Thursday

The Devil Wears Unitards


A new religious TV station (Net TV) is calling to stop "good television", a personal message delivered by Satan himself. But don't confuse the adjective "good" with "quality". It's a tough sell when all you're offering in return is programs such as "Dr. Christiane Northrup: Menopause and Beyond" and "Wessels Living History Farm". But at least you can watch "Waiting for God" while you're actually waiting for him.

I guess it's sort of like like watching "Dazed and Confused" while being intoxicated, minus the entertainment.

If you're still interested, you can talk to Satan via the site.

Sunday

Family Values















If you died today, who would take care of your family?:
Grandma? The golden retriever? Your iPhone with 3G?

According to AccuQuote, the correct answer is the almighty dollar. Because thanks to the Internet, kids today practically raise themselves. All they need is a little money and maybe they can do something great, like develop a gambling problem. $500,000 on black please.

Thank you, comforting banner ad. You were just what I needed on a Sunday afternoon. Now excuse me. I'm off to purchase life insurance and then register for sky diving lessons.

Thursday

Stormin' Mormons




What happens when you grease a slippery slope with a little too much KY Jelly? Mormons ransacking your house and sifting through your panty drawer.

This ad for "No" on California's Prop 8 gay marriage ban shows the ugly (overexaggerated) side of what happens when you invite those dudes wearing ties and bike helmets into your home.

By the way, how come ties with bike helmets never caught on in the business world? It can't be long before businessmen begin sporting that "I'm safe, but also professional" look around the office.

Sunday

Medi-Scare


These depressing webisodes from Divided We Fail remind us how crappy our lives are without health insurance. I'm not sure what the call to action is, but they do a great job of convincing immigrants to lose hope in America.

Tuesday

You want a toe?

Today I bring you a scarevertising classic: The toe tag. As Walter from The Big Lebowski once said, "You want a toe!? I'll get you toe!" But I'll get you a toe by 3 o' clock this afternoon...with a toe tag. That's because "toe tagvertising" is one of the most overused visuals in the business. I know I say that about everything, but seriously, just Google "toe tag" and scan the images yourself. It'll toe your mind. (Sorry for that.)














If you look closely here, you'll notice they've forced a fictitious "overweight" yes/no field onto the toe tag. What a cruel world. Even when you're dead, people still label you as "fat".

Monday

Germ Warfare

FACT: Big cartoony germs must scare the hell out of people, because they're used over and over again in household cleaning ads. Lysol's brilliant solution to getting rid of the millions of germs spreading throughout your house is to spray every toilet, doorknob, pen, pencil, and anything that's ever been touched. What they don't tell you could save a hours a day and loads of money by simply washing your hands after you go to the bathroom...you know, like a normal person. But if you want to live like Howard Hughes in his final years, douche your home with Lysol every 15 minutes.

Friday

Man boobs


















If you drink like a man, you might end up looking like...a clown? As you can see here, it really depends on your taste in makeup. The good news is drinkers usually stick together. So if you drink like a man and look like a man, you'll probably have no problem finding an intoxicated man who won't mind bringing home a chick that looks like a man...or maybe even a clown if you're really lucky.

Monday

That's some tasty oil

Word plays can be misleading. In this case, 16 million gallons of oil were "consumed" to make plastic bottles. Ultimately, this ad claims when you're drinking bottled water, you're actually drinking oil. Even though this is a huge stretch of the imagination, don't confuse this message with Dasani water which only tastes like crude oil.

Tuesday

Missing Links

Did you know smoking causes your friends to grow sausage-link arms?
Well, it does...according to the latest campaign from the New Mexico Department of Health. To confuse consumers even more, they've also created a website. This is about as close to "false advertising" as you can get in this business. Well done guys.



The real lesson learned here is if you smoke too much while creating an advertisement, bad things really do happen. And clients have to pay for them.

Friday

Ratting Out NYC

Washington DC recently launched a campaign claiming that NYC has rats the size of house cats because they aren't strict about food and drinks in the subway. New York subway tunnels might have a lot of rats, but I've never heard of anyone say they've seen a rat inside an actual subway car (or even seen a rat the size of a house cat). I would imagine food on the subways is a small contributor to the rat problem. That's an awfully slippery slope DC.

Wednesday

A True Scarevertising Agency

Want to create your own scary campaign? I found this agency called Scare Factory Advertising. Honestly I don't know what they actually do for sure, but it made me laugh and seemed to fit in with this blog. I'm definitely not recommending them by any means.

Saturday

Foul Uni-Ball

Uni-Ball...just the name makes me laugh. Here's probably the first ever scarevertisement for ballpoint pens. Apparently Uni-ball is trying to bring back the identity theft craze that was popular with banks awhile back. I think they missed the train by a few years.

Friday

A Scary Coincidence

Who knew smoking was worse than the biggest terrorist attack of all time? Apparently, a few different anti-smoking groups who released the same exact campaign six months apart. I imagine advertisers will continue leveraging this terrible tragedy in years to come. We'll probably be seeing a lot more twin tower visuals just like this one. Scaring people in an original way must be a tough job. There's only so many iconic tragedies you can use to your advantage.































What about the Nazi's? Surely there's an anti-smoking campaign in there somewhere.

Tuesday

Dirt Napping

Land Transport New Zealand and the NZ Police remind locals that you shouldn't drive while sleeping, nor operate a motorized bed, or something to that extent. When people say "I want to die in my sleep", I don't think this is what they have in mind. Though these ads are hard to take too seriously (because they are pretty funny), they certainly got my attention. In fact, this could be one of my favorite scarevertising campaigns of the year. I just hope I don't have any nightmares tonight that begin with my bed cruising top-down on a beautiful open New Zealand highway.




































The people who brought us Lord of the Rings and Flight of the Conchords have raised the bar once again.

Wednesday

Creatures of a Bad Habit

There's been a surplus of anti-smokeless tobacco ads lately. Though they always come up with interesting tactics to scare kids, the facts don't always add up. One ad says "Chewing tobacco has three times the nicotine of cigarettes. And will kill you just as dead." Not that I support chewing tobacco, but I do know that nicotine is possibly the most harmless chemical found in cigarettes. It's really all the other chemicals that kill. Nicotine is highly addictive, but essentially harmless to tobacco users. We don't get any other statistics to back up their "kill you just as dead" statement, besides the fact all degrees of "dead" are basically the same.













A slightly more effective ad could be "Chewing tobacco has a million times the nicotine of a hand grenade. And will kill you just as dead." Chew on that.

Thursday

Crash of '08

MADD drops another depressing graduation campaign on the class of '08, hoping to keep high school kids out of their parent's liquor cabinet. The line says, "Don't make it a grad to forget." Come to think of it, I don't really remember my graduation and there were no car accidents involved. It was actually a great time so I'd have to disagree with that tagline.













By the way, she proably shouldn't be driving while holding roses and a diploma.

Friday

Debtvertising

Normally I don't consider scare advertising with humor "scarevertising", but this website is so poorly made and unfunny that it's actually scary. "Keep it in your pants" is a nice thought for credit card responsibility, but a not-so-great promotion. The site challenges you to make a PSA about the dangers of "debt disease" (which is a made up sickness), and one of the prizes you win is an ugly shirt that further advertises their cause. So basically you're making an ad for a chance to win an ad you can wear on your chest.














Remember, together we can put an end to made up diseases that have been shamelessly overused in advertising for over five years now. I would've preferred a caveman or ninja concept instead...maybe even Chuck Norris.

Monday

Mac Attack

In what's possibly the first print ad to be designed without Adobe CS, this ad campaign for Mac computer support arranges desktop folders into scary images. Other noteworthy executions include a shark preying on a lone folder and a folder arrangement that looks like a space invaders screen shot. I know a computer crash can ruin your day, but I would've preferred an execution that tries to inject some humor into the situation rather than this depressing visual.













I would love to hear the "Mac Guy" defend this one.

Thursday

Taxi Cab Aggressions

As if taxi drivers weren't scary enough, the latest campaign for American Red Cross further reminds us of their inability to drive at the third grade level. So now I have to worry about a bomb in the subway or bus, and my cab driving off a bridge into the East River. Walking never sounded so good. But I'd still have to worry about a reckless cab running me over.












I can't imagine the guy driving that cab is getting any big tips.
Or passengers.

diePod

Here's a new campaign from Australia (though it's really just the same execution several times) warning music listeners to watch out for cars. The ads are a little confusing because chalk outlines are usually associated with crime scenes. Makes me wonder if the listeners were murdered because they have crappy taste in music.












This also could've been an anti-Kenny G ad.
"Listen to Kenny. Die of boredom."

Friday

Nicotine Foot

Here's some frightening banner ads I found on FoxNews.com, America's scarevertisement headquarters. It was hard to spot them because they were lost in a sea of terrifying headlines and news stories. This whole "smoking makes your body parts fall off" appears to be the new trend in anti-smoking ads. Seems like a stretch to me, but what do I know? In a few months they'll probably come up with a totally new way to scare smokers. I'm looking forward to it.




























Skip Legault might be dying, but he's the poster child for a national ad campaign. I can only hope I'm that famous before I become crippled from smoking, my legs fall off and I bleed to death.
Hang in there Skip. Your 15 minutes aren't over yet.