I see zero dark funny ads these days. Because y’all all a bunch of panty pussies.

It was a darkly funny spot, still the darkest of the campaign. Everything “Tim” touches turns to Skittles. “Joel” thinks “that’s awesome”. Tim counters: “Is is awesome when you can’t hold your newborn baby boy in your arms?” That morning, Tim killed a man on the bus by shaking his hand. “I guess that’s pretty awesome”. DARK funny shit. 2007. Ad agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day New York

See six more of the funniest, darkest Skittles spots HERE.

The new ads aren’t that dark, but they are entertaining. How entertaining? I got my opinion. What’s yours, Sparky? Share below.

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1. Dostoevsky

“If only youth knew!”

The author wrote this to his Brother when he was in prison and facing execution in Russia. Dude was a Fucking hero.

2. STICK FIGURE HUMOR

So stupid.

3. DAD JOKE OF THE WEEK.

4. FINWATER

5. WAR IS PEACE (Big Brother)

Photo: Thomas Billhardt. Billhardt (RIP 2025) captured the Vietnam War like no other.

6. OCD

Lastly, Oh you think you have OCD? People of a certain age and certain rage remember the torture of land phone chords.

Meanwhile, here’s the winner for Dick-iest Halloween costume ever:

THE HUMAN DICKWAD.

Look at those chin balls and head ”tip”: commitment to the bit, people. This was submitted by an anon reader 20 years ago. He said it was a self-portrait. I used to have very sick readers. I count…

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Get to know copyranter with this photo essay:

Y’all spending big bucks on social media ads are a bunch of Dum-Dums. Suckers, if you will. ZERO proven return on inve$tment, just ebbs and flows of online sound and fury signifying NOTHING (Shakespeare).

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1. KILL BILL (New Zealand)

Start with one of my all-time favorites. OUTSIDE THE BOX. This Kill Bill, Vol.1 installation was erected near a busy Auckland intersection to promote a local channel’s screening of the movie. No Photoshop. Ya got prop blood, prop cars, and a bloody brilliant billboard. From 2008. Ad agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, New Zealand.

OK, to eight more billboards that hit strong and delivered strong sales results.

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I’ve posted several “articles” about Sweater Meat in ads. Time again to curate! Rib Balloons. Calcium Cannons. Chesticles. Magumbos (thank you Krusty The Clown). They’re all here.

OK, to the notable boobie ads.

1. 28th Graphic Arts Biennial (Slovenia)

Billboard erected in the capital city of Ljubljana in 2009. Well, "bi" means "having two," right? And, it certainly is a graphic image. And you art directors/designers gotta love that the logo (lower right) is smaller than the nipples.

To ogle 12 more ta-tas in 11 more ads selling everything from highlighters to Tabasco sauce to PlayStations, buy a subscription.

Related: Salma Hayek sells the TITS out of Campari.

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I should have posted these when I first started ‘stacking (November 2021).

I hate stupid puns except for when they work perfectly. There were many good headlines in this long-running copy-driven “curiously strong” campaign. This was one of the best. All ads, Ad agency: Leo Burnett, Chicago.

See eight more clever, funny, perfect ads—curated from scores from this campaign—below.

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I went to parties about every other night: free hooch, free entertainment, And a bunch of weirdos trying to hawk their “cool” doomed new website. The sites pretty much all died ugly deaths, vanishing into the ether.

APPLE

Now, a quarter into the next Century, and those days are forgotten, as are all the great ads leading up to the fake apocalypse, including this 1999 classic that sold a fuckton of these self-contained Macs. (I had that color).

Join me and be impressed by the creativity of seven more Millennial-ending ads.

this week, $30/year = $1.73 month.

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Put on your Thinking Cat and ponder this incredible opportunity.

CLICK HERE TO SAVE 25%.

—Copyranter

I’ve decided to change the title from “Crap” in an effort to go
viral” with the snooty crowd.

1. DADS

If only all sons/daughters were this caring and creative.

2. LOCAL ADVERTISING 101

No budget? No ad agency? Everybody has the potential to be a good copywriter. Related: Homer takes on—and loses to—Red Barclay and Sir-Loin-Alot (16 pound steak).

3. NYC

Only in NYC will you see sights like this. Conveniently wrapped. Via EV Grieve.

4. MUSK

Ladies, put more Sapphic Elan in your life with new Elon Musk, by Chanel.

5. BIG BROTHER

Big Brother sees everything, reads everything.

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It’s Friday, like you, I hate all advertising, and I’m tired of looking at a hundred+ ads every Fucking week. So, Here it is:

And, if she happens to ask, just delete her ass.

It’s posters for a Bristol AI company called Narwhal Labs, and besides being a slap in the face of every narwhal, it’s a slap in the face of every working woman.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has received at least seven complaints about the campaign.

OK, some quotes:

Kate Bell, assistant general secretary of the Trades Union Congress:

“This deeply sexist advert shows the disturbing vision of the future too many of the people leading tech seem to want to embrace – one where the workers who power the economy are sidelined, with a particular impact on women…”

Rebecca Horne, the head of communications and campaigns at Pregnant Then Screwed

“This advert is misogyny with a marketing budget, a textbook case of sexist labour stereotypes dressed up as ‘innovation’”.

Narwhal Labs spokesperson:

“We understand the strength of feeling our campaign has generated … It was never our intention for the billboards to be perceived as misogynistic or racist, and we take that concern seriously”.

They take it “seriously”. Seriously enough to take down the posters at Bristol airport? Yeah-Nah.

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“With 99% Odor Control, Anything Can Become a Litter Box”.

Cats win. Cats always win. Cats are the reason this idiotic Internet was invented. Above, your designer chair cost £2,000. Your designer Cat literally shits on your overpriced purchase, but! buries it so visitors will still sit on the chic litter-chair, thinking they’re being avant-garde, or something. Might soak through and stain their britches, though.

“Imagine how much shit she could bury in your fancy-ass bag you never use, and you wouldn’t smell it. Shit, she could shit for a month without detection.

Yes even your overpriced luggage could be a cat box. You could take the litter (and your cat) on your foreign trip and sail right through security. I love the logo+”Paris” fashion ad execution. Take off the D of Cat Sand, and it becomes a luxury brand.

Below is one the the most powerful yet beautiful posters I’ve ever seen. Buy a subscription and look on in awe.

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1. BENTLEY

Rich Dude’s got big hands. Many people think this is a real ad. Bentley sure as shit ain’t complaining.

Six more funny, touching, disgusting fake ads below, including a Skittles ad that has to be seen (and swallowed).

you WILL be ENTERTAINED.

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And no V/O. Just nondescript music, and up logo at the end.

I think it means it takes blood (and guts, though no guts are shown in the ad, too bad) to create human advertising.

Well, it’s well shot.

It is…something? Or is it…nothing?

What the bloody Hell did I Watch?

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1. Ayn Rand Writing Ads For Sonic.

“I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose Freewill…”

2. Winning…

Pun Win + @name win.

3. BooHoo…

Window ad at the Boston Marathon has upset tons of crybabies for being disability “tone-deaf”. I say lighten the Fuck up. Nike is sucking up to their core audience: serious runners.

4. “It’s funny cause it’s true”.—Homer Simpson

5. THE HOLY GRAIL.

This is coco-nuts.

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Here’s the first entry.

You’ll laugh (at me), you’ll learn, you’ll love/hate (my industry).

True Mad Man Stories Below.

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1,600 free subscribers just sitting there, ignoring my pleas and cajoles to part with $3.33 a month of your money to be entertained and to be a better writer. #SAD

Why are you here, free subs?

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Earth’s response: “let us know when you idiots are near gone”.

People, generally, are Fucking stupid. Ad people, especially so. Only humans could help kill the planet while promoting trying to help it.

See below:

1. CARDBOARD TREEHUGGERS

2009, by VOTE EARTH, Australia.

Trees are living breathing organism. They even probably talk to each other. Here, they’re probably saying how stupid they feel being hugged by dead trees, maybe even friends and relatives. Ad agency: US, Sydney.

2. JANA Water

2008—A Bottled water company lectures me on evil plastic bags. That’s rich. Plastic bottles are much worse, the most prevalent pollution in the world. And, they make a flip Flipper joke. Dicks.

3. “The world’s first eco-friendly vodka”.

Fan-Fucking-Tastic. 360 Vodka. 2007. The bottle is made from 85% recycled glass while its label is made with 100% post-consumer waste paper. Its tagline was: The Evolution of Vodka™.
The ad also states that the vodka is distilled four times and filtered five times, and that it is "distilled more energy efficiently”.
Bypassing the obvious question—“You pathetic cause exploiters are fucking kidding, right?”—I have a secondary question:

Wouldn't it actually be, eh, more energy efficient to only distill and filter your eco-hooch, say, three times?

4. To read World Water Day mailing, you had to waste water.

2008—March 22nd is WWW. To commemorate it, Green Belgium, through Antwerp ad agency Duval Guillaume, sent out this mailer to the media with a hidden message only readable after running it under water. The translated line: "Without water, knowledge cannot flow." (?) Hey, why let a little thing like preservation stand in the way of a desperate bid for ad awards?

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Here, the claim is the news, it should be the headline. Now: how to visually, effectively, unforgettably imagine that line. You don’t even need to see the product. Gonna def leave a mark on Fatty’s fat, maybe even cut. Ad agency: Loeffler Ketchum Mountjoy.

I have most of the 1990s Communications Arts Advertising Annuals. I recently paged through them again. And I started scanning ads.

It’s another Creative Class with Copyranter. Eight more lessons below.

Buy a subscription and be a better a writer of ads, marketing, PR, whatever Hell business writing you’re doing—It could be better.

Part One here.

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Above, another recent ad from the long-running Snickers campaign that underwhelmed the Hell out of me.

The below ads are “clever”. But are they good. I decided. Now, you decide. Buy a cheap subscription here.

BE SMART NOT CLEVER.

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