The Worst Ad Campaign Of The 2019 Season
Every year there are at least a few ad campaigns that are immediately irritating and played out by week 2. It is one of the obnoxious traditions of football that has only gotten worse as we’ve gotten more ad time. Usually by this point in a season the worst of the worst have truly separated themselves. This year? The champ. is here. Bum dada bum bum bum!
So far this one particular ad for NFL shop.com has been the bane of my existence. I think the reason it is the one I hate the most is simply due to how intrusive the audio is. Most commercials, even the ones I hate (like STATE FARM AGENT ADS UGH) I can kind of tune out while talking to people near me or by working when I’m by myself. But the NFL shop ads have decided to use a song that DEMANDS YOUR EARS. No matter where you are, if you are within earshot of a game, you’ll hear those fucking drums kick in and it will disrupt your thought process. DA CHAMP IS HEER!
What’s worse is that it ruins a pretty decent song, and I say this as a guy who doesn’t listen to rap at all (I like my music slower, atmospheric, and devoid of singing). I didn’t know what song this was before this year and when I looked it up to link it I was surprised to find out I actually like it. It works pretty well in context. It’s a quality pump you up bragging jam, and I’m told Jon Jones in the UFC comes out to it. Now that’s the kind of context a song like this is meant for. Not selling me t-shirts using a short irritating loop sample of the song.
So fuck these ads. But they aren’t the only ones this year that suck, and part of the reason I wanted to make this comic (besides taking the opportunity to bitch about it) was that this ad has made me think of all the terrible commercials we get, this year and beyond. I want to make a bracket of the worst of the worst ad campaigns, and I want you to do the initial nominations. So let’s do two brackets – The worst 2019 season ad campaigns, and the worst of all time.
In the comments, or on twitter/fb whatever, nominate a pick for both categories. If you see someone has nominated one already, try to give me a different one. We aren’t choosing the worst yet, just trying to name as many as humanly possible, to see if I can make a decent sized bracket.
I’ll start with a few nominations myself.
2019 – THE CHAMP IS HERE NFL shop
All Time – Saved By Zeeeeeeeeeero
Give me the ad campaigns you hate the most!
5 more comics till you hit 1000 posts. Congrats Dave!
What are your thoughts on the Thurday night football ads with the fans from the opposing teams trash talking each other?
I personally find those to be extremely obnoxious and cringy
RODGERS…DISCOUNT DOUBLE CHECK (I hate that man, and his whiny voice gets stuck in my head for days)
Alternate for 2019 – ***ASMR NOISES*** Free Phone Football ***
I don’t even recognize this ad. I wonder if perhaps I’m just that deaf or what. Anyhow… Saved by zero drove me nuts for a while and so did that up on the housetop reindeer pause one with pimplemoose or whatever that band was did, too. And of course anything Fanduel goes without saying.
Bruh i laughed so hard at this
“And that’s how my Vikings family became a Vikings, Bengals, Eagles, Steelers, Cowboys family.”
this! THIS! it’s extremely “who the fuck ARE these people?” wellp, livin’ in Cincinnati, guess we have no choice to buy bengals onesies for our infants.
Those people need to be drawn and quartered.
So you’ve met my new mahomie, Patrick Mahomes? State Farm’s were at first pretty funny. But the dream one is just as creepy a Joe Buck.
For the longest time I thought it was “The Pimp is Here”. I still can’t hear “champ” at all…
Worst ad: I hate the teenage girl yelling “Daaaad!” repeatedly at her dad as he’s trying to mow until he finally caves and builds her a pool to shut her up.
Evidently I’m not the only one, as they recut it this year to make the girl somewhat less annoying.
I take back my earlier comment based on the last TV commercial break.
The ads I HATE HATE HATE right now are the christmas jingles in freakin’ EARLY NOVEMBER
Liberty Mutual ads
The very fact that upon reading this I heard the word liberty in my head, pronounced increasingly more silly like, forces me to agree.
So here’s a story: I heard a radio ad that involved the emu they’re using, and it occurred to me that the ad relied entirely on you having seen one of their emu ads. Without it, you’d be wonder “what? What does an emu have to do with anything?” They didn’t mention the LiMu emu (which is stupid, and I say that as somebody who thinks emus are pretty darn cool), it was just “hey! emu! in our ad! remember our other ads with that emu?”
That struck me as pretty stupid. I mean, if you know what the emu is, you probably weren’t convinced by the ad where you saw it; if you don’t, you’re wondering what the hell flightless birds have to do with insurance. Either way it’s a poor structure for an ad. (Also the ad campaign is stupid, but even if you ignore that, the ad relies on you having seen their ads that actually explain the point of the emu before.)
LiMu Emu & Doug do my head in. I’m getting my NFL fix via TuneIn right now, and that’s one of the regular ads they keep running. No video at all. Despite the fact the premise is a dumb one-joke thing, Doug’s an idiot, and the bird’s name should be pronounced to rhyme with Lemieux. You don’t say Leeberty Mootual. Not unless you’re Laura Bailey channelling Jester the tiefling cleric on Critical Role.
Anyway, Farmers has the best sting by far. (Bum, ba-dum bum bum bum bum.)
Those peyton manning
Chicken parm you taste so good ads were so goddamn irritating.
Same goes for the daily fantasy ads
I liked the chicken parm ad, but I also really like chicken parm.
2019-Mahomes and auto
All Time-Peyton Manning Papa Johns
It’s between this one and the “FREE PHONE FOOTBALL” one for most obnoxious, asinine, make me never buy your product commercials out there this year.
to ad a note of positivity I really liked the #laundrynight ads. they were fresh and told a funny little story
Dave I thought you decided the constant bombardment of DraftKings and FanDuel in 2015 was worse than saved by zero. Did you have a change of heart?
Also, these Thursday night football promo commercials that follow the pattern of “Two extremely cringeworthy people that purport to be fans of the team they’re representing talk smack on each other” should be pretty mundane in theory, but they’re so forced it seems more like that one drunk at every college football game that clearly doesn’t know shit about the sport or the team even but talks a bunch just to be heard is arguing. I’ve hated every single one of those.
A few years removed from DraftKings/Fanduel and I think both are equally awful for different reasons. Saved By Zero might be the worst earworm jingle ever put to screen, but the problem with DraftDuel/Fankings was just the sheer overload frequency of them, sometimes multiple ads every break
All time – cruncha muncha cruncha muncha Fritos on my sub – Subway
This year – progressive people walking out of the corn
I never thought Dave would put John Cena in this comic.
2019 – The State Farm ads with Aaron Rodgers’ “agent”. I know those started last year and they were terrible then too, but they’re the current example of that irritating advertising technique that insurers love to use. The one where they zero in on a joke from a previous ad that didn’t work and build an entire ad campaign around that. Presumable just to be dicks. (see also: Flo and that GODDAMN PIG)
All Time – “Dr. Pepper 10: It’s not for womAN!”
All time – the ‘Vikings, Bengals, Eagles, Steelers, Cowboys Family’ NFL Shop ad. I just looked it up on YouTube to make sure I got the teams right, and my hatred grew even more for these people as I watched it
That ad actually doesn’t really annoy me that much, but that’s because I belong to one of those split families; my parents are both Steelers fans (from western Pennsylvania), I’m a Broncos fan (grew up in Colorado), my wife’s a Seahawks fan (Vancouver native), and we currently live in Florida, so having kids who are Jags fans or Bucs fans isn’t out of the question.
It’s a Browns family with a Steelers daughter, not a Steelers family, unless you’re talking about a different ad in the campaign.
There may have been several of those commercials, I don’t remember. This is specifically the one I was referencing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4KUuqGirg4
I was thinking of this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8jHwZwb8Bo
Vikings are my team, so I was biased against the premise from the beginning. The sheer frequency of play made it even worse.
Ah, the DVR. Pause live TV. F off for a few minutes or an hour. Resume. FF thru ads. Haven’t watched an ad in years. Sheer heaven. I watch a game or two every weekend and don’t even recognize this ad.
The car commercial where they bring people to a giant warehouse in the middle of know where and they act surprised that they are being shown cars. Also the Lexus commercials where people are living in $10 million dollar homes but are asking Santa to bring them a $40K Lexus.
It’s obviously “what’s a computer” angering people the ad wasnt targeted against AND those who were.
The bombardment of John Mellencamp’s “This Is Our Country” in 2006, 2007 or so is up there with saved by zero
I cannot stand the State Farm agent rivalry ads. They started out stupid and have gotten worse with every iteration.
If we can count ad campaigns run during baseball then I would toss the Budweiser commercial with Charlize Theron featuring Run DMCs Tricky in the ring. I never want to hear Tricky ever again.
I guess I’m lucky(?), whichever tiny version of me is in charge of my memory pulled a Roger Goodell and burned all the ‘bad ad’ tapes. I am angered by them every year, but for the life of me, I can’t remember any of them once the season is over. I’m gonna chalk that up as an evolutionary adaptation and praise Jeebus.
I’m with you on this one. I’m sure I’ve seen a lot of horrendous ads but I can’t think of a single one of them at the moment that hasn’t already been said.
Saved by zero seems to have come up a lot. I had to google it, and I am confident that one never made it to Canada.
A few that I can remember:
– you dont OWWNNNNNN me Toyota Camry commercial
– Anything Chevrolet is involved in, the mere mention of “JD Power” makes me want to Jovan Belcher myself outside of their headquarters
– Puppymonkeybaby (just an all-time stinker)
– Those cringy TNF trash-talk commercials where actors in team t-shirts would dramatically talk uninformed and toothless smack to each other
The Champ is Here is bad, but it’s not as bad as the family from a few years ago who switched team allegiances based on sandwiches, location, marriage, meeting Emmit Smith, etc.
This season, the people being way too happy to be getting a free medium pizza from Domino’s holds a special place in my heart for most annoying. Your order was wrong? Next time don’t order from fucking Domino’s.
Denis Leary yelling at us about trucks seemingly every commercial break gets my vote for worst all time.
I know there’s the argument that the ads are working because we can remember them, but fuck that.
my son had a roethelisburgerand an iron city in pittsburg on a layover, now he’s a stellers fan for life!
Surprised I haven’t seen the all time worst mentioned here. HEAD ON. APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD. HEAD ON. APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD. HEAD ON. APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD. HEAD ON. APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD.
Every single time that piece of crap aired it was twice the volume of the show. I know people who legitimately got migraines from it. One dude would run out of the room if he couldn’t find the remote to hit mute quick enough.
I actually find the state farm commercials this year kinda funny, better than previous years state farm commercials.
But everyone seems to have forgotten the ridiculous fan duel/draft kings campaign of yesteryear. It was so bad the outrage actually changed laws. That’s gotta be up there for worst all time.
All Time: We are Farmers! Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun!
Anything now with Flo and/or Jamie from Progressive
2019: Probably the annoying Amazon AR, “So it’s your friend’s birthday” or Google Pixel “Look she’s walking” YouTube ads.
Actually those stupid Peyton Manning and Brad Paisley nationwide commercials too
Oh God, so much yes to this!
The sad part is they’re probably the least annoying of this year’s stable of insurance ads.
For fun: mute the TV during the commercials and sing ‘the champ is here’ (slapping the coffee table or beat boxing for the drums) as loudly as you can. Over EVERY commercial. It’s pretty fun, or at least drunk me thought so last sunday. My wife enjoyed it somewhat less.
On the flip side, I like the Farmer’s ads that show crazy situations that were covered. Of course that may be because I own one of the houses featured (the one where the dog grabbed the pizza off the stove and set the house on fire). You also can’t beat Mayhem. He’s awesome, and Allstate has a winner with him.
Also, another awful ad is the one with Gordon Ramsey giving out samples at some warehouse store. The enduring impression I get from it is 2 white people yelling at some black dude.
Going the other way with it, but I love the Ram Trucks ads with Stone Temple Pilots “Interstate Love Song” blares at the end.
It’s gotta be Free Phone Football with the parents of two babies. I don’t know if my brain registers when two people alternate talking so quickly or if it’s the repetition, but I don’t care what product they’re offering. I’ll never engage with it out of principle.
There’s also a Sprint iPhone ad that features a really obnoxious song that has a lot of yelling. I can’t find it, but it bothers me every time it plays.
Also the pimping out of Verizon’s complimentary coverage for firefighters following the negative press for throttling from last year’s California wildfires. That’s less a nuisance and more a piece-of-shit corporate move that deserves scorn and derision.
This is more of a radio commercial, and possibly just one limited to parts of the Northeast, but if you’ve never heard “1-877-KARS FOR KIDZ DONATE YOUR KAR TODAY”, I’m envious of you.
^^^^ this
Verizon got me into the NFL Combine, they don’t even sell tickets to this thing
john teti’s block and tackle is back on avclub, and he has a recurring feature where he discusses ads with a advertising pro. kinda interesting, and it gets into why companies make ads they themselves know to be annoying.
The “Kidz Bop” commercials were godawful. But the absolute worst commercials were the in the arms of an angel sarah mclachlan animal cruelty ads. How dare you make me feel things. I don’t want to be sad all the time.
True fact we used those ads to make us cry in theatre.
Can I nominate a theme?
The goddamn gulping commercials like the Pepsi one with Ron Rivera last year and the Crown Royal water break. Like what add exec is pitching this idea. “You know what people love? Listening to other people’s insides while they drink!” Why are there so many?
No-o one can stop
Me when I taste that feeling
Nothing can ever bring me
Da-a-a-own.
Possibly the worst refrain ever written.
I swear it says ‘The chimp is here!’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj-7mkS0uV4