see the van they… punch each other.“
“Because…?“
“It’s funny.“
“It’s funny?“
“Hilar­i­ous.“
”“That they hit each other?“
“Well, maybe just one of them hits some­one else.“
“So not each other.“
“Not so much. One is fun­nier.“
“One punch is fun­nier.“
“Right.“
“You’re the expert!“
“Right.“
“Why… are they… punch­ing?“
“Why?“
“Are they punch­ing?“
“Because… they’re… the van is… they… um…“
“Because it’s funny?“
“Because it’s funny!“
“And the mom is…“
“For­get about the mom. Mom is dead. She used all the fuck­ing Chase Sap­phire points to buy a dress and dad killed her.“
“Ok. Wait. What?”