I got some grief from somebody last week because I complain about crappy advertising being shoved in our faces so much these days.  His point was that, there are many ways to avoid advertising, like the fast forward button on the DVR or using my iPod instead of listing to live radio.

Then I said, “what about outdoor?” and he had nothing.  Of course he had nothing. Beside the fact that he was an idiot for bringing it up in the first place, no matter what, you just can’t ignore bad outdoor advertising unless you’re going to go Unibomber yourself up somewhere.

Here’s a great example of what I’m talking about:

I ran into this sucker as I was walking to breakfast this past weekend, plus they are littered all over North Hollywood (I think Burbank must have some heavy rules on billboards because I only see a few around town).

The “NEW Twin Pack” you can let slide because it’s really what they need to talk about here, it’s a new size and, um, grouping of the sweet, syrupy stuff.  Plus, having the fact that it’s “two 50 oz bottles” can’t hurt since you need to show off how big these suckers are to really drive home what you’re buying.

Where I run into some trouble is the “Enough for your meal” part, right there in the middle of the damn sign.  Whose meal are we talking about here?  Not mine. Hell, probably not even K-Fed drinks that much of the shit when he’s putting away the buckets of KFC.

Folks, two 50 ounce bottles is 100 ounces… for those of you that didn’t make it out of grade school, that’s over eight regular sized sodas. The picture on the package has a family of four sitting down at dinner and two of those family members are kids… KIDS!  Look, raise your little demons the way you want, but if you’re forcing two bottles of caffeine and sugar water down their throats at dinner time, then you deserve the fact that they never go to bed before 2 AM.

And how about that stunning layout, huh?  Did they put that together on their copy of Print Shop Pro on their Commodore 64?  Simply beautiful.  I love their use of, um, bold.  Must have worked for like an hour on this.

What really amazes me is that this is a co-op ad between Coca-Cola and Ralphs supermarkets.  That means at least two people, nay, two big ass companies had to approve this thing before it went to press. I can just imagine that when someone from Coca-Cola corporate is in town visiting his kids for the holidays and they look up to see this piece of crap outdoor, they just quietly say to themselves, “what is this shit?”  Because they know that, despite all their many memos, brand usage guides, and decades of examples of fine advertising, some idiot still thinks this is an acceptable thing to do with one of the oldest and most well-respected brands in the world.

Then he probably uses it as an example to his grandchildren on why they need to finish college.

J.

Related posts you might enjoy:

1. Coca-Cola condones international violence at the Olympics! (not really)
2. UltraTouch’s mobile outdoor is all about the classics, and warm buns
3. Great review of “real” ad campaigns by Ad Age, crappy headline