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?”