Here Are Some More Weird Ads!
- Infiniti's early advertising showed only the brand name and a flock of birds. Nothing to indicate that it was actually promoting a car.
- A documentary about a newly-launched airline. Because the airline's ad was so non-specific, there were people who came asking them what they actually do.
- A baby dashing through a darkened hospital before crashing through a wall. The commercial was for the VW Lupo — "Volkswagen's tough little baby".
- One Christian group has a billboard ad campaign with nothing but the line "I Am Second" and a link to their website. Some people can see it's a coded reference to John 3:30 but otherwise it suggests....a sport? A band? An athletics clothing manufacturer?
- These three ads for Gap clothing. The commercials consist of absolutely nothing but 10-20 similarly dressed actor/models in front of a solid white background singing Top 40 tunes while standing absolutely still and looking bored out of their minds. Until they flash the slogan (everybody in leather/vests/khakis) and the Gap logo, they look like the world's laziest music video.
- One of the most surreal ads ever featured a hamster running furiously in his wheel until it breaks and he dies of boredom. It only ran for a short time, and if anybody remembers it today, So what was the product? Levi's.
- Then there were Levi's 80s-era ads. This one is a good example of what you would see — samurai lizards And tiny little anthropomorphic Levi's logos, Maybe the thinking was "everybody knows we make jeans, so let's just spend 30 seconds doing weird stuff"?
- This Christmas ad from JCPenney about a girl who secretly builds a rocket to the North Pole while overcoming bullies. It ends with all neighborhood cheering for her as she's ready to blast off, the slogan "Today's the day to believe" appears and then JCPenney's logo. Sweet spot, nothing to do with JCPenney though (they are all wearing brand's clothing apparently, but it's not prominent).
- Once Upon a Honeymoon. The short film showed off Ma Bells brand-new colored phones, which previously came in one color: black. The lead wishes for different looks for her home — and they appear. The point was "you can now color coordinate your phones with whatever your living space was", but even for the 50's, the point was subtle. Now, to modern eyes, it's just baffling.
- Optimum's commercials — apparently, all they're about are some girls singing the number to call and a dude rapping so fast you can't tell a word he's saying half the time. But it's mostly the number song that gets stuck in the head.
- An Australian radio ad featured a jingle — a chorus singing "So easy, Clive Peeters..." over and over again. Not once did it mention who or what Clive Peeters was. (An electronics store, in case you were wondering.)
- Most of the dot-com ads during Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000 are remembered for being this, such as the E-Trade, WebMD, and Pets.com ads. Most others tried to subvert it by quickly explaining their company in a voiceover or text, but that Super Bowl, as well as the entire Dot-Com Bubble is often associated with this trope.
- Outpost.com ran three commercials over the Super Bowl about how they wanted people to remember their logo, so they were doing a particular stunt such as shooting a hamster through the O in their logo (they missed...several times), tattooing their logo on the foreheads on pre-schoolers, arranging a high-school band into the form of their logo, and then releasing the rabid wolverines. People recalling the commercial remember everything but who the logo was for.
- This ad for DirecTV. Ostensibly a commercial about getting the best while saving money — but all anyone really remembers is "OMG ADORABLE MINI-GIRAFFE WANT!"
- That commercial where there's a line of various technologies falling and smacking into one another; a car, phone, SPACE SHUTTLE... but when the last domino falls and hits the product they're touting, you just too busy thinking COOL to remember the name... It was a smartphone right?
- On the subject of Mountain Dew, there's also the infamous "Puppymonkeybaby"! The Super Bowl spot at least managed to show a can of the beverage, but it was completely overshadowed by the sheer bizarreness of the mascot with the head of a Pug, body and tail of a lemur, and feet of a baby dancing jerkily, chanting its name, shaking a rattle, After that performance, people can be forgiven for not recalling that the ad was in fact for a drink called Mountain Dew Kickstart. (The intended message was that the beverage is "three awesome things combined: Dew, juice, caffeine", but even this fails to connect to the product since regular Dew is caffeinated already.)
- The Cherry Coke ads in the late '90s, which showed teenagers doing various ridiculous things, followed by giant words flashing on the screen saying "Do something different."
- This commercial is pretty clever for its use of the buttered cat paradox, but you wouldn't know it was a "Flying Horse" commercial unless you paid attention to the split-second shots near the end or stuck around for the brand card at the end
- A few people are sitting around in a waiting room. Suddenly, a guy in a duck costume comes in, and starts playing Duck, Duck, Goose. Then, a guy in a goose costume walks in. The duck suddenly shouts "GOOSE!" and tackles said goose for the amusement of all. So, what were they selling? Vitamin water. The only chance you would know is if you heard the blurb at the start mentioning the product and the duck sampling it at the end shot.
- The original Claritin commercials involved bright, beautiful scenery and happy music. They were very uplifting and memorable, at least at the time...yet what they actually were selling was a mystery for some time.
- There was a series of commercials showing people scaling cliffs and overcoming other obstacles, with the last shot showing the word "Zyrtec" carved into stone or otherwise worked into the scenery. At the time (before you could just Google things like this) people genuinely wondered and debated what Zyrtec was, it Is actually a allergy medicine
- The Pets.Com commercial mascot, a talking sock puppet dog, managed to outlive the very company he was invented to advertise and now hawks, of all things, cheap car loans.
- E* Trade came out with an ad about a man being wheeled through an emergency room who had an unusual medical condition — he had money coming out the wazoo. The point of the ad was that, unless you had the same "problem", you should consider their services.
- Another E* Trade ad lampshaded this trope with a Super Bowl Special spot that was 30 seconds of two guys clapping their hands in time while a monkey danced on top of a bucket. They closed with the line "Well, we just wasted two million bucks. What are you doing with your money?"
- This commercial uses lots of cute fuzzy bunnies at a fair with sweet music to advertise the New York Lottery.
- A radio ad for Quick Draw from New York Lottery focuses on people waiting in line to eat the "muffgel", a hybrid between a muffin and a bagel. The only connection to the lottery in the ad is that it's a better way to bring people together than waiting for the latest food trend.
- In 1997, Sprite ran two spoof ads for a fake brand of soft drinks called "Jookie." The first poked fun at the extravagant claims advertisers make about the benefits of their product (if you drink Jookie, you'll suddenly be transported to the most awesome beach party EVER!!!). The second poked fun at the often useless mail order prizes advertisers use as bait for their products ("Jookie Junk"). The commercials made no mention of Sprite until its logo was shown in front of a black background at the end.
- They did this one more time a year later with "Sun Fizz," this time spoofing the use of cartoons to attract consumers.
That is all for weird Ads…
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