- 2 days ago
Some ads never should have seen the light of day, and others simply couldn't withstand the test of time. Join us as we explore the most egregious, tone-deaf, and frankly offensive commercials that have caused outrage, sparked backlash, and made us all collectively cringe. From racial stereotypes to problematic sexualization and insensitive messaging, these marketing misfires are a harsh reminder that some ideas just don't age well.
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00:00Hello, we want you to remember our name, Outpost.com.
00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're talking about the ads that were a bad idea to begin with
00:09and only look worse with the benefit of hindsight.
00:12Can you dance?
00:13Uh, yeah, I can dance. I'm wondering when that's for you.
00:16Why?
00:18Well, I don't want to.
00:20Well, there's a reason.
00:22Yeah?
00:22You always do what you don't want to do?
00:26Real Beauty Campaign, Dove.
00:28This long-running ad series pushed a message of body positivity by featuring ethnically and physically diverse models.
00:35But in 2017, Dove missed big on Facebook.
00:38This was a tone-deaf ad that I felt like it is a four-point representation of colorism in the
00:45world.
00:46The three-second clip showed a black woman changing out of a shirt in a color similar to her skin
00:50tone.
00:51A white woman in a white shirt is revealed in her place,
00:54who also changes shirts to become a woman with another skin tone.
00:57The message tried to be a reminder that all humans are inherently beautiful.
01:01The Facebook ad was really just meant to be something a bit more fun,
01:06a slightly different creative concept.
01:08The message is that we, you know, we're all different and we look different,
01:12but the product is the same and it works on all of us.
01:16But instead, viewers were offended, seeing the ad as racially insensitive at worst and confusing at best.
01:22Outlets such as Gawker and CNN, as well as thousands of commenters, sounded off angrily.
01:27Dove issued a formal apology, but the damage was done.
01:30The 60-year-old company getting more backlash for that explanation.
01:35Movie director Ava DuVernay writing,
01:37You can do better than miss the mark.
01:39Deepens your offense.
01:41Do better here.
01:42Great Jeans, American Eagle.
01:44The idea could have worked.
01:46Using a beautiful person to model Great Jeans seems like a marketing no-brainer.
01:51The timing and execution were just so off-base.
01:54Genes are passed down from parents to offspring,
01:57often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color.
02:05My genes are blue.
02:06In one ad, Sydney Sweeney makes an explicit reference to biological genes,
02:10and that was American Eagle's big mistake.
02:13First off, the pun is no longer clever once you explain it.
02:16Second, referring to a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman as having great genes
02:20instantly made many people think of eugenics,
02:23or at least white supremacy.
02:25I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about that specifically.
02:28I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.
02:35Considering the political climate in the U.S. when this ad was released,
02:39it's amazing that American Eagle didn't anticipate the backlash.
02:42Then again, maybe they planned the whole thing from the start.
02:45Did get a lot of people talking about their genes.
02:48But just so we're clear, this is not me telling you to buy American Eagle jeans.
02:51Sydney Sweeney has very keen.
02:54Tsunami Relief, WWF.
02:56No, we're not talking about the pro-wrestling company.
02:59This controversy is all about the World Wildlife Fund.
03:02These clouds turn into this rain.
03:05This rain falls over this forest.
03:07The ad was made by a Brazilian agency the company worked with
03:10and was meant to be released outside of America.
03:13However, it didn't take too long for U.S. commenters to get wind of it.
03:16The advertisement was created to show the horrific loss of life from a 2004 tsunami.
03:21But that message was lost because the agency chose to use an exaggerated image of the 9-11 attacks
03:26to show how many died in the natural disaster.
03:29Shortly after people saw the ad, WWF said it, quote,
03:33should have never been made.
03:34Using one tragedy to talk about another only ended up upsetting double the amount of people.
03:39Felicia the Goat, Mountain Dew.
03:41Edgy new ad that has Pepsi apologizing right now.
03:44Critics called the online commercial for Mountain Dew racist.
03:47When PepsiCo pulled Tyler, the creator, in to help them promote Mountain Dew,
03:51the unique musician made three bizarre ads where he voiced a goat.
03:55In one of the controversial commercials,
03:57he provides the voice for a violent goat who's in a police lineup.
04:00We then see an injured woman being asked to identify who attacked her.
04:03All right, ma'am, we got them all lined up.
04:05Nail this little sucker.
04:06Come on, which one is he?
04:07Point to him.
04:08As the goat tries to intimidate the woman into staying silent,
04:11it becomes clear that the rest of the police lineup consists of only black men.
04:16The commercial drew flack for making light of violence against women.
04:19Additionally, many felt that the ad was racist because it stereotyped black men as criminals.
04:24It didn't take long before Mountain Dew shelved the ad entirely.
04:27It was all created by a black man who says the storyline is so bizarre,
04:31it was never meant to be taken seriously.
04:34The manly man.
04:35Snickers.
04:36Snickers is well known for ads that push the limits to get a laugh,
04:39but this Super Bowl display may have taken things a little too far.
04:43When their lips accidentally touch while sharing a Snickers,
04:46two mechanics decide they must do something manly.
04:48To, what, reaffirm their heterosexuality, we guess?
04:52Quick, do something manly.
04:54So they rip out a patch of chest hair, but Snickers didn't stop there.
04:58The company's website included several alternate endings to the commercial where the manly actions
05:03increased in stupidity and danger, including drinking motor oil and slamming heads with the
05:08car's hood.
05:08The extra footage also included football players' reactions to the advert, with many expressing
05:13disgust at the men kissing.
05:15After outrage about the ad's homophobia, Snickers agreed to pull it.
05:19Is there room for three on this love boat?
05:23Fly Me, National Airlines.
05:25The Fly Me campaign from National Airlines initially featured its actual female stewardesses smiling
05:31broadly for the camera.
05:36While the picture was innocent on the surface, the suggestive slogan suggested something a
05:40lot more risque was going on.
05:42National Airlines went on to release more varieties of the same ad in print and on TV to pull in
05:47customers.
05:48While some consumers responded positively to the campaign, others protested it.
05:52I'm Cindy.
05:54Fly Me to Miami, Tampa, Orlando.
05:56People felt the suggestive ads encouraged customers to treat stewardesses like potential
06:01romantic partners instead of professionals.
06:04I'm National, Fly Me.
06:08National was far from the only company to use sex to sell a product.
06:12An infamous tipple at tobacco ad featured the slogan, blow in her face and she'll follow
06:16you anywhere.
06:17Willie Horton, George H.W. Bush.
06:20Crime was a hot button issue in the 1988 presidential campaign.
06:23Democrat Michael Dukakis' prison furlough program was a particular target.
06:28Marilyn would not extradite Willie Horton, the man who was furloughed, the murderer, because
06:34they didn't want him to be furloughed again.
06:36And so we have a fundamental difference on this one.
06:38And I think most people know my position on the sanctity of life.
06:42While on furlough through this program, inmate William Horton committed some gruesome crimes,
06:47which eventually landed him back in prison for life.
06:49His wild-looking mugshot was plastered all over people's televisions, alongside a vivid
06:55description of his deeds.
06:56The racial overtones of the commercial couldn't be more obvious.
07:00Including Horton's photo and referring to him as Willie, even though he never went by
07:04that nickname, make it that much more blatant.
07:07I know that you're aware of this mailing from the Maryland Republican Party because it received
07:12a lot of attention over the weekend.
07:13Yes.
07:14In which, is this your pro-family team for 1988?
07:17It's Michael Dukakis and Willie Horton who was on the furlough.
07:20You say that this is a country of fair play.
07:22Do you think that this is fair play?
07:24More than 20 years later, Rick Perry tried to outdo the bigotry of the Horton ad with his
07:29own commercial, complaining about gay people being allowed in the military.
07:32As president, I'll end Obama's war on religion, and I'll fight against liberal attacks on
07:39our religious heritage.
07:40Debbie Spend It Now
07:41Pete Hoekstra
07:42If you thought the Horton ad was racist, wait until you see this one.
07:46You do this kind of attack ad, it's just not right in 18 different ways.
07:51Republican Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra ran the ad in Michigan during the 2012 Super Bowl.
07:56It plays on his opponent's name, Debbie Stabenow, accusing her of weakening the state's
08:00economy and allowing China to steal American jobs.
08:03Even worse, the commercial directed people to a website that used a stereotypical Chinese
08:08font and was covered in Chinese flags.
08:10Your economy get very weak.
08:12Ours get very good.
08:14We take your jobs.
08:16Thank you, Debbie Spend It Now.
08:17Hoekstra denied that the ad was racist, but it was immediately slammed by Chinese-American
08:22advocacy groups, the NAACP, and more.
08:25If it's any consolation, Hoekstra lost that election to Stabenow in a landslide.
08:29His ad certainly has proved to be very divisive, and I think he should be embarrassed.
08:36Why specifically?
08:38I'm just going to leave it at that.
08:39The gift that gives back.
08:41Peloton.
08:41Sometimes an ad misses the mark and costs the company billions.
08:45I'm a little nervous, but excited.
08:46Let's do this.
08:47That's what happened with this Peloton Christmas commercial showing a husband gifting his wife
08:51an exercise bike.
08:52The ad quickly drew criticism for being sexist and dystopian.
08:55Many felt the ad was preaching the outdated concept of staying thin to keep your man,
09:00with some deeming it offensive and dumb.
09:03Meanwhile, Peloton insisted that the ad was about the emotional and mental changes customers
09:07are said to experience after receiving a Peloton.
09:10Either way, the advert didn't have many fans, and Peloton ended up losing around $1.5 billion
09:15over it.
09:16That's one expensive ad.
09:18You're safe here.
09:20To new beginnings.
09:22To new beginnings.
09:24Firing gerbils out of a cannon.
09:26Outpost.
09:27Some commercials are extremely weird in the hopes that they'll make the product stick in
09:31viewers' minds.
09:32Outpost, on the other hand, decided to go for shock value.
09:45The online discount computer retailer released a series of ads in the late 90s that had nothing
09:50to do with computers, but certainly were memorable.
09:53One featured toddlers getting tattooed with the name Outpost.com.
09:57Another saw a high school marching band getting mauled by wolves.
10:00But the one that really got people's go, so to speak, shows a man shooting gerbils out of
10:04a cannon.
10:05People worried that the commercial made light of cruelty to animals, and that kids might
10:09even try to emulate it.
10:10The marketers, however, seemed to know exactly what they were doing.
10:15Fire.
10:18Live for now.
10:19Pepsi.
10:20According to Pepsi, their live for now ad was meant to project a global message of unity,
10:25peace, and understanding.
10:26But after it was released, it only managed to universally convince everyone that the soda
10:31company's new commercial was terrible.
10:40The infamous ad features a group of people marching forward until they encounter a line
10:44of police.
10:45After a tense moment, Kendall Jenner is allowed to broker peace by giving an officer a Pepsi.
10:57The company's push for unity rang hollow because of the blatant and forced product placement.
11:02People also didn't take too kindly to seeing a company commercialize protests in an important
11:07era for social justice.
11:09Years later, the SNL parody has become far more beloved than the loathed commercial itself.
11:14So the whole thing is sort of an homage to the Black Lives Matter movie?
11:17Don't even touch it.
11:19Nothing comes between me and my Calvins.
11:21Calvin Klein.
11:23Sidney Sweeney's Great Jeans campaign wasn't an original idea.
11:26And believe it or not, the 1980 version featuring Brooke Shields is even more disturbing.
11:31So that's what happened to me.
11:33I've been Calvinized.
11:35The ads show Shields contorted in all kinds of positions and include the suggestive headline,
11:40Nothing Comes Between Me and My Calvins.
11:42What made them so controversial?
11:44Shields was only 15 when they were shot.
11:47You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins?
11:50Nothing.
11:50Calvin Klein Jeans sales soared after the campaign, and the brand learned that controversy sells.
11:57In 1995, it released a series of ads featuring young models in what looks like a creepy basement.
12:02The voice of the man behind the camera commenting on their bodies and asking them to take their
12:06clothes off would make anyone's skin crawl.
12:09Are you nervous?
12:11Yeah.
12:14Why?
12:15Because I'm on the spot.
12:18You've been on the spot before.
12:20Not like this.
12:21Talking Pandas.
12:23Sales Genie.
12:23A commercial or ad campaign missing the mark is bad enough.
12:27But this one really didn't need to do any of what it did.
12:30We have no customers, no sales.
12:32We're going out of business.
12:34Sales Genie, a marketing company, ran an ad during the 2008 Super Bowl showing a family
12:38of pandas that spoke in highly stereotypical Asian accents.
12:42Panda Psychic, help!
12:44We need customers!
12:45Tell Ling Ling to get 100 free sales leads at salesgenie.com.
12:49That depiction would be bad enough already for its racial insensitivity.
12:53But the family was also struggling to keep their business, called Ling Ling's Bamboo
12:57Furniture Shack, afloat.
12:59They had stereotypical names, too.
13:01It makes sense that many people didn't respond well to this commercial.
13:04The CEO opted to take it off the air, telling the New York Times at the time, quote,
13:08we never thought anyone would be offended.
13:11Hey, kid!
13:12You want to go see the grizzly bears at the zoo?
13:14For 103 sales leads, go to salesgenie.com!
13:17Sometimes lighter is better.
13:19Heineken.
13:20In 2018, Heineken ran one of those commercials that makes you wonder how many people approved
13:24of it beforehand.
13:27Ah, Heineken, why?
13:31What were you doing?
13:33Here's the scene.
13:34A light-skinned bartender passes a woman a beer, which breezes past other patrons first.
13:39The hang-up was that the woman was white as well, while the people the bottle slid by
13:43were black.
13:43A lower-calorie beer can be a great option, but that has nothing to do with the drink's
13:48color.
13:48Or the color of anything, or anyone else, for that matter.
13:52Oh, also, reggae music was playing in the commercial.
14:04Heineken's odd combination of the tagline and imagery had celebrities talking, with
14:08people like Chance the Rapper calling it out on X at the time.
14:11When an ad's hook implies that light things are better than dark things, it might need
14:15a bit of revision.
14:16I almost wonder if it's really an accident, you know?
14:19Like, all these ads, because you realize with DVRs and streaming, people can just skip commercials
14:23now, right?
14:24The only time we get to see ads is when they show up in the news for being racist.
14:28Ashton Kutcher's dating video, Popchips.
14:30Money creates taste, and I have lots of both.
14:33Okay, go away, James.
14:35This might just be the most cringeworthy thing you've ever seen, not to mention deeply offensive.
14:40When the Popchips commercial aired featuring Ashton Kutcher in brownface as an Indian man
14:44named Raj, many viewers were left to wonder, what was he thinking?
14:49In addition to being the face of the brand, Kutcher was also its president of pop culture.
14:53This means he not only starred in the ad, but also had a hand in its creation and development.
14:57The commercial was eventually pulled after an uproar from the Indian American community,
15:01and we can all be thankful for that.
15:04Your waiting room's like a freak show.
15:07Are we all in the same category?
15:09The new golf, Volkswagen.
15:11If this ad only had one racist element, we might believe it was an oversight.
15:15But there's too much going on here for it to be an accident.
15:18For some reason, this German commercial is set in Argentina, which harbored Nazi officials
15:23after World War II.
15:24Volkswagen was founded by Nazis, by the way.
15:27Volkswagen's roots go back to the 1930s, when Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany at the time,
15:33and the Reich Association of the German Automobile Industry commissioned Ferdinand Porsche to
15:37design a Volkswagen or people's car.
15:40The white woman's hand pushes the black man into a restaurant called Petit Colon, which
15:44translates to Little Colonist.
15:46And as the letters fade in at the end, the first ones we see spell out a racial slur in
15:50German.
15:51If the ad's creators were going for plausible deniability, they missed the mark.
15:56There were Nazis hiding at your luau.
15:58I knew you'd do it.
16:00What do you got for me, cats?
16:01What do you got?
16:01Argentina isn't the only hiding place for Nazis.
16:04Chinese food.
16:05Maggie Fix.
16:06From Nazi overtones to yellowface, Germany seems to be playing racism bingo with its commercials.
16:12Bingo!
16:13How fun!
16:16But I digress.
16:18Where were we?
16:18Yeah.
16:19It's hard to imagine this ad wasn't considered at least a little problematic, even in 1988.
16:24This family finds it hilarious that they're turning Chinese while they eat their prepackaged food.
16:29We have a lot of questions.
16:31Are they going to stay Chinese forever?
16:33If not, how are they going to turn back?
16:35Also, what's up with that weirdly tiny cookbook that the narrator shows off at the end?
16:39And perhaps most importantly, why did the marketers think that this would make people want to buy
16:44Maggie Fix?
16:51It's difficult to believe that car manufacturing giant Hyundai couldn't see how wildly offensive
16:56this ad campaign was as soon as they saw it.
16:59Jim Sheridan called it the most tasteless and sick advert he's ever seen.
17:03The commercial featured a depressed man sitting in a car within a garage.
17:07After a few 10 seconds, it becomes clear that he intends to take his own life by using the car's
17:11exhaust.
17:12But the commercial takes another turn by revealing that he survived,
17:15because the Hyundai ix35 featured 100% water emissions.
17:27The company's decision to use such a serious subject to sell cars was seen as incredibly irresponsible.
17:33After receiving a ton of backlash, the extremely controversial commercial was quickly taken down.
17:38In a statement the company wrote,
17:39It runs counter to our values as a company and as a member of the community.
17:43Hyundai apologizes to those who have been personally impacted by tragedy.
17:47Innocence is sexier than you think.
17:49Love Cosmetics
17:50One of the most infamous company campaigns of the 1970s
17:54revolved around the Baby Soft line of body and bath products for Love Cosmetics.
17:59So Love made Baby Soft with the innocent scent of a cuddly clean baby.
18:04The Innocence is sexier than you think campaign often featured young models or women made to look as youthful as
18:10possible.
18:11Outside of the slogan, the images and poses were often suggestive.
18:15In one commercial, an older woman in the ad suggestively licks a propped lollipop while infantile music plays in the
18:21background.
18:22And there's also narration that continually objectifies her.
18:25So innocent it may well be the sexiest fragrance around.
18:29The model's short outfit, creepy focus on youth, and objectification all made us question how this cringy ad was ever
18:36greenlit.
18:37For your baby for Christmas.
18:39Laundry day.
18:40Kaibiet detergent.
18:46Sometimes an ad makes you wonder, who thought this was a good idea?
18:49This Chinese ad for Kaibiet laundry detergent shows a black man being cleaned in a washing machine until he emerges
18:55as a pale Asian man.
18:59The commercial aired for months in China, but eventually went viral.
19:04Protests about the adverts overt racism spread quickly online until the company was forced to apologize and take the ad
19:10down.
19:11They said it was not intended to be discriminatory, and they hoped people would not read too much into its
19:16content.
19:16Well, it was definitely too late for that.
19:19Do you think the reactions to any of these ads were overblown?
19:22Which one shocked you the most?
19:24Let us know in the comments below.
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