5 Hilarious Ways Ads Tried To Make Boring Products Cool
Just because a product isn't exciting doesn't mean it's useless. But it does mean that advertisers have a tough job ahead when it comes time to sell it. Do they acknowledge that their product isn't particularly sexy, and instead focus on the ways it can improve the consumer's life? Or do they surround it with slick special effects and Snoop Dogg, hoping no one will notice? These companies chose the latter, to everyone's benefit.
You Can Control Your Land Rover's Seats From The Sky If You Need To (You Won't)
Land Rover suggests that wealthy people who buy luxury vehicles are much more adventurous than they actually are, so when the time came to let the market know about their new remote seat-folding technology, they did it the only way the know how: by dropping a dude out of the sky.
The commercial takes place at an ambiguous "military testing facility," to cement its association with the macho armed forces types, even though this brand is mostly driven by people whose only combat experience is with various retail employees.
Then Bear Grylls pops up, shouts that it's his job to test Land Rover products "in extreme situations," and manufactures one such (wholly unnecessary) situation.
He's testing Land Rover's new "intelligent seat fold technology," which appears to be a simple smartphone app. It can purportedly reconfigure your Land Rover's seats from anywhere in the world, in case you find yourself so bored on a tropical beach or whatever that you decide to fiddle with your car seats. This could theoretically be demonstrated by using the app from, say, across a large parking lot -- easily the longest distance anyone would practically need to lower their seats. Instead, seven people jump out of the plane while one of them reprograms the seats of their waiting Land Rover to accommodate them.
Finally! Now all those luxury SUV fans who find themselves suddenly making a bunch of friends while hurtling to the ground from 3,000 feet in the air, and decide to go out for hot wings with all of them in the event that they survive the landing, and can't stand to wait five seconds while the seats reconfigure on the ground like a reasonable person, have a car just for them. All none of them.
Related: The 6 Most Overhyped Technologies
Chevrolet Set A Grizzly Bear Loose To Own Ford
In 2015, Chevrolet saw an opportunity to cut down its longtime rival, Ford. They'd just found out the new F-150 would be made with aluminum rather than steel. They could have pointed out that, while crash tests proved the new F-150 to be perfectly safe, aluminum vehicles do cost more to repair. Instead, they released a grizzly bear.
In this commercial, the test subjects (allegedly "real people" and "not actors") are locked in a cement room with two empty cages, one made of aluminum and one made of steel. They do not immediately piss themselves, which is our first clue that they might indeed be actors.
A guy behind a glass wall with a microphone invites them to inspect the cage, and then suddenly announces "Now I'm going to release a 700-pound grizzly bear into the room, so you better pick a cage and get in it."
The "real people," of course, pick the "high-strength" steel cage over the flimsy aluminum one. When the guy with the microphone asks them how they feel about their choice, the captives gush with relief, rather than cursing the mysterious sinister entity trying to murder them with apex predators.
Never mind that there's quite a lot of evidence that the bear is trained and the people in the cages knew what to expect. The steel-built Silverado is then revealed to the ostensibly terrified captives as the only truck for a true manly man (who does not want to be eaten by bears). Just in case that wasn't clear, one of the test subjects -- who, again, is currently trapped in a cage and has just cheated death -- remarks, "That's a manly truck right there, man."
Related: 20 Ways You've Fallen For Marketing Hype
Kraft Crave And Devour: Frozen Food You Eat With Your Wang
Frozen food has three things going for it: It's easy, it's easy, and it's easy. You wouldn't think it would need a hard sell with all those points, but Kraft Canada's Crave line gives you the hardest sell.
According to this commercial, Crave is the hip, cool frozen food brand, here to "grab the frozen food aisle by the snowballs." The spokesman even helpfully mimes this for you, in case the implication was too subtle.
He goes on to inform the viewer that "Crave isn't just 'meat,' it's bacon." He actually does the air quotes, as if to imply that flesh that isn't cured or from a pig somehow doesn't count.
A commercial for another Kraft line of frozen foods, Devour, implies that their food is as good as masturbating -- even to the point of addiction. The uncensored version found on their Twitter page (itself devoted to convincing followers that this is what people eat while watching sports, instead of ordering pizza like a normal person) tells the sad story of a man "addicted to frozen food porn" -- a concept they hopefully invented just now.
Checkers Called Its Burgers "Hi-Performance Human Fuel"
In the 1990s, fast food chain Checkers advertised its burgers not as a regrettable choice that makes you sluggish and pre-diabetic, but as man fuel to rev up your dick-engine. Sure, a lot of pop culture in the 1990s was extreme and radical, but this was a new level. In the (animated) ads, good-looking street racers in muscle cars go to insane lengths to get sweet, sweet Checkers burgers. It's The Fast And The Furious as a cartoon, but all about burgers.
These burgers don't merely feed you; they're "hi-performance human fuel." In one ad, a racer knocks over power lines in the desperate dash to get to Checkers, where an employee scanning the area with binoculars (as fast food workers do) sees her coming and presses a button that looks like it launches missiles. But no, it launches a finely coordinated burger production process. One employee flips a patty, and another skillfully catches it in a bun. They lovingly lay bacon and cheese on the patty while the racer speeds through ditches and jumps over cars to get to them. She drifts to the drive-thru, grabs the burger, eats it, and then watches her "hi-performance human fuel" gauge rise to "full" before she rides into the distance. The message is clear: These are badass burgers for badass people.
Another ad from the same campaign is even more extreme to the max. That same racer sees a rival driving away from Checkers and takes off her sunglasses, which is how you know shit is about to get real. She drives straight at him, forcing him into a game of chicken, which he loses when he flips over into a ditch. She runs to the wreckage of his car, swipes the burger from his still-twitching hand before he breathes his last, and eats it.
Yes, Checkers sank their advertising budget into selling 99-cent chicken sandwiches as the food that might turn you into a murderer.
Related: 5 Famous Ad Campaigns That Actually Hurt Sales
CPA Canada Desperately Wants You To Think It's Cool
Being an accountant might sound boring, but that's only because it is. However, it is important work, and for the type of person who gets excited about spreadsheets and tax forms, it's a good living. There's no shame in that. CPA Canada, however, seems to disagree. In their commercial for ... something, a cool raspy voice lists off a number of things that accountants absolutely do not do while a variety of accountants absolutely do not do them, just to prove how unboring accounting absolutely is not. The logic is ... questionable.
How do you like those human rights and environmental protections you have? Enjoying those, are you? Well, thank accountants. Not scores of politicians, lawyers, and activists. Nope, it was all the guys with the calculators.
The commercial concludes that CPAs influence "every landscape we live in and work in," then challenges the audience to call such mavericks boring.
Support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.
For more, check out Creepiest Commercial For The Most Amazing Product - Cracked Responds:
The first-ever Cracked Podcast LIVE TOUR is coming to a city near (some of) you this spring! Tickets on sale now for Chicago IL (April 11th) and St. Paul MN (April 12th).
Follow us on Facebook. WE'RE THE BEST! HYPE!
