This is page 3 of issue 1 of Johnny Turbo, an extremely misguided advertising “campaign” by NEC for their TurboDuo system. In it, implied superhero-esque person Johnny Turbo farts lightning and occasionally battles against the inhuman monsters of “Feka Corporation” and their devious plan to convince the world that the “Feka CD” was the world’s first CD-based game console.
Sardius has uploaded scans of all(?) three issues of Johnny Turbo, with commentary! It is marvelous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grP6QeIjVjU
Here’s a TV spot for Diet Pepsi from 1987 starring Michael J. Fox.
Last month, I made a post about Just For Men’s terrible advertising. I wanted to include a link to this commercial in that post, but I decided not to because I could only find it in that low quality. I’m bringing it up now because it’s thematically similar to this Diet Pepsi ad. The differences that make this ad actually watchable include:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-K71MpwCko
I guess this is how you advertise phones now?
Also, heads up Motorola: I’m not sure this manufacturing process will scale very well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSDghOqVKqY
Never heard of Real Steel until I saw this spot on the boob tube today.
I seriously thought this was a tongue-in-cheek commercial for Rock’em Sock’em Robots or something. Yes, even though that’s obviously Hugh Jackman, until the title card came up at the end, it never crossed my mind that this was an actual movie.
A robot knocks another robot’s block off at 0:09, for goodness’ sake.
The Man, The Can: Recipes Of The Real Chef Boyardee
Did you know that Chef Boyardee was a real person? Yeah, totally a real guy. Here’s All Things Considered:
Unlike the friendly but fictional food faces of Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, Chef Boyardee — that jovial, mustachioed Italian chef — is real. Ettore “Hector” Boiardi (that’s how the family really spells it) founded the company with his brothers in 1928, after the family immigrated to America from Italy.
…
The family settled in Cleveland, where they thought they could open a successful Italian restaurant. “They had a real understanding of food,” Boiardi says. It was a generation of people who “grew up in kitchens, so food was really their education.”
Chef Boiardi’s Restaurant in Cleveland was a success, and customers expressed interest in learning how to make Italian dishes at home. So the Boiardis started sending people home with pasta, sauce and cheese and teaching them how to cook, heat and assemble the dishes themselves.
That’s what got the family thinking: ” ‘What if we started jarring our sauce and selling it? Would it sell?’ ” Boiardi says. “That was really this germ of an idea … that eventually turned into Chef Boyardee.”
He even appeared in television ads. After watching this, I’m now going to put the accent on the second syllable of “Boyardee” and see how long it takes people to figure out what I’m talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh67uyFK-R0
There is no excuse for this.
Saw this commercial for Flex Seal today, featuring some guy doing a Billy Mays impersonation (R.I.P.). I love the absolutely preposterous product demonstration at 0:56: “TO SHOW YOU THE AMAZING SEALING POWER OF FLEX SEAL, WE REPLACED THE BOTTOM OF THIS BOAT WITH A SCREEN DOOR AND COVERED IT IN FLEX SEAL.” Only on TV. <3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z03SEPGC_EA
I can’t remember the last time I saw a Just for Men commercial that wasn’t a train wreck. From horrifying rhyming to unnecessary and questionably-timed action sequences (and what the hell is “live forward” supposed to mean anyway), I have trouble even finding them amusing ironically.
This one here is a good reminder that advertising directed at men can prey on gender stereotypes and instill inadequacy too. It’s definitely rarer than it is for women, but it can and does happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ5MInowp6M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZPXFIOlBT4
Saw this commercial for PLAQUE ATTACK canine dental spray today. I’ve never owned a pet, so I have no interest in investigating the scam this probably is.
But that part at 0:56 got to me. “A professional pet dental cleaning can cost hundreds of dollars and may endanger your pet’s life.”
DON’T TAKE YOUR PET TO A DENTIST, OR IT WILL DIE