Making a good ad is hard work. You need to craft an attention-grabbing message that instantly transforms an uninterested person (who might even be unaware of your company) into a willing buyer, willing to spend their hard-earned money on your product. Plus, you have a budget, a timeline, and a results-hungry board of directors breathing down your neck with unrelentingly high expectations.
No wonder so many of them miss the mark. However, some are so exceptionally bad, that you can't help but wonder if the people behind them knew what they were doing or were clowning around on purpose. And you can find them on the Facebook group 'Useless, Unsuccessful, and/or Unpopular Real Ads' and the page 'Advertisements that look like sh*tposts.' While these two are separate online projects, their content complements each other so well, we decided to feature them both in the same publication. Continue scrolling and check everything out yourself.
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According to Michelle Greenwald, the CEO of Catalyzing Innovation, a global, cross-sector innovation hub, for advertising to be "effective," it must be:
- Memorable;
- Resonate with consumers by ringing true and delivering a personally meaningful message, even if the brand has a huge target audience like Nike's;
- Communicate how the product or service fits into consumers' lives or work to make them better, more productive, happier, and more fulfilled;
- Stand for values above and beyond the product or service itself;
- Be inextricably linked to the brand, so the ad won't be attributed to a competitor.
But most of the ads we see on 'Useless, Unsuccessful, and/or Unpopular Real Ads' and 'Advertisements that look like sh*tposts' fulfill just the first requirement.
Greenwald thinks that great ad campaigns are often founded on deep psychological insights. The messages, delivered in novel and thought-provoking ways, increase the odds they'll be shared virally by brand fans, who further add credibility and awareness.
Furthermore, great campaigns help brands avoid being commoditized and compete only on price. They increase loyalty and good will, and can encourage purchases across more items within the brand umbrella too.
Lately, 'Useless, Unsuccessful, and/or Unpopular Real Ads' and 'Advertisements that look like sh*tposts' have been featuring a lot of online campaigns. Which is understandable, considering that 2021 was great for digital marketing.
As work, play and shopping shifted online during the covid-19 pandemic, internet advertising boomed. In America, for example, spending rose by 38%, to $211bn, compared with average annual growth of 21% in the preceding five years.
KFCyou, I’m going to run away as fast as I can to the other direction :D
Social media firms such as Pinterest and Snap at times hit triple-digit year-on-year quarterly revenue growth.
Even giants such as Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and Meta (Facebook’s and Instagram’s), which receive a third and a fifth of the world’s digital-ad dollars, respectively, clocked rates of 50%.
His right arm looks small and shorter, but the distance between him and the bowling ball is 'far' so I think his right arm is actually longer than his left. Very realistic game, 11/10 would play.
But 2022 is a different story. On July 21st, Snap reported that its sales grew by 13%, year on year, in the second quarter, its most anemic ever. In a letter to investors, its execs confessed that so far this quarter revenue was "approximately flat." The market was spooked, and the company’s share price fell by almost 40%.
The next day, Twitter, which also depends on advertising, reported that its revenue had fallen slightly in the three months to June, compared with last year.
"Apologize to bother you but can you inform me how to receive to the English class?" "Of course! Just increase those stairs on the left!"
Yes, in Britain there are sea-men. Like seahorses, but less wet, and without narration from David Attenborough.
Load More Replies...Yay trans representation?? Also no one would speak like that, it would be stilted and unnatural.
my fiance does but i think that's just how he learned english
Load More Replies...I'm an English teacher. This almost made my head explode. I want to cry...
I teach ESL. I see stuff like this daily. I have to laugh or the face palming would give me brain damage
Load More Replies...ok, capitalization, some words are multipurpose, the BELLY or that dude,----------------------------------wot is happening
What do the people have to do with this? Also...how on Earth do men end up pregnant?
I was already irritated enough by the formal and informal writing to not notice a fkin pregnant man beside it
Or that stomach bloating you see on photos of malnourished African kids
Load More Replies...I have a newsflash people: if you have a uterus and are gestating a human being YOU ARE NOT A MAN.
Start checking your spelling first ... Check not Chek Tough not though, however if you don't think things through they could become tough or difficult. And what's with the pregnant dude 🤔
Never mind the off translations. What in the hey are the beer bellied/pregnant men about?
Some men have uteruses and I don't care how mad that makes little snowflakes lmao
Sure...but what the hell does that have to do with learning English?
Load More Replies...Because all the pregnant man have the best English!
Load More Replies...These numbers triggered concern about the health of online advertising, dragging down the share prices of the biggest industry names.
On July 26th, Alphabet duly disclosed Snap-like quarterly sales growth of 13%, down from 62% in the same period last year. That was less terrible than expected (its market value rose by 8% on the news) but still pretty bad (it remains a bit below what it had been before the Snap bombshell). A day later, Meta said that its revenue declined for the first time, by 1% year on year.
Upstart challengers like Snap are the most exposed — when marketing budgets get trimmed, advertisers tend to stick to what they know, and they know Google search much better than they do Snap's experiments with augmented reality. The big firms also boast larger and more diverse audiences; Meta serves 10m advertisers globally, compared with Snap’s estimated 1m or less. That protects them somewhat from softening demand. Somewhat, but not entirely.
For years, big ad-sellers shrugged off blips in the broader economy, as many customers came to see online ads as a virtual shopfront that needed to be maintained even in tough times—often at the expense of other ad spending. That has left ever fewer non-digital ad dollars available to be diverted online. In a pinch, advertisers may now, therefore, need to take an axe to their digital billboards. However, I don't think that 'Useless, Unsuccessful, and/or Unpopular Real Ads' and 'Advertisements that look like sh*tposts' will run out of content any time soon.
Why stop at syphilis? Planned Parenthood will do the full checkup in 15min. Everything from Herpes to HIV. Just get it done it's really easy and cheap.
It's not an ad promoting this as an actual diet though, it's more of an infographic to show you why some kids (especially those with sensory disorders) are resistant to some fruits and vegetables.
Note: this post originally had 85 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
Agreed. Should've just been called "weird ads" or something like that
Load More Replies...As an Australian, I am sorry for the few random ads from us up there. BUT I'M NOT SORRY ABOUT PLATYPUS BANK!
Never apologize for the platypus bank! It is amazing and I want one.
Load More Replies...The Norm of the North Twitter page was weird, if you want to see something completely insane. I don't think it's still up, but there are some videos on it.
Agreed. Should've just been called "weird ads" or something like that
Load More Replies...As an Australian, I am sorry for the few random ads from us up there. BUT I'M NOT SORRY ABOUT PLATYPUS BANK!
Never apologize for the platypus bank! It is amazing and I want one.
Load More Replies...The Norm of the North Twitter page was weird, if you want to see something completely insane. I don't think it's still up, but there are some videos on it.