The World's Worst Ad Campaigns

Ads that Have No Rational Explanation Other Than Drugs and Insurance Money

There are some ad campaigns that, while successful, horrify and annoy everyone who comes into contact with them. I'm not even going to touch the major ones (screw you, Dell kid). Let's take a look at some less popular ad campaigns that were grating, disgusting, or just plain confusing.

Charmin Bears

Do these bears disgust anyone else to an absolutely unimaginable level? All they ever do is wipe and talk about how much they love to wipe. Several commercials even show them wiping, and they're not just doing it because it's necessary. They're enjoying themselves. They friggin' love it. They can't get enough of it. Most other bears you'll at least see fishing, but the Charmin bears spend their days in sickening bliss with double, triple, and (god help us) quadruple rolls of Charmin. At least Charmin rejected the Pope as its first choice of mascots for this ad campaign.

Fruit Roll-Up Kid Scientists

For a while, the Fruit Roll-Up company ran some commercials which explained the mysterious origins of their new, wacky Fruit Roll-Up designs. They typically featured kid scientists experimenting on each other, tattooing themselves, and generally doing a poor job of designing new fruit snacks.  Every one of them was resultant of an accident, rather than careful planning; I'd think that at some point, the FDA would look into things, or at least Child Protection Services.  (Kid: "I don't want to design any more fruit snacks!" Fruit Roll-up President: "If you want to eat, you'll put the child-sized labcoat back on.")

I've got to say, there's something that really bothers me about the concept that my Funny Hat Cutout Fruit Roll-Ups came to be after a fat kid was shot with all manner of hats and sticky, molten hot Fruit Roll-Up goo. Part of him could still be in one of those things. And besides, the design of the Fruit Roll-Up doesn't even matter; everyone just balled them up and ate them, no matter what “cool” shapes could theoretically be separated from the rest of the high fructose corn syrup.



GEICO Gecko

What's more annoying than British people? Yep, British reptiles.