TV commercials are interruptive! One minute you’re on the edge of the seat watching the grand finale of your favorite TV show and the next moment, boom- an insurance commercial airs!
Now that wouldn’t be a problem if the commercial provided us with some degree of entertainment. But that’s not true for a majority of commercials. And marketing experts need to raise the bar of their adverts if they don’t want their expensive commercials to become an excuse for people to take a bathroom break or get a snack.
Therefore, to help you understand what not to do while creating a commercial, we’ve got 5 stupid commercials for you that most of us wouldn’t want to see on our TV again.
1. Sizzler: 1991 Promotion
I am not sure what’s worse- the creation of this commercial in the first place or that it goes on and on for almost five minutes!
Between the blue-collar worker, the young girl posing with a baseball on a tree, and the fisherman- this commercial is so bad that it’s actually good. Honestly, it’s just the nostalgia of the 90s that is making me go easy on this one. However, with the attention span of the average person being less than that of a goldfish, you’d want to keep your advertising efforts concise to be more effective.
2. Kmart: Giffing Out
Everybody loves a good GIF! But despite my most sincere efforts, I couldn’t find anything worth loving about this 2013 holiday marketing campaign from Kmart.
First of all, GIFs don’t have sound, which makes it even more difficult to bear the looping cackle featured in this commercial. And while it’s commendable to create a campaign around this trend, there are certainly more effective ways to leverage GIFs in marketing.
This one's so annoying that the kid in the video almost let out abusive slang.
3. Stuffies: How Much Stuff Can You Stuff in Your Stuffie?
Okay, so someone thought that it would be a good idea to employ a reminiscent of the tongue twister "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. To advertise stuffed animals that could double as storage containers. Well, the idea was very off.
I love kids. But 6 kids, all bellowing this improvised tongue twister in unison, is a torture of a different proportion.
Please make it stop!
4. Lamisil: It’s Alive
Oh god, my eyes!
Okay, so here’s rule number one- never ever personify toe fungus. Rule number two- never ever personify toe fungus and then allow it to lift a toenail, expose the nail bed, and jump in! I get it, not all products can be “sexy”. But that doesn’t mean marketers can go about personifying toe fungus and come up with advertisements so gross that you’d want to gouge your eyes out.
5. Mentos: Bench
This one almost didn’t make it to the list. Not because it isn’t adequately annoying to watch but because there are so many painfully cheesy commercials out there that I had a difficult time narrowing it down to this one.
And while I’d commend Mentos for its creativity, the entire concept of popping a mint to solve your problems is definitely a stretch.
Wrapping Up
And that was the list of the most stupid and annoying commercials. They say any publicity is good publicity. However, that’s not true for companies that spend millions of dollars on their marketing and advertising campaigns to come up with commercials like the ones mentioned above. Advertising is an expensive business and companies would definitely want to get substantial returns out of it. Therefore, marketers need to be more cautious with what they dish out to their audience.
We’ll be back with more commercials for you. Till then, stay tuned!