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Rude, crude and funny ads: Love ‘em or hate ‘em?

By on February 13, 2009 in advertising, love it or hate it?, videos, word of mouth

We all love to laugh, and when we find something genuinely funny, we love to share it.

But humor is subjective and what’s funny to some is offensive to others.

Case in point: One of the following ads was banned, the other wasn’t.


View this video on YouTube


View this video on YouTube

I’ll admit, crude, sophomoric ads like these are a guilty pleasure for me. They make me laugh out loud, but I’d be embarrassed if my young children saw them. For that matter, I’d be embarrassed if my mom saw them, and I’m over 40.

So do you love or hate ads like these?

And how far is too far?

Comment below to weigh in.

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  • http://www.andrewthorn.com Andrew Thorn

    Hi Patrick,

    I do not think it is responsible marketing to run ads like these. It is such a let down to be watching a family friendly show, only to have r-rated commercials.

    It use to be that we could choose good shows and avoid the bad ones, now even the good shows have bad commercials. Soon there will be nowhere to hide.

    I had an interesting thought the other day. 20 years ago, we would never have seen the garbage that is on TV today and TV was free. Now, we are actually paying to have this garbage delivered to us.

    Isn’t it Ironic?

    Andrew

  • http://www.frugalmarketing.com Shel Horowitz

    Well, I don’t find much humor in passing gas anyway–and neither of the ads sell the product in any meaningful way. The banned one starts to but gets lost in the fart joke.

    When the public ever realizes how much product cost goes into stupid ads that forget the purpose is to create customers and then loyalists, and not to win “cleverness” awards, there will be a backlash much like the ones about banks using their bailout billions for bonuses, or auto industry CEOs flying separate corporate jets (at $20K a pop) to ask for money.

    If advertisers are looking for effective copywriting, they can check out the copywriting chapter in my book Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World

  • Martin

    These aren’t the least bit funny on any level and not because they’re crude. They’re as offensive for being childish and creatively lame as they are for being crude.

    What might make them most irresponsible is they’re selling alcohol with humor clearly aimed at immature teenagers and tweens.

    Garbage creatively and garbage ethically.

  • http://mulally.com chris

    these ads are genuinely funny and im a firm believer in freedom of speech /media/television etc…. i also feel like it is my responsability to censor the things i watch or dont watch or what my kids watch… both these ads made me laugh…although i must admit, i see where martin, shel and andrew are coming from – i am inundated with advertising and other extraneous info every minute of every day and have a hard time concentrating on my work at hand.
    thanks for letting me share…
    -C

  • http://mulally.com chris

    also, i don’t have kids so i am coming from a different perspective

  • http://adverlicio.us adverlicious

    Interesting sample set of television ads, but online ads can be just as “inappropriate” … especially when they’re found on sites/content where you wouldn’t expect them.

    I’m told that many content sites contract out the sale of their remnant ad space to networks peddling, often, crappy ads. If true, this explains why I often see ads for dating services and mortgage refinancing on otherwise highbrow sites like the NYT.

    Case in point … who wants to be surfing with their daughter on a reputable site and stumble upon this “gem”:

    http://adverlicio.us/busted_tees_santas_coming_300x250_nsfw

    And, of course, there’s the infamous American Apparel seeking notoriety amongst parents by advertising on tween and teen sites. Avoid them if possible and complain to the site if you want:

    http://adverlicio.us/american_apparel_american_apparel_300x250_0

    http://adverlicio.us/american_apparel_american_apparel_300x250

    http://adverlicio.us/american_apparel_pleasure_trip_160x600

  • daavid

    frankly, these are not even funny. i know its subjective, but there were some really funny, not embarassing ads shown by Budweiser in the past. these are cheap jokes. i can’t believe that these really works within the target audience.

  • http://www.tvaholic.com Jason the TVaholic

    I must admit that the first one is humorous and that I laughed out loud at the banned one, but the commercials themselves are not what I find funny.

    What is truly funny about these and other ads that play in this arena is the number of times I talk about them with friends and other people, but we can never remember what the product was that was being advertised. You remember the joke, but not the product.

  • Dee

    You are a right miserable lot, the 2nd ad with the horse was hilarious, I hurt myself laughing. Give us more.