Bad Ads 2024

Advertisements on TV feed my habit.  I spend lots of time watching sports on TV and without ads in that programming, there would be no sports on TV.  So, you would think that my appreciation of advertising support would make me see ads as “good things” – – except some of them are just plain awful.  So, in the spirit of candor, here are some of the worst ones from 2024.

Some industries appear on these lists annually; for some reason the actors in these industries seem to be engaged in a race to the bottom when it comes to positive quality ads.  I have no explanation for that; it is merely an observation.  One such industry is the insurance industry.

• Progressive:  Not only do they continue to bombard us with new concocted situations involving Flo and her band of blissful idiots, they are now trying to make one of those blissful idiots into another central character.  The latest “twist” is that Jamie has forsaken his high school football team because his passion is helping people to save money on their insurance.  Now, if that storyline gets you to run out and snatch a policy from Progressive, you may be as dumb as the people who green-lighted that ad.
• Geico:  I will give them a positive nod for bringing back “The Caveman”; a couple of those ad spots are actually entertaining.  However, Geico also has the ads for “Geico Training Camp” where people are learning to interact with customers over the phone by catching cell phones launched from a “pitching machine”.  Those ads ring the stupidity bell quite loudly.  And the guy whose finger is “cramping up” for overdoing scrolling and tapping on a cell phone is most annoying.
• Liberty Mutual:  LIMU the Emu and Doug simply cannot go away quickly enough.  For a fleeting moment, they hinted at such an outcome when they did a spot where Doug was supposed to be on the receiving end of a falling piano.  No such luck; he still walks among us.  But wait, there’s more …  Now we get to deal with the guy who saved money on his insurance from Liberty Mutual, so he had a wax figure of himself created – – except it melts in the sunlight or it takes a frisbee to frontal lobe.  That sure makes me want to get a price quote from Liberty Mutual.

Beer brewers also portray themselves in meaningless ways.

• Modelo:  When you drink Modelo, you do it because you are a “fighter” and Modelo bears the mark of a “fighter”.  The term “fighter” is used in a very broad sense here because one category of identified “fighters” are fans in a sports bar who never miss a play.  Another category contains women who “turn metal into murals” on pimped-out cars.  Fight on …
• Bud Light:  This product is a perennial participant in these rants.  This year, they had some ads featuring the “Bud Light Genie” who simply tipped a bottle of Bud Light at someone making a wish so that the wish came true.  Naturally, at the end of the ad, they implore everyone to “Drink Responsibly”.  I wonder why they never think about “Advertising Responsibly” and putting something on the air that might make even a modicum of sense.

Retailers lit up the TV screens with some annoying stuff this year:

• Old Navy:  Here is another reliable entry on these sorts of lists.  Every year the company puts an over-the-top choreographed ad for its low-class clothing on the airwaves.  I guess it must work because they keep doing it even if it is demonstrably silly.
• Walmart:  Their ads for Black Friday were not nearly as bad as they could have been but in the week before Christmas, Walmart flooded the airwaves with rapper, Busta Rhymes, reminding everyone over and over and over that Walmart would be delivering last minute things to customers on Christmas Eve.  That ad crossed over into the realm of annoying about the third time I saw it; regarding the thirty or forty other times it was on the air…
• Target:  Their flagship Christmas ad took the viewer on a stroll through a Target store where you would encounter a polar bear, an igloo and roaming reindeer.  Somehow, someone at Target and at their ad agency concluded that imagery of that type would get me to visit their stores.  I think not…

Here are two ads from auto manufacturers:

• Honda:  They show Honda CR-V models driving on a multi-colored highway with bright Christmas bulbs along the sides of the “highway”.  In the fine print, it says that the car on your screen has a “premium color”.  Folks, the color of the vehicle in question is – – white.  White is a premium color.  Thank you, Honda.
• Jaguar:  An ad for its SUV – – Jaguar F-Pace – – features a DJ spinning some tunes while the visuals include disjointed scenes of the vehicle going off road and/or through a tunnel.  I defy you to identify a consistent thread of logic through all of that.  I also defy you to convince me that I should spend about $75K on an SUV based on that disjointed message.

[Aside:  Jaguar making an SUV makes about as much sense as Jeep making a sports car, no?]

Pharmaceutical companies have entered the ad space of sports programming in the last year or so.  Two drugs advertised repeatedly have the same theme:

• Jardiance:  Users here break into song and dance creating a musical flash mob as the largely overweight singers/dancers tell us that they are lowering their A1C and that the little pill has a big story to tell.
• Wegovy:  A guy tells us he lost 35 pounds and starts walking down a street.  He is joined by others who have lost weight, protected themselves from cardiac events and who are keeping the weight off as they create a traffic stopping flash mob on a suburban street.

Those two drugs are not made by the same drug company so that does not explain the similarity of the ads.  So, maybe I am too stupid to see how either drug that affects metabolism in a positive way relates to participation in a flash mob.  I’ll hang up and listen for the answer …

Fan Duel did several ads featuring Kevin Hart and LeBron James.  Kevin Hart is a comedian and is reputed to be funny.  Where all that humor went in producing those ads is a mystery for the ages.  There are few things more cringeworthy than someone trying to be funny and failing to be funny.  These Fan Duel ads hit that atonal note.

I will admit that creating an ad that makes ColoGard an attractive product is nigh onto impossible.  ColoGard is essentially a stool sample you collect at home (presumably) and send via UPS for analysis; ColoGard screens for colon cancer.  Having acknowledged the difficulty facing the ad producers here, let me say that putting out an ad where a bunch of middle-aged folks tout the wonders of ColoGard by singing a poop-themed version of My Way is not even close to headed in the right direction.

Buffalo Wild Wings created a mascot about 18 months ago; naturally, it is a talking buffalo – – with wings.  Leaving aside the absurdity of that creation, this creature is annoying, interruptive and speaks in buffoonery – – just the qualities one tries to imbue to a mascot as the mascot is being created.  The only saving grace here is that this loud and annoying mascot is actually a decent representation of a Buffalo Wild Wings sports bar on game day.  There are tons of annoying incursions on your attempt to just watch a game and have an adult beverage at the same time.  Only in real life, the incursions are by other humans and not an avian bison.

[Aside:  When it comes time to move on from this annoying mascot, may I suggest that the final “episode” feature “Buffalo Bill Cody” entering the sports bar with rifle in hand so that he can dispatch this beast and extend his record for killing more buffaloes than anyone else in history.  I know; that still needs work …]

Some ads get carried away in the claims they make.  Cascade is a dishwasher detergent brand and in one of its ads it claims that Cascade gets “up to 100%” of stuff off dishes in one wash cycle.  Calm down ad-boy; “up to 100%” of food on plates is accomplished by every brand of detergent – – and by using just water by itself.  No product gets more than 100% of the dirt off the dishes – – including Cascade.

I have saved two ads for AT&T for the end here; they are not directly related except both deal with cell phones as the central figure in the ad:

• AT&T Number One:  A woman’s elderly voice runs through the ad; she is talking to either her children or her grandchildren offering advice and/or encouragement.  At the end, she says in a gravely voice, “I would love to keep in touch more.”  Good for you Granny – – and you know what, this is something you control.  Phone calls go in two directions; so, if you pick up your phone more often and dial out to your friends, relatives and family, you will indeed … keep in touch more.  As they say in the Nike ads, “Just do it!”
• AT&T Number Two:  A man and a woman are sitting up in bed waxing rhapsodically about their new iPhone from AT&T.  The man says he want to hold it; the woman says she wants this feeling again and again.  A little light double entendre there seems harmless – – except.  Already outside the bedroom door are a teenage boy and girl – – presumably the offspring of the couple in the bedroom – – and they are listening in on their parents.  From the looks on their faces, they assume their parents are “having relations”.  The last action has the woman telling the man, “We should do this more often,” whereupon the two kids cringe and walk away from the bedroom door.  Somehow, someone somewhere thinks that vignette is going to convince me to run off to an AT&T store so that I can use AT&T as my wireless carrier.

Memo to Someone, somewhere:  Not Happening!

            That’s enough for this year; there will certainly be a fresh set of examples for Bad Ads next December allowing for another of these end-of-year rants.  One reason I am confident there will be further grist for this mill is this quote from ad executive, Leo Burnett:

“I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but that of boring them to death.”

Also, these words from Henry Ford:

“Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………