Sometimes, "Real Life" Ads Are The Best Ads.
Not ad agency-created, circumstances-created.
This is my full-time job. Please buy a subscription here.
Eight “ads” below.
SPAM
Spiced Rum pre-dinner cocktail, then exotic spiced rum-flavored SPAM meal. WIN-WIN (via my Twitter feed).
BLOCK & QUAYLE (UK)
B&Q is a $4 billion “DIY” home improvement retailer. To paraphrase my old boss: “Do as we say, not as we do” (Via NoContextBrits).
POP-TARTS
What would you do…to keep your children from eating your Pop-Tarts?
In the exact same spirit of “What Would You Do For A Klondike Bar?”, the Driggers (perfect name) of South Carolina, back in 2015, forced their 14-year-old daughter to live in a tent in the woods for a week for eating an “unauthorized” Pop-Tart.
“She couldn’t return (home) for any reason,” Police spokesman Braden Bunch said. “Not to get a drink, not to use the bathroom, nothing.”
AJAX
I, uh, doubt that the Colgate-Palmolive cleaner brand had this in mind, but hey, ya never know (via my Twitter feed).
BARABAS
Drug trafficker greatly increases sales traffic.
In January, 2016, thanks to Sean Penn and the Internet, the world’s largest drug trafficker, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, became the unpaid worldwide spokesmodel for Barabas’ sktechy men’s shirts. Subsequently, the two Iranian brothers who owned two Barabas Los Angeles locations renamed the shirt the “El Chapo”. They probably have a beach house somewhere now.
IKEA
Aussie man pun-ishes girlfriend during IKEA trip.
Simone Gilmore, who had just moved in with his girlfriend Dana, was very prepared for their first romantic IKEA trip. IKEA has made many very good ads over the years, especially the early U.S. work in the 1990s by Deutsch. But this non-ad is easily better than all of them. That’s because it’s real and because it makes you want to go to the store and make-up your own puns. After eight years, it has 28 million views. It’s just a wonderful thing.
WHITE CLAW
This is very recent, and very suspicious. I would not be surprised to find out that this was a man in a bear suit. I mean come on: CLAW is in the name.
OCEAN SPRAY
Lastly, it’s the viral king of real ads, chillin’ skateboarder Nathan Apodaca. Ocean Spray even gave him a truck. They should have given him at least a mil.