Basic Trope: Advertisements that threaten.
- Straight: An ad for Crunchy Nut Cereal says their mascot will eat you if you don't buy the cereal.
- Exaggerated:
- Crunchy Nut Cereal's slogan is "Buy or die".
- After Bob doesn't buy Crunchy Nut Cereal, the company hires an assassin dressed as the mascot to actually kill and eat him.
- Downplayed: The ad says that you'll be a little bit put out if you don't buy the cereal.
- Justified:
- The Crunchy Nut Guy is portrayed as being creepily obsessed with his namesake product.
- The product itself (i.e. a Nintendo Hard game) is themed around masochism: the advertising serves to temper potential buyers' expectations.
- It's a PSA that doesn't pull its punches regarding consequences.
- Inverted:
- They want to get rid of extra money, so they make an anti-ad that says "Don't buy from us or else the Crunchy Nut Guy will eat you."
- An ad for Crunchy Nut Cereal begs you to buy it so the mascot can afford to feed his sad-looking puppy.
- "Buy our cereal, and we'll give you a pat on the head!"
- The advertisement is a Dark Parody of "mascot goes full Wile E. Coyote trying to get a product" (ex. the Trix Rabbit) where the customers refuse to buy the cereal to the point they abuse Crunchy Nut Guy.
- Subverted: The ad says "If you don't buy our cereal, the Crunchy Nut Guy will eat ya... not really."
- Double Subverted: "His hungry pet wolf will instead!"
- Parodied:
- Even the Crunchy Nut Guy reacts uncomfortably to the threats coming from his own ad: "Yeah, I'll eat y-what did you say again!?"
- "We know where you live, Rosalie Carter of Portsmith, and if you don't... what? This isn't Rosalie? Darn. Just... just buy our cereal, before we figure out who you are too!"
- Zig Zagged: "If you don't buy our cereal, the Crunchy Nut Guy will eat ya... not really... but his hungry pet wolf will!... unless we feed him first... which we won't!... but someone else might... oh, why not buy our cereal just in case."
- Averted: The ad doesn't threaten.
- Enforced:
- The producers think scaring people into buying their products - even if it's only in jest - will make people gravitate towards buying their products.
- The creator was had a breakdown while the advertisement was being made.
- Lampshaded: "Wow, I didn't know buying products meant the difference between life and death!"
- Invoked: The ad's designer makes the Crunchy Nut Guy look threatening to invoke this trope.
- Exploited: Captain Wheat Cereal advertisement then goes "why buy from people who want to hurt you? Sure, we want you to buy from us, but we swear we'll never stoop that low."
- Defied: "I'm sorry. We are not supposed to be scaring off our potential customers! Could you please remake that?"
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Y'know how some ads seem to threaten you, even with death, if you don't buy their products?"
- Implied: An ad shows a picture of a skeleton holding a sign saying "I didn't buy Crunchy Nut Cereal.
- Deconstructed:
- Although they know ads are nonsense, everyone becomes slightly, or even subconsciously, afraid of the Crunchy Nut Guy, causing a drop in sales.
- Moral Guardians get outraged by the Crunchy Nut Guy advertisement and the brutal things Crunchy Nut Guy does or threatens to do (like put a gun to a little dog's face). The ad campaign is cancelled and the cereal becomes infamous.
- Reconstructed:
- Everyone in the town is The Ditz, so they think there is nothing to worry about as long as they actually buy the cereal.
- The Crunchy Nut Guy achieves So Bad, It's Good Status, and ads become increasingly meta, increasing sales in the end.
- No Such Thing as Bad Publicity and the Streisand Effect: the Crunchy Nut Guy cereal gets an increase in sales anyway by (accidentally) becoming a "forbidden fruit".
- Played for Laughs: "If you don't buy our cereal, you will be banished to... Jelly World!"
- Played for Drama: "If you don't buy our cereal, you and all your family and friends will vanish into oblivion!!"
- Played For Horror: That advertisement that aired on TV a week ago about how Crunchy Nut Cereal employees will visit your home and make your entire family suffer if you don't buy their products, brother, that was Not Hyperbole. The first family they massacred just made the morning news today. And you may be next...
Here's a fresh link back to Abusive Advertising! Click now, or it'll eat you!
