What's the worst ad you've ever seen?

Idk where to start.

Political campaign ads. Not a product so it might be different. I remember watching one that took advantage of homeless people and it made my stomach hurt.

Wendy's had a recruitment campaign "a job at Wendy's serves me right" and I could not think of a job there as anything other than a punishment for something

Gillette had an advertisement and it was a bunch of different hot men lined up and a woman fondling their bodies, evaluating what trimming style she found most sexually appealing. They were encouraging you to buy their trimming products.

I just thought, let's flip it around. There's a bunch of busty and tight women in swimsuits, and a man comes and lustfully fondles their bodies, and then they're telling you to buy makeup.

Edit. I should add that this was what made me decide to just stop buying their products. It was just one commercial, and I'm not making a big whoopee about it, but it motivated me to make a change and there's no reason to go back. I pretty much realized through this that I don't need any of their products that I formerly used, and I can shave myself for pennies versus what I used to pay them for disposable blades.

Papa John's always showed some of the most revolting looking pizza in their ads, and I know ads are usually doctored to make the food look better so if that's what it looked like in the ad there was no way in hell I was coming into one of those places to get a pizza.

I think any ad that has the disclaimer guy say about 300 words within 3 minutes at the end has a place in my worst ad bucket. These are mostly drugs. and I don't remember a single specific so it's a sure sign.

also those smiling people eating their salad.

and that one ad with iPhone that people are jumping about with colors splashing and so little detail on the actual product.

All the anti-smoking ads. I don't support smoking, but the anti-smoking ads are so dramatic I'm surprised they're allowed by the Geneva Convention on psychological warfare.

I feel like any ad you remember isn't the worst.

Rama margarine

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zeyoaqnCJdA

Any ad that runs on youtube. Literally. All of them. You have paid for the privilege of ruining my enjoyment of whatever I was trying to see. Eff you and the product you rode in on.

Every grammarly as that has the English mistake in it.

So, all of them.

A few years ago, Skittles had this ad with a dancing elf looking dude. I used to love Skittles, dentist will back that up, but i just couldn't support that kinda nonsense.

#2 would be those Quiznos ads... I wouldn't eat there anyway, but the deep-fried hamster looking thing isn't going to convince me.

there was an old ad with a kid sitting on a dock fishing, eating a bologna sandwich and singing "my bologna has a first name, its o-s-c-a-r. my bologna has a second name its m-a-y-e-r"...

nothing wrong with the commercial except it turned out to be an ear worm that would live in my head FOREVER. my brain trots it out at least once a month for no good reason. usually more.

ive never bought bologna and i'm low key mad at Oscar Mayer so maybe this counts?

The Quiznos ad with the talking chinchillas.

Most people didn’t even know what those things were. I heard them being called weasels and rats and deep-fried hamsters and even beavers.

But, no. Photos of chinchillas, with talking human mouths superimposed. Ended up being the most fingernails-on-a-chalkboard commercial I have ever come across. Sure, there have been worse commercials in terms of raw stinkers or stupidity, but this one was by far the most repellant one I have ever personally experienced.

Any of the ads that have started autoplaying when I turn on my FireTV Cube. It pisses me of so much I'm actively avoiding the shows and movies they're promoting.

That Wendy's ad with the meme guy that I wanna strangle. Haven't eaten at Wendy's in like 8 years because of that ad

i disliked an ad in tv before 2000 and decided to not buy the deodorant stick then because of that. like 10 to 15 years later i accidently bought the product- long forgotten that this was the one with that bad ad and actually liked the product and bought it regulary for some time (then remembering how bad that ad was, but okay the product was good actually). that was until they decided to put more plastics into packaging as well as less content into it (same price for package) just to make it more costly for me thus more profitable for them, whilst producing more litter and destroying more resources just for profit. The higher price would not have been too bad, but creating more litter for more profit made me then search a better product. then found a bio product with all natural contents, very few plastic packaging and even less pricy.

That ad made me NOT buy it. So that was the worst ad i've ever seen in two ways: it reduced my willingness to buy their product to far below zero lasting for a decade and i did not even want to try the product that i later found to be actually good, so worst case for the vendor AND the customer.

However that product later also had the "best" Price raise (by less content) for me ever as that made me search and find the then newly existing even better and more natural, less pricy product of their competitor.

Maybe good CEOs are rare.

All

An ad for Descovy, an HIV prophylactic, that they kept playing in Portland in 2020. You gotta step up… PReP UP!! It featured this super creepy dude who I guess was supposed to be gay and kept making eye contact with the camera. I felt like I was being stalked.

Immudefense. Whenever I see this I feel second-hand embarrassment for those people standing there shaking that stupid little pill.

Every single billboard for Paramount+ is just six shows that don't interest me at all.

Like how can your streaming service be worth it when you don't even have enough content to fill a poster.

I can't remember. Seeing an ad must be a century ago.

Jimmy John's, Carls Jr..

Literally any ad. I hate advertising in all forms and it does nothing but piss me off. If your ad is intrusive enough, I'll remember it well enough to never buy your product.

I don't think I've ever seen a Word ad. I don't know how much Microsoft advertises its Office software.

Mobile game ads involving...

dirty feet

edit: i think this description is an understatement. it's absolutely disgusting.

I've never seen a good ad tbh but car ads are the most fun bad to me.

There was one sonic ad that looked absolutely disgusting to me, I swear that food was made of plastic

This one has ruined me. And it'll ruin you, too!

https://youtu.be/qRCBViNVDFQ

It's basically a condom commercial, but for on-the-go tooth brushing.

https://youtu.be/i8QKckrDVFQ?si=iku0_5EXJ1-J3IBB

Mark Zuckerbergs dystopian animatronic metaverse ad: "You will be surplus to requirements, first fungible and ridiculous and then literally disposable." It was so bad, the video was privated https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/12/22930776/metas-quest-2-super-bowl-metaverse-ad-animatronic-dog-virtual-reality

The Folger's "coming home" (incest heavily implied) ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhfcWTZeP1k