Following decades of near-constant exposure to billboards, American highway drivers have become so inured to the messages that most of these mammoth ads carry, which is why we understand that some advertisers need to come up with creative ways to draw attention to their billboards. But here’s one clever way that should never have happened in the first place: Perching a mannequin on top of one of these roadside signs. [More]
badvertising
The Xbox One Will Use Kinect To Provide Targeted Advertising
By 7.8.13
When you spend $500 on a video game console — and upwards of $60 for a single game — you might hope to not be inundated with advertising. But the new generation of Xbox will be just as ad-filled as the Xbox 360. Even better, Microsoft wants to use the mandatory Kinect audio/video sensor to provide ads targeted directly to the user. [More]
Tell AT&T You Don’t Want It Selling Info About Your Wireless And U-Verse Usage
By 7.3.13
Last year, Verizon Wireless ticked off a lot of people when it announced its Precision Market Insights program, which sells supposedly anonymous data about customers’ wireless behavior to marketers. Now AT&T has decided it wants to make money selling this sort of info to third parties, but for both wireless and U-Verse customers. [More]
Facebook To Pull Ads From Pages With “Violent, Graphic Or Sexual Content”
By 6.28.13
A day after Google alerted Blogger users that they could keep publishing explicit content but they won’t be able to profit from it, Facebook has told advertisers that they will no longer need to worry about their ads showing up on pages with content that might get them into hot water by association. [More]
FTC To Search Engines: Do A Better Job Of Labeling Paid Search Results As Ads
By 6.26.13
A decade ago, the Federal Trade Commission told the major Internet search engines that they should be more transparent about search results that received premium placement because the advertiser paid for it. The companies eventually obliged, but the FTC says that search engines have backslid and begun being less-than-transparent again, and that they could still do more to distinguish between ads and organic search results. [More]
Top Chef’s Padma Lakshmi On Product Placement: “It’s Hard To Make That Sh!t Sound Natural”
By 6.25.13
The recent comedy flop The Internship took a lot of flack, and deservedly so, for being a feature-length ad for Google masquerading as a movie. But compared to some product-placement-packed reality TV shows, that film looks like a fiercely independent labor of love. [More]
Microsoft To Offer Ad-Free Version Of Bing For Schools
By 6.24.13
While both Google and Microsoft’s Bing search engines have “safe search” options intended to let younger school children research reports on things like “backyard drilling” without getting results that might require a lot of awkward explanations from their parents, neither had offered an ad-free version. But in the fall, Microsoft will launch “Bing for Schools,” which promises not to invade our schools’ libraries with advertising. [More]
Writer Claims World’s Largest HR Firm Cloned His Blog For A Contest
By 6.21.13
Imagine you come up with a pretty good idea for a travel blog — one in which you document your movements around the world while trying out different, interesting jobs — and wake up one day to find that a multi-billion-dollar international staffing firm appears to have copied numerous aspects of your creation, including the name, without even so much as a nod in your direction. [More]
Swiffer Gives Rosie The Riveter A New Message: “We Can Clean The Kitchen, Ladies!”
By 6.4.13
There are some institutions in our society you just should not mess with. Which is why it’s pretty darn surprising and disappointing to many out there that Swiffer chose to call up the image of Rosie the Riveter ( she of the We Can Do It! message that empowered women to head outside the home to work in WWII) in a new ad campaign devoted to doing something else — getting in the kitchen and cleaning. [More]
Samsung Thinks Women Would Upgrade Husbands Into Creepy Housework Robots
By 5.24.13 — Updated: 4.3.14
If you could upgrade your partner’s skills and abilities with a bit of hardware or software, would you do it? To promote their “Evolution Kit” that upgrades the processor and capabilities of their smart TVs, a Samsung ad imagines what would happen if humans had similar upgrade capabilities. In the ad, a woman upgrades her husband into a creepy and robotic super-capable version of Rosie from “The Jetsons.” [More]
Taco Bell Sends Bizarre Love Letters And Rings To Models, Actresses
By 5.21.13
We here at Consumerist often get love letters and jewelry from admirers (Well, maybe not that often… or ever), but we have yet to be wooed with handwritten letters of affection and branded rings provided by a large fast food chain. [More]
Dear Movie Theater Owners: Please Don’t Do This
May 10, 2013
Before last summer’s horrific fatal shootings at The Dark Knight Rises screening in Colorado, hiring costumed “gunmen” to walk into a crowded movie theater as a marketing stunt would have merely been a bad idea that might have made the local news. Post-Aurora, it’s the kind of idiotically ill-advised idea that results in multiple 9-1-1 calls and the theater having to apologize to outraged customers. [Reddit via Gawker] [More]
The Reality Of This Red Baron Scramble Is That It Needs A Gallon Of Gravy To Be Edible
By 5.6.13 — Updated: 5.23.16
There’s nothing quite like it — you walk past the box in the grocery store, and something catches your eye, sets your stomach a-rumbling. It looks so good, so delicious and tempting, you must buy it, own it, and devour it for your very own. But as Dave found out with a Red Baron breakfast scramble, taking off that persuasive packaging often reveals something much less desirable. [More]
Pepsi Pulls Mountain Dew Ads Following Complaints Of Racial Stereotyping, Violence Against Women
By 5.1.13
A bizarre online ad for Mountain Dew, featuring a talking, abusive goat and a bruised and battered woman has been pulled by parent company PepsiCo following complaints. [More]
How Foursquare Is Turning Your Check-Ins Into Ad Revenue
By 4.30.13
We never really understood the idea behind Foursquare. Then again we’ve never felt the need to broadcast our whereabouts to the rest of the world. Regardless, there are still plenty of people checking in at stores, bars, restaurants, and anywhere else you could imagine. But what’s in it for Foursquare? [More]
Advertisers Are Now Tracking Your Behavior Across Various Devices
By 4.30.13
Think that your mobile browsing habits exist in a different world than the content and ads you view on your PC? Until recently, you’d have been correct, but now advertisers are coming up with ways to identify consumers across platforms in order to provide them with ads they might actually click on. [More]
Kellogg Denies Having Anything To Do With Pringles Reddit Posts
By 4.29.13
Getting thousands, maybe millions of Internet users to view, like, share, and talk about your product isn’t easy. Any number of companies have tried to anonymously post “viral” content in the hope that it will spread quickly (and without having to pay for additional ads). And following a rash of funny/interesting Pringles photos popping up on Reddit, some users claim it’s a blatant marketing gimmick. [More]
Hyundai Pulls Awful Ad Showing Failed Suicide Attempt Using Car Exhaust Because It’s Awful
By 4.25.13
UPDATE: Hyundai has issued a longer apology on its British Twitter page, reading: “Hyundai understands that the video has caused offence. We apologise unreservedly. The video has been taken down and will not be used in any of our advertising or marketing.” [More]
