5 Awesome Products That Seem Horrible Thanks To Their Ads

The reality:

Everyone knows the asshole that gets drunk and gets thrown out of bars for stupid shit like dick slangin' on the pool table or playing instruments he is not supposed to. Very few of us aspire to be this person. If that were the behavior of people who order Black Bush, bars would stock one bottle as a trap, then bum rush sloppy douches who ordered it. "Black Bush. You'll outgrow this by the time you're 23."

And if being an obnoxious drunk isn't deterrent enough, the announcer narrates as he drums that, "The cynics scoff, drawing near to pummel" -- i.e., "Yes, people are making fun of him for doing this, and yes, he is about to get his ass kicked for it." Do you not embarrass your friends enough? Regularly not being mocked by women and beat up by bouncers? Try Black Bush.

Other products this ad would have worked for:

Xanax, becoming a bouncer, designated-driver PSAs, an anti-drum-kit campaign.

The ad:

An Odd Couple of guys (this is the group noun for two adult men) sit in their car. The weird one is weird; the normal one is normal and HATES the weird one (albeit in a very charming way, because Peter Grosz and T.J. Jagodowski, the actors, are not men but comedy elementals).

The reality:

Sonic is known for serving your food to you in your car. That is why our two guys are always in their car. This is normally a very convenient/cute/#tbt aspect of the Sonic experience. One of the few instances where this feature becomes a bug is when you are trapped in a car with someone you find incredibly annoying and you're going kind of stir crazy. If they were at any other place, they would get out of the car so they don't murder each other. Not at Sonic. This is like American Airlines using Planes, Trains And Automobiles as an ad. "Hey, you might get into this kind of miserable-but-hilarious-to-an-outsider scenario!"

Other products this ad would have worked for:

A car with a partition between the driver and passenger, Bose sound systems that can drown people out, motorcycles, Xanax.

The ad:

Heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield takes items out of a Carl's Jr. bag and bites them one by one. A double cheeseburger, a spicy chicken sandwich, and fries: crunch, crunch, crunch!

The reality:

Wow, $4 is a very cheap price for that much- OH DEAR GOD WHY IS THAT BURGER SO CRUNCHY? Listen to the sound they chose to pair with someone biting into a burger. Let it echo in your mind. Imagine eating with a friend and their bite into a burger sounding like that. Are the next words out of your mouth likely to be, "Oooh, let me try that"? Or, "We need to get you to a hospital"? Holyfield, a fairly tough dude, even appears to wince a little with each bite. Whoever is making these ads is a crunch-sound-obsessed zealot who has lost grip of what it sounds like to bite into human food.

Other products this ad would have worked for:

Fake burgers made out of twigs or glass, chewable Xanax.

The ad:

A young couple is about to kiss, when there is an interruption: The girl has gotten a notification on her Apple Watch. She dismisses it, and they finally smooch.

The reality:

This is a story of young love overcoming an obstacle, which makes for a heartwarming ad. In this instance, the obstacle is the Apple Watch, the product being advertised. Don't get me wrong, the Apple Watch is useful for plenty of things, like ... hold on ... there's, uh ... OK, maybe we'll come back to that. But certainly the big downside of an Apple Watch would be getting a bright, flashing notification on your wrist when you're right about to smooch someone you want to smooch.

The big selling point of this ad appears to be: "Look how easy it is to ignore this when it ruins moments for you!" Other ads in this series might have a couple about to say "I do," when they get a Seamless notification, so they smash the watch or light it on fire. Or, better yet, a couple that never buys an Apple Watch in the first place and then is conspicuously uninterrupted during their happy moments.

Other products this ad would have worked for:

Gum; a cell jammer; apartments in a pink, featureless void; iXanax

The ad:

An announcer asks you, "Can a truck make you more handsome? More dependable? More rugged?" They then show focus groups discussing an image of a guy with a car or the same guy with a truck. Everybody says the truck makes the guy look more handsome, resourceful, manly, and likely to have a cooler pet.

The reality:

Think about every truck commercial you have ever seen. I'll bet you're thinking about horses or a truck driving up a mountain or hauling some tough cargo. I bet words like "rugged," "lone wolf," and "independent" come to mind. I also bet there is a noticeable lack of focus groups. That's because focus groups can tell you only what other people think, whereas an integral part of being a "truck guy" is not giving a shit about what other people think. (Especially what they think about the decision to buy a truck when you don't do anything that requires a truck.)

Think about how deep in the advertising rabbit hole you have to be to decide to make a truck commercial that centers on a focus group. The only way that happens is someone in a conference room says, "What sells trucks is manliness." Then someone stands up from their open-floor-plan work area and says, "How do we prove the truck makes you manly?" And then a third person stands up from their office privacy pod, stops eating their Luna bar, and says, "You know you're manly because other people think you're manly. For perception is reality." And then the whole office bows their heads and chants in unison, "Perception is reality," before ordering in sushi burritos for a working lunch.

Chevrolet
"Please hurry and say truck guy looks like he has a bigger dick. My edamame horchata is waiting."

I'd imagine the life of a truck guy has many problems: Everything you do seems to be at the top of a mountain, there's a lot of dust and/or snow everywhere, your voice is so gravelly that when you speak you attract bullfrogs. But I imagine one of the worst things has to be that people might think you got your truck just to seem like a "truck guy," leasing masculinity for $138 a month.

So, we can only conclude that this ad is not targeted at truck guys. Nor is it targeted at guys who want to think they are truck guys. Rather, it is aimed at guys who admit to themselves they merely want to appear like truck guys. "Chevy Colorado: For the man who thinks, 'What would make me seem masculine?' and then focus-groups it."

Other products this ad would have worked for:

Focus group organizers, motorcycles, Xanax, a pet store that sells dangerous pets.

Aaron Kheifets is an occasionally mustachioed comedian, writer, and director. You are allowed to follow him on Twitter, watch his videos, and look at his website.

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For more commercials that didn't do anyone involved any favors, check out 7 Sports Stars Who Were In Nightmarishly Bad Commercials, and see the worst (and most phallic) McDonald's commercial ever in 6 Inexplicably Terrifying Commercials For Everyday Products.

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