The advertisement features a representative of the creature or item the product is supposed to wipe out. The Talking Pest will start by bragging about how well things are going for it. Then the product is used. Sometimes the pest is evicted, and bitterly complains as it is leaving. Sometimes it is killed, and viewers get to hear its last scream. Sometimes the Talking Pest is cute. On occasion, it is the basis of merchandising.
The logic behind it is to convince viewers that the various insects and maladies out there are making them miserable not as a by-product of them doing what they naturally do, but rather because they just love to piss people off. See, it brings them joy to munch on your wall studs and give you athlete's foot, so you have buy the advertised product and give 'em their due punishment!* Of course, this can result in Fridge Logic when you realize that showing the graphic death of an insect is more disturbing when the insect is anthropomorphized so much that it has an apparent human intellect and speaking ability.
Contrast Product as Superhero (the advertising Mascot for a product or brand is a Super Hero), the character who usually kills the Talking Pests during the ad. Compare Peeve Goblins (beings that exist to inconvenience people), which may sometimes play a similar role in advertising as well.
Sub-Trope of Parasites Are Evil (parasites, especially parasitoids, portrayed as unambiguously evil) and, sometimes, of Mascot. See also Let's Meet the Meat (food is anthropomorphized; moral dilemmas ensue). Compare and contrast Talking Poo (a piece of poo who can talk and walk).
Examples:
Advertising
- Raid Insecticide Campaign: Ads for the campaign tend to start with a Terrible Trio of cockroaches, mosquitoes, or other insects infiltrating a house or revealing themselves from the cracks or under the furniture. They then have some dialogue lines about how they are going to pester the humans or what great life is to live off of them. Then a Raid tin appears out of nowhere, sprays its contents onto them, and kills 'em dead.
- Digger the dermatophyte, the mascot for Lamisil tablets.
- The Mister Mucus and other green blobs of working-class booger people get expelled out of human lungs in a series of Mucinex ads.
- The stain in Tide's "talking stain" ads.
- Various bacteria in Domestos adverts.
- Louie the Fly: Being the mascot for a brand of pesticide, Louie would brag about how unstoppable he is... that is, until the Mortein comes out. Louie was so popular that he even had his own newspaper comic strip for a while. The 90s era would introduce other insects that would be attacked in Louie's stead instead.
- Nicorette ads feature a green CG imp that represents the Nicorette user's nicotine addiction.
- Burnie: Abdominal Arsonist, the new heartburn mascot for Prilosec OTC.
- Orkin Pest Control ads feature man-sized, realistic-looking insects given the creepiest voices imaginable. "Say, is that real oak?"
- The Domestos toilet cleaner ads feature talking germs that mock the house owner for never getting rid of them until they realize the house owner is using Domestos.
- Advertisements for the Polish sweet yogurt Danio feature a creature named "Little Hunger"—an ugly, squat yellow humanoid who shows up and sneers menacingly at people, only to disappear away when they help themselves to a little Danio.
- In Latin America, Danone used the same character for DanUp and (after Danone forged an alliance with the Argentine dairy company La Serenísima) Yogurísimo Energía Total under the names "Lochudo" and "Pachorra", respectively.
- A swiffer cleaning pad advert put a positive spin on it, by portraying various messes as lonely and lovelorn people for whom getting "picked up" by the product is a good thing for them.
- Xiidra eye drops have the incarnation of inflammation being shrunk down by the titular product.
Literature
- Karius og Baktus: The title characters live the easy life in the mouth of a boy who never brushes his teeth. It's widely used to teach children about the importance of brushing their teeth. Depending on the adaptation and the age of the audience, it can Scare 'Em Straight.
Live-Action TV
- TV Funhouse: It parodies Raid ads by means of an "Attack" insecticide. It takes it to its horrible conclusion—The roaches have a whole human-esque society, loving family relationships, even religion, and yet you're encouraged to inflict horrible, uncaring death upon them.
- The Upside Down Show: In the original concept of the show, the Schmuzzies were this. The pest aspect was pretty much dropped from the final show.
Webcomics
- Awful Hospital:
- Dr. Phage is a giant talking bacteriophage virus with a huge ego and an obsession with tacky bow ties.
- Maggie and Magatha are maggots.
- Staph is a bacterium.
Western Animation
- The Backyardigans: The Wormen in "What's Bugging You".
