I dunno, my BFF Kmart?

If there's one thing we love here at The Ad Wizards, it's when commercials attempt to make up new words that they hope will turn into the argot of the 21st century. Like when Comcast tried to push shit like "phoruption" on us. Or Wendy's and "meatatarian." Did I say love? Sorry, I meant "hate with the fire of a thousand suns." Fortunately, Kmart would never stoop to that level.



Alternately, they would make one of the most painful ads in history, using this mediocre gimmick. Hey, Kmart - you know you're Kmart, right? Do you really think you're going to convince us that you're the cool place where all the hip kids shop?

Teacher: "Your word is 'rockstare.'"

First of all, what is the context here? "Your word is" implies some sort of spelling bee, but we're in a normal classroom, and I'm pretty sure in a spelling bee the other contestants aren't allowed to shout definitions. Also this is retarded.

Boy: "Definition, please?"
Girl 1: "It's that look you get when you dress like a rock star!"

Notice how the bass-heavy music starts playing at this point. Young people, am I right?

Girl 2: "These jeans? Were made for rockstaring."

Stop. We all know this is not a thing. Stop trying to make it happen. Second of all, what are these kids, 12 years old? Do you think there's a chance we could not go to the "showing-off-my-ass" shot? Also, I know we're in an economic downturn and what have you, but $12 jeans are not considered cool by anyone except your mom.

Girl 3: "You put the rock in rockstare." [pops sweatshirt embarrassingly]

And this commercial puts the fake in "That is some seriously fake shit that would never happen anywhere, ever."

Announcer: "Don't just shop back to school, rock back to school, at Kmart!"

And another 12-year-old ass shot, just for good measure. I guess it's hard to display jeans without showing someone's bottom half, but when you move on to this:

Girl 4: "I could rockstare at those jeans all day!"

That's just going nowhere good.

[Girl 4 looks over at a boy in a hoodie.]
Boy 2: "Are you rockstaring at me?"
[Class laughs good-naturedly]

Oh, the world of commercials. Here's how that plays out in real life:

[Girl looks over at boy.]
Boy: Are you rockstaring at me?
Girl: [disgusted] What?
Boy: You know, um, rockstaring? Like, staring at someone because they look like a rock star...
Other Boy: What, did you just make that up?
Boy: No, it's... it was in a commercial...
Girl: You mean that Kmart commercial?
[Entire class laughs derisively; boy bursts into tears]
Girl: Anyway, I was just wondering how long it had been since you took a shower.

Blue Light Bulb: "There's smart... and there's Kmart smart."

"There's annoying... and there's stab myself in the face with a rusty ice pick annoying."

It would be one thing if I thought this ad had any basis in reality, but you know it was just dreamed up by some 35-year-old creative writer who fell asleep with "High School Musical" on the night before.

Of course, this wouldn't be advertising if they only used a horrible idea once.



Teacher: "Your word is 'blingitude.'"
Presumably a Boy: "Definition, please?"

Nice hair, jackass.

Girl 1: "Blingitude is a girl's BFF, AEAE."

Maybe I'm getting old, but I actually had to Google this because I had no idea what the fuck "AEAE" was supposed to be. Apparently it's short for "and ever and ever," which is so utterly useless an addition that it just makes me angry. I wouldn't even mention it except that I found the answer at Yahoo! Answers, and check out the question being asked. Brand recognition FTW!

Girl 2: "My jeans practically invented blingitude."

Has "bling" really already morphed into just meaning "thing that is kind of good"? This is nonsensical.

Girl 3: "When it comes to blingitude, sometimes less is... way more!"

"See, kids, it's totally cool if your outfit only cost ten bucks!" This ad paid for by Moms Incorporated.

Girl 4: "And sometimes, more is more!"

Peace sign with wings: super cool. Super blingy. I remember that episode of MTV's Cribs when they went over to Jay-Z's mansion and he came out wearing a t-shirt with a winged peace sign and was all, "Check this bling out, holla!" (Note: May not have happened.)

More gratuitous middle school ass (this ad now paid for by People Who Have Appeared on To Catch a Predator Incorporated) leads us into the final "joke":

Nerd-Type: "Do I have blingitude?"
[Long pause]
All [in that "We're only saying this to be nice" way]: "...Yeah!"
[Nerd-type seems relieved]

Good thing Kmart is around to break down the social barriers of grade school! By making sure that everyone understands that fat kid + glasses = total dork, whereas the rest of the students, with their trendy bargain outfits and 80-pound, model-thin frames, are the arbiters of cool. Seek that approval, nerds! It's as easy as shopping at Kmart. I suggest bragging constantly that that's where you got your back-to-school outfit; you're sure to be a hit!

Go home, Klondike, you're embarrassing yourself.

Remember Klondike's iconic jingle? "What would you doooo for a Klondike bar?"



The commercials were silly, but I get the message: Klondike bars are delicious. There's no need to sell this product any harder- chocolate and vanilla ice cream? That's a combination that never fails, unlike the combination of Klondike Bars and desperation. This includes a round-the-clock broadcast of Michael Ian Black harassing potential Klondike Bar customers who are walking, talking examples of "don't be this guy."

Do you want this guy to be your "bro"?



Klondike's grand plan to rebrand itself also includes a repulsive old-school type video game entitled "The Adventures of Khaki Pants Pete" on their "ironic" website. Jezebel rescues you from having to play the actual game by showing you screencaps here. As the embodiment of a Klondike Bar aficionado, Pete avoids his wife, shirks childcare responsibilities, hits on the babysitter, heads to a porn shop, dreams of his glory days as the frattiest gadabout in town, and then hits a bachelor party that involves interactive pudding wrestling. Oh, I'm sorry, "pudding freakin' wrestling."

Klondike, you are not beer. You're not an extreme sports drink. You're not hot wings. You're not beef jerky, jello shooters, corn chips, or Axe Body Spray. What you are is a nostalgic, cold, delicious treat for all kinds of people- men and women, children and grandparents. Why in the hell are you trying so hard to cut yourself off from a universal demographic?

I'm not a chicken, you're a turkey

Hey, dummy. Are you too stupid to understand the concept of a computer virus? Well, what if Norton did a dopey, drawn-out commercial that used a nonsensical analogy? Would that help?



Yeah, I didn't think so.

Announcer: "Imagine this chicken is your hard drive, and the 80s metal band Dokken is a computer virus."

Was this commercial written by the same manatees who produce the jokes for Family Guy? Dokken? Has anyone even thought about them in the last 20 years? Let's just say I'm not surprised they were available.

Announcer: "Dokken does not like chicken, and wants to destroy it. The chicken, not knowing Dokken's intentions, doesn't really have any feelings either way."

I love that the analogy already runs off the rails here, since computer viruses are ultimately just bits of executable code, and are not capable of liking or disliking things. Also, I would suggest that the worst computer viruses are the ones that look to mine your hard drive for personal data, rather than ones that simply seek to maliciously destroy your data for sport. But whatever makes the most sense. Oh, right - nothing in this ad makes sense.

Announcer: "Now you have a choice. Would you like to allow Dokken to have its way with your chicken, unleashing a wrath the likes of which the chicken has never seen? Or would you like to deny it?"

Uh, Norton doesn't actually have a "Nah, let that virus run rampant" option in its software, right?

[The chicken pulls a knife on Dokken.]
Don Dokken: "Whoa. Take it easy, bro!"

A perfect allegory for the workings of antivirus software. Well, if they'd used Glass Tiger instead it would have been perfect. But this is pretty close.

Don Dokken: "This ain't over."
Announcer: "Protect your chicken from Dokken."

Alternate slogans for this ad campaign:

"Protect your inner tube from Welshmen"

"Protect your self-esteem from pandas"

"Protect your wet-dry vacuum from Annette Funicello"

"Protect your sourdough roll from Halley's Comet"

"Protect your gravy boat from ? and the Mysterians"

"Protect your mason jar from the Caspian Sea"

Sadly, all of these were deemed far too comprehensible to work.

Articles killed the radio star

Please tell me this is actually an official renaming, and not a painful attempt at "hip" rebranding.



First of all, way to break the bank on that ad. Second of all, no one calls you that (I guess Radio Shack doesn't have friends?). Third of all... no. Just no. There are companies that can pull this off - such as McDonald's drilling down to "Mickey D's" (although that always made me want to stab myself in the ear) - but Radio Shack? You are not one of those companies.

Now, if this is actually part of a move to completely rename the company "The Shack," because your name has gotten kind of obsolete in the modern era... well, it's still kind of stupid. But at least it's much less stupid. So I hope, for your sake, that that's the story here.

EDIT: Looks like it is. However, I refuse to withdraw my gripe entirely, seeing as how the print ad on that Gizmodo page is the worst kind of "please whore yourself out for our benefit" faux-viral nonsense that companies routinely spin these days. Anyone who actually follows those instructions deserves to be slapped in the face.

KGBoobs

Apparently KGB wasn't getting enough business from offering to retrieve the most easily obtained information in the universe for you. How about you text them asking for a random opinion and they just pull something out of their ass?



Man 1: "Look at that joker."
Man 2: "That is so dumb."
Man 1: "Is there any mascot stupider than an aardvark?"
Man 2: "I don't know. Let's KGB it."

Okay, a few things. First of all, stop trying to make "Let's KGB it!" happen. You are not Google. Second of all, isn't KGB pitching itself as some sort of repository of knowledge? I guess "knowing a lot of mascots and picking out a relatively silly one" is knowledge of a sort, but this isn't exactly answering trivia questions, is it?

KGB Woman: "Is there any mascot more stupid than an aardvark?"

KGB Man: "Well, there's the boll weevil from the University of Arkansas at Monticello..."

KGB Woman: "Boll weevil!"

I guess that's stupid. I don't know. What about the banana slug of UC Santa Cruz, or the geoduck of Evergreen State? A much funnier Arkansas-Monticello factoid, for my money, is the fact that the men's teams are the Boll Weevils and the women's teams are the Cotton Blossoms.

Boll weevil: "I'll show you [bleep]ing stupid!" [tackles the aardvark and begins punching him in the junk]

My only guess: the person who wrote this ad went to Arkansas-Monticello.

Man, that was dumb. Is there any ad stupider than that KGB ad?

Answer: yes. This KGB ad:

Woman: "Hello!"
Guy: "How can I tell my girlfriend's bra size?"

Maybe it's me, but if you're comfortable enough to buy lingerie or undergarments for your girlfriend, shouldn't you know her bra size? And, nice gratuitous cleavage shot. Good to know that even shitty text-message informational services are not above selling their product using sex.

Woman [as if speaking her first words since emerging from a coma]: "Maybe, you should ask, someone."

Guy: "Ah! Good idea!"

You could, say, ask your girlfriend. Too obvious?

KGB Man: "I got this one. You take your hands..."

KGB Woman: "Actually, the best way is to compare them to a piece of fruit. Are they apples, oranges, or grapefruits?"

Yeah, whatever. It just needs to be close, right? Am I right, ladies? (Oh, I guess I'm not.) Granted, this guy isn't buying an actual bra, but then why go that way at all? Other than as a cheap excuse to talk about breasts, show close-ups of breasts, and generally try to make the male audience drool over an otherwise boring ad.

Guy: "They are melons."

Woman: "I have those."

Haw. Melons. Am I right, guys?

KGB Man: "How do you like them apples?"

KGB Woman: "Those are grapefruits."

KGB Man: [leers lasciviously]

"Well, whatever they are, you'll be touching them later in my head!" I'm glad KGB is such a relaxed workplace that they can keep a breast reference model around for the 0.05% of questions that involve breast size and general gawking the other 99.95% of the time. Very progressive.

Catherine, Catherine, Catherine, can't you see? Sometimes your words just hypnotize me

I guess this is one way to sell a product.



I'd like her to cover my need at the price I want! Hi-yo!

Seriously, that's actually an ad. "Here's the pitch: Catherine Zeta-Jones is going to kind of explain that T-Mobile can save you money, but mostly the commercial will be about how this nerdy kid wants to fuck her." Pure gold, I tells ya! Wait, though: it gets worse. Much worse.



"Okay, Tim, you're playing the husband. Can you play this as skeevy as possible? You can? Awesome."

CZJ: "So, let's go online and give you a mobile makeover!"
Wife: "Great."
Husband: "I like it when you say things."

First of all, do people really need Catherine Zeta-Jones to come to their house and help them use the computer? Whatever. I'm guessing it wasn't that hard to drag her back onto the set of another commercial when the premise was "Every man in the world thinks Catherine Zeta-Jones is the hottest thing ever, to the point of being horrible in front of their wives."

CZJ: "Right... so, looks like you'll get great coverage and save money with T-Mobile."

Not at all vague information about the product! Back to the creepy dude.

Husband: "And my wife'll like that."
Wife: "I'm right here."
Husband [not looking at her, still staring at CZJ]: "That's my wife Jen. We're married. Technically."

You're not going to be married much longer, pal.

You know what this kind of reminds me of? The Rachael Ray Dunkin' Donuts ad that was clearly at least as much an ad for Rachael Ray as it was Dunkin' Donuts. Here are the messages I took from these T-Mobile ads, in order of perceived importance:

1. Catherine Zeta-Jones is so, so hot.
2. Catherine Zeta-Jones' hotness turns boys into men and brings men to their knees.
3. When Catherine Zeta-Jones is in the room, your wife all but ceases to exist.
4. Catherine Zeta-Jones' breasts could bring about world peace.
5. T-Mobile can maybe save you money, somehow.

The Summer of Condiments

Oh dear.



[Twentysomethings hang out at a party while the announcer talks. Edgy, animated text matches his words on the screen.]
Announcer: "Don't go unnoticed. Don't blend in. Don't be ordinary, boring or bland. In other words..."

Now, if I just showed you the first nineteen seconds of that ad, what would you think it was for? Some sort of hip clothing company? The latest premium malt beverage? Granted, it's kind of a lame ad regardless, but it's when we get to the product that things go completely to hell.

Announcer: "...don't be so mayo."

Honestly, the first time I saw this ad I still didn't figure it out, even after this line. Mostly because I never expected to see an ad for a condiment that looked like an ad for Smirnoff Ice.

Announcer: "We are our own unique one of a kind flavor. We are Miracle Whip, and we will not tone it down."

That's the entire ad. You will not "tone it down"? Someone wanted Miracle Whip to "tone it down"? If the tone on Miracle Whip were any lower it would be sub-zero. I understand the pitch - "Miracle Whip! We're not mayonnaise! We taste different, you guys!" - but this was the best angle they had? The official mediocre condiment of rebellious youth?

You know what this ad is like? Imagine you're a teenager and your dad shows up at a party of yours, dressed in contemporary clothes he can't possibly pull off, and saying things like "I was hoping I could chill with you dawgs for a while," putting all the emphasis on the "cool" words that clearly even he knows he really shouldn't be saying. Now, if that happened, you'd be embarrassed both by and for him, right? Well, that's how I feel after seeing this ad.

You're not cool, Miracle Whip. You're not cool and you never will be. You just make me sad.

Could I be any worse of an ad?

I'll take "attacking things your competitors don't do" for $200, Alex.



Wife: "Hey, did you ever find tickets to Hawaii?"
Husband: "Hawaii Five-O! Book 'em, Dano! Aloha! Mele Kalikimaka! Surf lingo! Brah, I was stoked when I caught that tasty barrel!"

I mean, fine, I guess this is supposed to be hyperbole. But it's hyperbole so extreme that it just means nothing. Go to Google and type in "tickets to Hawaii," not that anyone would ever type in so vague a term when they specifically were looking for airline tickets. The first two results are Cheap Tickets and Orbitz, both of which will sell you plane tickets to Hawaii. In case you meant something else, you're also presented on the first page with other links where they sell tickets for University of Hawaii sporting events. Type in "plane tickets to Hawaii" and you get a bunch of sites that sell you plane tickets to Hawaii. I don't know how far you'd have to go in the results for "tickets to Hawaii" to find "Book 'em, Dano," but I'm guessing it's pretty far. Even if you're the kind of idiot who just types in "Hawaii," three of the first four results are tourism-related.

Wife: "Seriously, did you price out tickets?"
Husband: "How to beat a traffic ticket! Ten proven methods traffic courts don't want you to know!"
Wife: "What are you talking about?"
Husband: "Talk turkey!"
Wife: "What?"
Husband: "Talk live with hot singles in your area! They're waiting."
Wife: "Who's waiting?"
Slogan on screen: "What has search overload done to us?"

Uh... nothing? Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with this commercial? Just for the hell of it, I also typed "tickets to Hawaii" into Yahoo and Ask.com and got similar results to Google - Yahoo even had all of their top results relating to flights. Then I typed it into Bing.com's engine, and got basically the same results (although fewer of theirs seemed to deal with flights, which is vaguely hilarious).

I realize that not everyone in the world is an internet expert; I'm old enough to remember a time without the internet, but young enough that it's been a major part of most of my life (and certainly my entire adult life). But COME ON. If you know enough to access the internet, I fail to see what Bing.com is doing for you that every other search engine can't. It's like they're trying to trick old people into thinking that this is how Google works. "Hey, boomers! Use Bing.com! Did you know that Google will vomit a stream of tangentially related non-sequiturs like a mental patient if you search using it? It's true! Uh, don't bother trying to verify that, it's just going to lull you into a false sense of security with a successful initial search..." Their use of the term "decision engine" only plays this up all the more. "Are you too old and computer illiterate to browse through a page of search results? We'll decide for you!" Never mind that I've used Bing a couple times now and fail to see where it's "deciding" any more than Google when it gives you... a page of search results. At least Google has the "I'm feeling lucky" button.

This ad is the rough equivalent of Burger King making an ad in which they claim that if you go into a McDonald's and order a hamburger, you'll get a bag of diseased muskrats. (Not that I'd put that past Crispin Porter + Bogusky.) It's also exactly as effective. Anyone who knows anything about the internet knows you're full of shit, Microsoft, and this commercial is enough to send me lunging for the remote every time.

You call it: Toyota Prius "Harmony" commercial.

I totally get what Toyota is trying to do with this commercial, and as far as getting the content, imagery and music to be in sync with their product image and philosophy, they knocked it out of the park. Given that my beef is frequently with one or more of these things not hanging together, what could there be to complain about?



Well, that I find this commercial inexplicably creepy. All the undulating and people popping out of nowhere and the idea of the sun being a big ball of folks tied together at the ankle for all eternity... for me, it's just unsettling. There is a second commercial, involving people climbing upwards to create trees, that doesn't bother me as much (potentially because they're clearly people and not unexplained Soylent Scenery™). It doesn't appear to bother either Windier or Quivering anywhere near as much. So let's hear from the readers. What do you say for this one- yea or nay?

Showpigs

White Castle, you have got to be kidding me.



This is just gross. Is White Castle just trying to think of as many different ways as they can to make me not want anything to do with their food? (To be fair, it's White Castle; they don't need to try all that hard.)

First problem: equating your primary ingredient with an exotic dancer. Worse yet, an exotic dancer in a furry costume. Does White Castle know that there is a group of people out there who find women in pig costumes erotic? Maybe that's just the demographic this ad is trying to cater to. "If you like fucking a chick dressed like a pig, you'll love eating our pulled pork sandwich." Natural leap from one to the other, right? Also weird: the mobile, sentient bag, presumably scouting the strip club for "fresh meat."

That might not even have been so bad if not for the way White Castle pours on the comparisons to sex. Maybe I could have dismissed it as a goofy attempt at humor, but no: here comes the seductive voiceover. I like barbecue sauce, but I can't think of anything that makes me less interested in it than describing it as "come-hither" and "oh so naughty." Hey. White Castle. You make food. You do not make lingerie, marital aids or ED medication. You aren't a chain of shady massage parlors, you aren't a gentleman's club, you aren't even a Westin. You sell food. And when I think of food, I don't want to be thinking about how that food wants me to fuck it.

Even if this ad weren't gross, it's a ridiculous overstatement. Barbecue sauce is naughty? Oh shit, barbecue sauce! Man, this is fucking sinful! I can't believe I'm putting barbecue sauce on something! Especially not on pulled pork, which is only served with barbecue sauce by everyone in existence who serves pulled pork, because that's how pulled pork comes in this country! Go to the head of the class, White Castle, because you are some fucking trendsetters.

Right here is where I'd normally do some bit about "what would happen if other food products advertised like this," but just click the "disgusting sexualization of food" tag at the bottom of this post. There's no more need for satire; there are already ads out there far worse than anything I could come up with. And it's not just food, it's ads in general. I understand that sex sells, but aren't there limits? I'll buy using sex in an ad for Viagra, or even for something like a car. But a woman (I assume) in a pig costume getting drenched in barbecue sauce on a club stage is going to make me hungry for the dead, cooked, actual-pig equivalent? How about a guy dressed as a cow getting hit from above with an enormous square of American cheese? A woman dressed as a chicken getting splashed with egg and pelted with bread crumbs? You're telling me your stomach isn't rumbling right now?

You know what this is? It's the food equivalent of Isabella Rossellini's "Green Porno" series. I have never seen a clip of that show and thought, "Man, I feel like having some sex now." And I don't see this White Castle ad and get hungry. It makes me want to curl up in the fetal position and throw out all the barbecue sauce in my refrigerator before it gets any ideas.