Ad Nonsense

Caribou Coffee Bars invite you to relax with the caribou!

In this General Mills ad for Caribou Coffee Bars (we assume they’ve licensed the name from Caribou Coffee), a woman dressed in office attire complete with pearls enjoys a coffee candy bar while relaxing among a herd of caribou. Eyes closed, she pets one as if it were a Shetland pony. Yes, Caribou is the… Read More »

Schick demurely trims bush.

When we saw this ad for Schick’s Quattro TrimStyle a few weeks ago it tickled our imagination, but it seemed to be living in an awkward place between outright campy and demurely suggestive. The combo blade and trimmer lets women shave and, in the ad’s words, ‘transform’. You can almost feel the creative struggle that… Read More »

Knob Creek’s drunken nonsense campaign.

This week we introduce a new Adiocracy column to address the huge volume of ad nonsense out there these days. For its inaugural post, we’ve picked a campaign for Knob Creek we’ve been observing for a while. As bourbon drinkers we always like to see a bourbon brand put it out there. And we like… Read More »

Schweppes unleashes our collective angst on the G20.

Perhaps because we’re not British, we don’t quite get the point of view in this Schweppes ad by Mother (London) in which every country in the G20 has just been fired. Why fire Turkey and Canada? What’d they do? And who’s doing the firing? Gordon Brown? Trump? Neither makes sense, so are they supposed to… Read More »

Samsung’s wide angle freaks

Here are two new additions to Creepyville courtesy of Samsung and Korean agency Cheil Worldwide for its wideangle view TV.

Honda encourages irresponsible driving.

We don’t think we’re being picayune here. These ads for Honda seem really out of step with the times, especially for a brand that’s worked hard to tout its environmental leadership (remember Honda’s ‘environmentology’?). Honda shouldn’t be encouraging us to jump in our cars and drive for every l’il thing when we’re working hard to… Read More »

Chickens line up for top-of-line oven in chilling Holocaust tableau.

We uncovered this ad for FiveSatar ranges in our archives. After our initial freak, we wondered if it was meant to be a chilling reminder, or worse, a parody. Check out the bones protruding from the backs of the famished creatures closest to the bottom. Whatever the intention, our take is it’s downright creepy as… Read More »

Mom and Dad had a bag of rice!

Seriously. A bag of rice. The only link whatsoever to the visual: The word ‘arrived’.

Arby’s makes art out of fat, but how honest are they?

In this video for Arby’s an artist paints the Mona Lisa with burger grease. The implication is that Arby’s roast beef has a lot less fat than burgers.  So we did a quick comparison off the Arby’s and McDonald’s nutrition sites and found something we’re sure the agency already knows. Two plain McDonald’s burgers (the kind… Read More »

V8 Features Hero Who Doesn’t Drink V8

This ad for V8 juice is perplexing. Not to mention ridiculously midleading. It features a 72 year old who climbed Mt. Everest back in 2001. Healthy, yes. Someone to admire, for sure. But outside of paying to use his image, Campbell’s offers up no relationship whatsoever between Dr. Sherman Bull and V8. No testimonial that… Read More »