In the world of advertising, grabbing the viewer’s attention is key.
Sure, you could just list off the benefits of whatever you’re selling in a straightforward manner, but is that going to leave an impression?
You want your audience to take notice. You want to keep them thinking about your ad for days and weeks afterward — to infect their brains with a little consumerist parasite that reminds them to cough up their money in pursuit of a false sense of fulfillment. So anything you can do to make your ad stand out from the crowd is a good thing, right?
Well, maybe not anything… Sometimes commercials try so hard to achieve that memorable or viral effect that they veer into strange and disturbing territory. They stop being little tributes to capitalism and become vivid flashes of madness.
These 11 ads took that attention-grabbing ethos to strange and upsetting new heights. Maybe they were hoping for the kind of quirky virality that Old Spice has made iconic. What they got instead was…
Kinder Surprise – Humpty Dumpty
It shouldn’t be hard to sell chocolate to children. And if you make that chocolate into an egg and put a little toy inside, your work is pretty much done. Show some kids having fun and not choking on the little toy, then call it a wrap.
Well, that’s not how Ferrero felt when they made this 1983 ad for Kinder Surprise Eggs that aired in the UK. Rather than let the product speak for itself, they brought in a dead-eyed animatronic Humpty Dumpty to speak in tongues…
Because what kid doesn’t love a giant giddy egg made of human flesh, with human limbs, speaking in gibberish?
Now go buy stuff.
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