Saturday, June 27, 2009

Very Crummy Ads


Hi, I'm Madison Aldwych, and I'm an ad junky. I've been fascinated by advertisements for as long as I can remember, driving my parents crazy by singing every jingle I heard at the supper table. I love ads just about as much as anyone can who doesn't end up becoming an ad professional.

That's right. I'm not an ad exec or illustrator or graphic artist or ad man of any type. I've created a few (very few) print ads for my own business many years ago, and I learned that it's NOT EASY!

Creating really great ads is probably one of the hardest jobs that there is in the business world. They must straddle many lines...memorable but not annoying, striking the right note of humor or poignancy or even outrage, clever and hip without alienating tradition. And most of all, the metaphor or illustration has to relate to the product being sold.

When the metaphor is off, the whole effort comes crashing down. Even if the ad has a great theme song and clever filming. That's mostly what we'll be looking at here at Very Crummy Ads, ads that failed, in my opinion. Sometimes it will be because the metaphor failed, sometimes because the ad is tasteless, and sometimes because it's just too annoying, not funny, not poignant, or otherwise ho-hum.

Hope you enjoy the trip!

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