Archive for October 8th, 2008

Creepy advertisements are all around us – they are often confusing, disturbing and altogether ’scratch your head’-worthy.

Thanks to a post from Tornado Marketing about creepy advertisements that she found on http://www.weirdomatic.com/creepy-ads.html, I got to take a look at some of the creepiest advertisements in past decades. By far, the creepiest I saw was the Camel Cigarette ad using an Olympic Athlete as their spokesperson (showing above).

What this proved to me was what I thought all along: The advertising industry hasn’t really changed that much. Advertisements now are just as disturbing and creepy, albeit in different ways, but I don’t see much of a shift in the mentality. Ad creators still focus on creating something that is going to capture attention – and few things capture attention better than the strange and wrong. This is proven by the simple fact that we are still looking at these ads, decades after they were created.

What ad captures your attention the most? Are there any current ads that you think would qualify for this list?