So Bad Its Good / Advertising

These So Bad, It's Good advertisements can be viewed directly in the comfort of your own home for the low, low price of zero dollars and zero cents!

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Commercials

• Abalon, Abalon, Abalon, 775-8691! This amateurish yet charming commercial for the Abalon Construction Company gained enough notoriety among Winnipeg residents that it became the subject of a local news segment.
• For a collection of everything wrong with advertising, sometimes the ones that are so gloriously wrong they become legendary, the British site Ad Turds is the place to go. Warning: some NSFW language. AdTurds may be found here
• This old A Link To The Past advert. Sure, it's cheesy, but secretly it's rather awesome to see Link and a bunch of monsters have a dance-off, with a bizarre, Japanese rap playing in the background.
• This American ad for the original Legend of Zelda has a Stereotypical Nerd and a weird "cool kid" rapping. It's really rad.
  It's the Legend of Zelda and its really rad! Those creatures from Ganon are pretty bad!
  Kid: Yeah, go Link, yeah, get some!
• A chain of commercials familiar to anyone from Central Florida is for Appliance Direct, which features some of the most enthusiastic and downright bizarre advertising for cleaning and kitchen appliances to be put on the air all from a man who doesn't seem to have a very firm grasp on the English language. Other highlights include a girl doing those ads with him, and the time someone donned an eyepatch or a knee brace for "scratch and dent" commercials.
• Most commercials for the "Auto Connection" dealerships in Southeastern Virginia run on this trope; with many of the ads including low-budget graphics, several appearances by the dealer's mascot, a pit-bull named "Mack-Mack"^note more recent commercials often include a man in a costume and the owner dancing to a generic hip-hop soundtrack in some ads.
• (THE LATE) BILLY MAYS, it's SO GOOD, IT'S GOOD. OXI CLEAN DETERGENT SPOKESMAN. LARGE HAM. YOU DO THE MATH. LIKE HE SAYS IN THIS COMMERCIAL FOR THE DING KING, "YOU GOTTA SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT."
• Bob's Discount Furniture is a major furniture chain with locations throughout the Northeast US, as far south as northern Virginia. Every single one of their commercials, however, is done in the style of a Kitschy Local Commercial. Every single one. And they're far from the only big retail company to do this; Jewelry Exchange has retreaded the same commercial for years, rerecording only the location of the local branch for each market, complete with robotic waving from the staff of one of their stores (which one? no one knows).
• Bob Rohrman, a central Indiana and Chicago area car salesman, quickly became famous for his hilariously cheesy ads, to the point that this trope is often referred to there as "Rohrman Appeal".
• Butler Wills and Estates in the St. John's area has an ad featuring the two lawyers speaking in monotone voices while holding their pet Pomeranian Dr. Evil-style.
• This Carmel taxi service commercial has New Yorkers calling each other "mashugana" for not taking Carmel. The line reads are ridiculous (the second woman speaking from the car sounds like she's reading off a cue card), there's a very poorly edited slow-motion shot with equally awkward audio, and a completely unnecessary rimshot. These all make it a charmingly bad local ad.
• Cal Worthington was a West Coast car dealer with infamously cheesy TV ads. If you see a Hollywood movie or TV show that features a wacky car dealership ad, it's almost a given that the writers had Cal Worthington specifically in mind, and it's not that uncommon to see a clip from one of his actual commercials (probably with the jingle "go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal") in the background.
• Comcho Mitsubishi's ads feature the standard salesman enthusiastically selling his wares, but feature really weird things happen in the background, like a genie hugging himself and then blowing a kiss at the camera.
• This ad for CGU insurance. The concept is so bizarre (a middle-aged British white woman rapping about insuring her store) and the execution so cheesy, between the woman's insufferable smugness all through the ad (apparently oblivious to the fact that she's RAPPING ABOUT HER INSURANCE!), her moronic "dancing" and the "rappified" version of the CGU slogan at the end, that it somehow manages to be awesome.
• Crazy Bruce's Liquors is known for singing old-timey songs like Oh Suzanna and makes it go towards advertising his liquor store.
• Dramatel, the "almost illegal" phone card. It's absolutely ridiculous. And when the girl triumphantly declares, "You been Dramateled, playa!", the look on the guy's face is golden - he actually pulls off his sunglasses and gawks at his phone.
• "I've got something for YOU!" If you lived in the Chicago area in the 90's, you saw this ad for Eagle Insurance. You thought it was the cheapest thing ever. And yet, admit it, you just couldn't hate it. Everything about it, from the ridiculous scenario to the cheap costume to the utter Dull Surprise of the women saying "Wow, look at those low rates!", is wonderful. It has a sequel, too.
• This commercial for East Hills Mall features beatboxing and singing by people who clearly are not trained in either of those things. The result is hilarious awkwardness.
  "Get yourself an outfit!"
• This ad for FarmersOnly.com has terrible voice acting and below-amateur editing. FarmersOnly.com is infamous for their cheesy ads, but this one just has to be Stylistic Suck, right?
• This ad, which Lindsay Lohan did for a clothing company called Fornarina. Lindsay is absolutely robotic, the effects are cheesy, and the whole thing looks like where the Eighties went to die.
• The infamous 80s Freak Phone ad starring Freddie Freaker, a T-posing yellow goblin puppet that awkwardly "dances" (read: jiggles about a bit) in front of a starry background while a cheesy song makes him out to be the next big craze and urges you to call "1900-490-FREAK", all while never explaining what the Freak Phone hotline is and why you should call it. It's so bizarre that it almost feels like some kind of parody ad that you'd see in a movie or TV show.
• The somewhat infamous Frosties Kid advert, where the writers desperately tried to find words rhyming with "great". This leads to lines like "Even ladies who wait, or a pi-rate!" Also worth noting is the ridiculous dance moves at the end, all while the kid starts flying for no reason.
• The General car insurance commercials. With their bad CGI effects, poor blue screen, catchy tunes, narmy actors, and the out of place penguin you can't help but have an odd affinity for the company.
• GO COMPAAAAARE! An old man singing opera on an insurance comparison website. Many, many, many variants have been made, including ones that involve the man being injured in various ways.
• North Carolina pawn shop Gold King has a series of local TV spots that progress in ridiculousness, featuring an 1840s hillbilly gold miner and the lady from the first commercial getting abducted by aliens.
• Oliver Jewellery, a Toronto area Jewellery store has been running bad commercials featuring the store's owner, calling himself "The Cash Man" for years, with gimmicks ranging from covering himself in silver spray paint to randomly breaking out into a horribly auto tuned hip hop video with no warning what so ever. OH YEAH!
• HeadOn: Despite being one of the worst commercials ever made, to this day hearing the phrase "head on" makes many people think "apply directly to the forehead". For context, HeadOn was a placebo, meaning they couldn't legally advertise it as a cure and didn't want to admit what it actually was, leading to a short commercial that simply repeated the product name and what to do with it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of brainwashing.
• Presidential hopeful Herman Cain released an ad where he's endorsed by a random smoker. Virtually overnight, Memetic Mutation kicked in. In light of sexual harassment charges, Herman Cain didn't stay in the race, but he attained the Butt-Monkey status usually reserved for people who reach the presidency.
• Meet Gerrit DeBoer, from the kitschy Idomo commercials. He gets exponentially funnier every time he says "99" with his strange inflections.
• Personal Injury attorney Jamie Casino had already run fairly typical, kitschy local commercials in the past, but achieved a new level of notability when he bought out two minutes of local air-time during the 2014 Super Bowl for a ridiculously over-the-top ad. Looking more like a promo for a second-rate film or low-budget cable show it quickly went viral and achieved national attention.
  • For more over-the-top lawyer advertising, take a look at Bryan Wilson, TEXAS LAW HAWK. His commercials usually include (a) a little-person actor, (b) Wilson crashing through a door/wall like Kool-Aid Man, (c) screeching "hawk" noises, and (d) Wilson corpsing at least once.
• JT Chrysler, a car dealership in South Carolina, parodies Despicable Me as Deal-Tastic Me, with the owner's body hilariously warped into the shape of Gru's. Even among car dealer commercials, this one is really special. It went viral pretty much overnight.
• This commercial for Lanacane anti-itch gel. The rapidly-speeding-up-to-chipmunk voice is ridiculous enough, but then the musical cue hits— and it's one that should be familiar to any Mac user who's toyed with the built-in loops in iMovie.
• The ads for the mobile puzzle game Lily's Garden features infidelity, pregnancy, odd sexual themes, and the titular character going through a soap opera-esque Trauma Conga Line. Absolutely none of it has anything to do with the actual game, other than the characters involved. Naturally, people made them a meme.
• Advertisements for the mobile game Mafia City became memetic in early 2019 due to their low-quality animation, absurd scenarios (mostly involving "Level 1 Crooks" picking up money and instantly turning into "Level 35 Bosses"), and not being anything like the game being advertised.
• Mad Harrys, a chain of discount stores in Northern Territory, Australia, gives us this incredible advert, replete with Deranged Animation and a ridiculously catchy theme sung with an impressively-thick accent!

  I'M JUST MAD ABOUT HARRY, AND HARRY'S MAD ABOUT YOU!"

• The Magic Bullet:
  • They are so amazingly cheesy, with Hazel adding pearls like "Stinking, nasty garlic" in the mix. Is that Nigel Lithgow?
  • The Magic Bullet To Go is also quite the treat if you were a fan of the original. Berman and Hazel hook up. Seriously. That infomercial needs to have a series.
  • It counts as a series with the third installment, the Bullet Express, which adds a crotchety grandma to the mix!
  • Two words. Baby. Bullet. Combine with horrible acting out of Sharknado, and you get the worst baby food commercial ever.
• McDonald's Pakistani advertising department blows. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
  • Specifically, this ad for Sonic Heroes toys. The CGI looks like something a 13-year-old would make on his first time using Blender; Cream is barely recognizable, and Rouge (or "Rogue") is a naked wingless white furry bat!
• The four-minute promo for Michael Jackson's HIStory is one of the best examples of sheer egotism — ever. Also counts as a Dada Ad, as it tells you nothing about the album it's advertising.
• Midwest Hemorrhoid Treatment Center commercials have become a complete joke and Memetic Mutation to the residents of St. Louis and Kansas City, thanks to the narmful Lyrical Dissonance of the jingle: "Midwest Hemorrhoid Treatment Center... don't suffer in silence!" You've got to pity the poor saps who had to compose and sing this.
• This ad for The Money Shop is full of mistimed and/or muggy reactions of people strapped for cash in accidents. AAAUGHH!
• This M&Ms commercial made in Madagascar. The cheap CGI, the chipmunk-like voices, the Off-Model-ness (for starters, Red is sphere-shaped in this commercial, when normally, he's supposed to be a flat circle like a milk chocolate M&M), and if you pause during the scene where Red and Yellow's eyes pop out of their heads, you can see that Red's eye sockets are blank white holes.
• This National Accident Helpline advert has obviously exaggerated sound effects and implies that people would be more worried about claiming compensation for an accident than having a broken leg.
• LeBron James' infamous commercial for Nike's shoes has him pondering what he should do. It's seen as not only narcissistic, but also makes you hate him even more if you don't like him and/or you live in Cleveland. When South Park makes a parody of it, you should know when this trope applies to it.
• This Nutella ad that aired in the United States and Canada. With the labored narrative of "with a hint of cocoa" (Nutella is very chocolaty) and using blatantly obvious transference (don't think about the product, think about putting it on "whole grain toast, or even on whole wheat waffles"), and the three rent-a-kids lined up each eating a single piece of toast with Nutella for breakfast... the saving grace is that Nutella is genuinely delicious, though it leaves you wondering why they didn't go this route, and instead tried very hard to make you not think about the product. But this schizophrenic advertising approach may have actually been justified, as Nutella has historically been very difficult to successfully market and sell in the United States. It's more readily accepted in Europe, where it sells well.
  • It was anyway, until someone sued them for false advertising regarding the nutritional content. Now the advertisement plays in a heavily edited form which more or less admits it only tastes good.
• This book trailer for Perfect Chemistry has actors awkwardly dancing against a green screen and performing an utterly terrible rap. Again, for a book.
• The infamous I'M PLAYING NUT PlayStation Portable commercial. It has bland, jerky, and scary animation, makes fun of racial stereotypes, and contains possibly the dumbest joke and tag line in the history of all mankind. It would probably be forgotten today if it wasn't for the Awesome Series episode where a pissed-off Sony manager curses out and kills the man who came up with the commercial, and a parody in The Stinger of the Ultra Fast Pony episode "For Glorous Mother Equestria!".
• The ads for the Indian antivirus software Protegent are amazingly terrible:
  • "Oops, my system crashed. And I lost all my data.", complete with bad CGI, an overuse of hand movements and flourishes, top-notch monotone pseudo-British voice acting, and the fact that the two characters are literally recolors of Whyatt.
  • This ad for the same product features the same mascot and features some of the most hilariously awful rapping, rhyming, and animation you could ever see or hear, to the point that it (along with the above ad) experienced Memetic Mutation. Two examples of the memes from it include the "saving you from security tension", which features a businessman staring at nothing smiling, and the angry boss scene with the Evil Laugh, which just happens once and never again.
  • There's also their advert for teachers, which demonstrates the ability to monitor other computer's activities on premises. While the advertisement isn't as cheesy as the upper one (albeit with blatant GIS Syndrome abuse), it sinks into this territory when it shows a student who is allegedly watching pornography... which is really just about three pictures of two people kissing each other. The student actually thanks Protegent for "not leading him in the wrong direction", but one could be hard-pressed to find what was so wrong about said images.
• Quiznos' 5 4 3 commercials have cats singing off-key about sandwiches. It's clearly trying to emulate older internet videos, but it's both too professional and too lazy.
• Ring of Honor's merchandise plugs usually lean towards minimalism, this one for Cheeseburger a little less so. It's a compilation of random wrestlers and random people holding the shirt and either saying "cheeseburger" or just yelling.
• The Southern Comfort "ShottaSoCo" commercials. Supposed to be terrible with the CGI, but it can't be denied that the music is catchy and funny in context.
• The launch ads for Splatoon quickly attained Memetic Mutation status for their cheesiness and earworm music. "YOU'RE A KID NOW! YOU'RE A SQUID NOW!"
• This Nintendo Power ad for Star Fox 64. Whether it's the overdone acting, the fact that they gave the Sony and Sega actors an evil laugh, or the parts where they torture a Mario doll there is no doubt this is a bad commercial. But in this case the cheesiness is what makes the ad so awesome.
• The "kids' featurette" for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D is full of cheesy narration more suited for a lighthearted comedy. The trailer was so cheesy that a comment on a Den of Geek post about it parodied the voiceover by talking about what happens in the following films in the style of the trailer:
  "Man, you gotta love the childhood adventures of a future world-murdering psychopath! It's a magical romp following a young pod racer who learns he has the power to kill his friends and loved ones, choking the shit out of people with his force thoughts! Gather around little kiddies and see this young bastard's initial relations with a royal cougar! DON'T YOU GET IT?! Star Wars is fun for the whole family! IT'S A FAMILY MOVIE ABOUT A CHILD-KILLING MANIAC! WEEEEE!!!"
• The Tiddy Bear commercial, which bleeds innuendo that can't possibly be accidental, especially with the narrator constantly reminding the viewer that it's spelled "t-i-d-d-y".
• The 1994 Transformers: Generation 2 toy commercials with their rap songs. Especially the Aerialbots and Combaticons one. A-hem: The Aerialbots are taking their shots!/ Silverbolt's blasting COMBATICONS!/ They can all ch-ch-change/ To be re-arranged/ To form a super robot, SUPERION!/ The Combaticons are WARRING!/ Onslaught is ROARING!/ He is one metamorphing DUDICUS!/ They all combine/ And kick Superion's behind/ As the big, bad, battling BRUTICUS!
• Even though it was clearly cashing in on the 80s rap craze, this particular jingle is still used today, and people in Dallas still get their cars from Trophy Trophy Trophy Nissan!
• The Burger King commercials involved with Twilight (especially the toy commercial for Eclipse) can qualify. There is an ad where a father (who is a middle aged man) is engaging in Ship-to-Ship Combat with his children over whether "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob" is better, while demonstrating with the toy prizes from the meal. Then an old lady sprints by, steals the toys, and screams "Team Jacooooooob!" at the top of her lungs.
• Vince Offer, who stars in the ShamWow towel, the SlapChop food processor, and, Eminem's Recovery commercials. Sets the bar for the most awful (yet endearing) sales pitches on record.
  Vince: You're gonna love my nuts.
  • And the remixed ad, one of the coolest ascended memes.
• "Windowfix", starts with utter narm and poor acting. Then it leads into the most enthusiastic sales pitch about window cleaning, installation and repair ever. Utterly brilliant.
• Steve Ballmer in a promotional video^note not an actual TV commercial, as many have claimed for Windows 1.01. He just hams up the whole commercial with his unnecessary yelling and you got to love what he says in the end when he says the address to purchase one.
  Ballmer: ... except in Nebraska!
  • Then he did another for Windows XP. And he was even louder!
• Speaking of Windows, here's a video guide done for Windows 95 in the style of a sitcom (or a Cyber Sitcom, as they call it), complete with Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry. It features overly stereotypical characters, humorously terrible acting, and cheesy comedy. Hilarious in Hindsight too thanks to Technology Marches On, since they continually act shocked about features that are completely mundane to us these days, like Recycle Bin and shortcuts. It has to be seen to be believed.
• The Wunder Boner would be a great example of Have a Gay Old Time—except that people were already using the term "boner" to mean erection by that time, and if its commercial is any indication, the actors are aware of that fact as they film. Note the chortles of the man's friends after he first reveals his product, and then the comment that "my wife would like that."
• 1-800 CONTACTS might have made one of the most overly hammy advertisements ever. With acting that doesn't chew the scenery as much as it feasts on it, lines like "I have special eyes", and presented like a an ad for a more serious product, it's glorious.
• This ad for a small chain of pizzerias in Pennsylvania features what is presumably a rap, but instead comes off as an incantation. "Makin' da pizza! Makin' da pizza!"
• Don't Copy That Floppy. There is a well-made message about digital piracy in there eventually, but good luck getting past the hilarious Totally Radical dancing and rapping host.
• Goooooo Yaffa! The announcer somehow manages to both over- and under-emote while pitching this incredibly cheap-looking plastic furniture.
• Atari 2600 commercials really were something special. They were probably hammy even at the time, but given how the games have aged they just seem completely unhinged now. Check out this commercial for Ice Hockey with a guy screaming in excitement, or this one for Star Wars where the guy literally blows up because the game was too intense.
• This extended ad for Joust features the game coming to life, complete with Stuff Blowing Up everywhere. What really tips it into comedy gold is the last thirty seconds. where the kid eats an egg and his head morphs into an ostrich's for absolutely no reason.
• This local commercial for Salvage World in Mississippi has the goofy yet extremely catchy tagline "It's a Steal, Not a Deal!" repeated in rap form over and over.
• Many fast-food restaurant chains used incredibly bizarre employee training videos during the late 80's and early 90's. These include the "Wendy's Grill Skill" training video, where a new cook learns how to grill hamburgers from a rapper, and the McDonald's Custodian training video, where a new employee learns to channel a spirit named "McC".
• Souvlaki Hut's (in)famous "Gorilla" ad. The Special Effects Failure here is truly something to behold, as well as just the very awkward timing of the joke that makes it loop back around into hilarious.
• Everyone near Cleveland knows Mark Brown's Norton Furniture ads, with creepy narration that lends to their overall Mind Screw nature.
• This funny commercial for plastic shoes tells you how to solve the extremely annoying problem of constantly being mugged on a slippery sidewalk. Ever so important to remember during the winter.
• This Italian advertisement for a book gained a So Bad, It's Good reputation due to its amateurish direction, poor acting, messy background, creepy Soundtrack Dissonance, and the use of a word ("strategismo") that doesn't even exist. It was followed by similar and equally SBIG advertisements.
• This pitch for lessons in "Speed Seduction" (complete with MST). It's obviously a scam, but the ill-defined claims, bizarre reasoning and methods, and total shamelessness about how Sick and Wrong the product concept is make it a delightful read. It's as if Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force wrote it.
• This political advertisement for the 2009 Los Angeles City Council election is some strange mixture of gangsta rap, pole dancing and communist propaganda, all without telling you just who the hell it's trying to get you to vote for. It makes more sense when you learn it was an Attack Ad; its objective was to encourage viewers not to vote for the candidate depicted in the ad.^note It didn't work. Janice Hahn won re-election with 76% of the vote
• This toe-curling ad is for a game design course at Westwood College. It already has a reputation amongst gamers for its absolute silly way of portraying how designing and creating a game would work, and "Tighten Up the Graphics on Level 3" became a meme on YTMND.
• This ad for a Chia Pet of Barrack Obama's head, which is delivered without a hint of irony despite the silly product. Hearing the line "Your Chia Obama is a symbol of liberty, opportunity, prosperity, and hope." in total deadpan will almost certainly make you crack up.
• This commercial for Sakura-Con 2009 (directed by Vic Mignogna of all people) consisting of stereotypical anime fans at a sushi restaurant:
  "I love anime." "I love Japan period." "J-Rock!" "GIRUGAMESH!"
  "Hey! Sakura-Con ikimaaaaaaaaasu!"
• From the same city that brought you "GIRUGAMESH!", now comes SHAG (Senior Housing Assistance Group), complete with old people badly miming to the jingle.
• This incredibly lame rap ad for Flea Market Montgomery, which rapidly underwent Memetic Mutation.
  "It's just like a mini mall!"
• This ad for Taiyou Con in Mesa, Arizona attempts to parody the Flea Market Montgomery ad by combining the even worse rapping with laughably bad green screen effects, managing to outdo Sakura-Con in laughably bad promotion for an anime convention.
  "Taiyou Con! In Mesa! It's just like a mini-Japan!"
• Parodied(?) by Valley Volkswagen of Staunton, Virginia. Their many ads all have the same theme: an employee who wants to make commercials filled with wacky gimmicks, only to have his boss tell them, "That's not Valley VW."
• Behold, Family Auto Mart! These commercials were a regular sight on late night local TV in Central Florida in the 90s. It hits all the checkmarks of a Kitschy Local Commercial, with an overacting dealer, bad screen wipes, and big flashing numbers on the screen.
• Vern Fonk insurance, operating out of Washington and Oregon. They specialize in high-risk drivers, like those who had a drunk driving arrest, and their ads were glorious Stylistic Suck meets Kitschy Local Commercial, usually mixed with parody of other local ads, public service announcements, or even classic movies (their Back to the Future ad ends with "Marty" getting run over by the Delorean). Sadly, the star of these ads (Robert Thielke, who started as an agent and worked his way up to president of the company) passed away of cancer in 2015.
• The Irish branch of convenience store chain Mace released this advertisement in 2016. It starts off with a woman ordering a sandwich roll from a deli counter before the excitement of everyone causes them to spontaneously spout orange smiley masks, and it just gets weirder (and cheesier) from there, with dolphins with blonde hair, musclebound lungs, and armadillos playing instruments appearing.
• This local used car commercial has the dealer randomly start talking about beans for no reason multiple times.
• Take a look-see at this freak show of a commercial for Yummy Buffet, which uses a Synthetic Voice Actor, of all things, whose narration is written in an overly informal way that comes across as awkward when combined with the Text-To-Speech's robotic tone ("Woo. Is this Beijing duck?" "Would you still have room for some desert?") and strangely sad music (which ends up becoming loud enough to drown out the speech near the end). Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable, Special Effects Failure and Stock Footage ahoy!
• The infamous Grubhub ad with rounded, balloon-y CGI characters dancing awkwardly to celebrate getting food delivered. It looks like what you'd get if you took every lame attempt to be "hip" in every bad animated children's movie of the last decade, tossed them in a pot with every lame attempt to be "cute", and then boiled them all down into a thick, tarlike syrup. Naturally, it's achieved memetic status.
• This baffling commercial for Hoy Trial Lawyers features Scott Hoy rambling about... well, it's not really clear what. Something about car accidents, victim blaming, and video games being the problem.
• This unintentionally hilarious PSA for meth usage has people, including children, saying in a very serious voice statements like, "I'm on meth." and "I'm on it." They mean to say that they're on the problem, but evidently, no one considered how this would actually sound, making everyone sound like they're all methheads. Not surprisingly, it went viral for all the wrong reasons.

Trailers

• The E3 2008 trailer for the unreleased^note Duke Nukem: Critical Mass did eventually launch in 2011 on the Nintendo DS, but the other two games, Chain Reaction and Proving Grounds, never made it to market Duke Nukem Trilogy manages to drag on for almost four minutes despite barely having enough material for even a quick teaser. The entire trailer consists of the logos for the games dramatically flashing onscreen, interspersed with random photos of people wearing gas masks, stock particle effects, and a single still image of Duke that awkwardly slides across the screen in one shot, and has the camera slowly zoom in on his crotch in another. It's repetitive, amateurish, and utterly hilarious.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance had this trailer featuring some incredibly awkward camera angles and Garry's Mod-esque flailing arm movements, leading to several jokes about the characters having strapped GoPros on their weapons.
• The first teaser trailer for Venom was rushed out before any of the effects for the title character were ready, and ended up just as vague and awkward as you'd expect for a trailer about a comic book character that can't actually show the character. Especially ridiculed was a shot intended to be a close-up of Venom emerging out of Brock's face, which without the effects is just Tom Hardy pulling goofy faces in fast motioninvoked. At the same time, the film found itself plagued by a rumor that hardly anything actually happened in it and Brock only bonded with the Venom symbiote in the final 10 minutes, which the teaser made so believable that Hardy himself had to step in and debunk it. Luckily, the following trailers where they actually were able to show the whole reason for the movie's existence were much better-received. Despite the controversy, the film wound up with a huge box office haul.
• Yakuza 4's Story trailer desperately tries to make the game sound Darker and Edgier than it is, with a baritone narrator describing the heroes as ruthless Villain Protagonists who would murder you For the Evulz (they're mostly Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters with a strong aversion to killing). You can tell the narrator was really reaching when he points to them not using umbrellas when it rains as proof of how badass they are. Quoting this trailer has become a meme in the Yakuza fandom due to how poorly it represents the game.

Other

• Cryptoland, particularly its promotional animated short film, is considered to be the pinnacle of this trope in the world of crowdfunding pitches; the 16-minute animation is utterly pompous and sycophantic aggrandizement of the cryptocurrency community all the way through with esoteric crypto in-jokes filling literally every minute of runtime, and yet the presentation is simultaneously a complete parody of itself with how bumbling and pathetic the crypto-obsessed protagonist is, the constant references to being a “con” and literal “pyramid scheme”, the embarrassing delivery of the aforementioned in-jokes, and most of all the absolutely nightmarish trainwreck that is the animation itself. As one might expect, rather than garner any serious interest in the planned crypto island resort, it immediately became a Fountain of Memes dwarfing any of its original intentions.
• Does war-time propaganda count as advertising? If so, the Tiktok videos produced by Kadyrovite Chechens fighting against Ukraine in 2022 would certainly count. Many people in the west, especially on the r/combatfootage subreddit, watched their obviously staged "combat" videos to laugh at their bad acting. The fact they were often geolocated to places nowhere near the actual battle at first made it worse, with jokes about fighting "dangerous road signs" and other inanimate objects rather than any actual combatant. Eventually, the main propaganda unit that produces these videos got ambushed in Severodonetsk.

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