Ads That Fail

A minor thing, but it's irritating the sh*t out of me. I present the following:

The Wells Fargo billboards with the copy, "With you when you have questions." The words they chose to underline? "With you when" Wouldn't the better emphasis be "With you"? We're with you. Regardless. All the time. Always. With you when? I'm not sure - when? Where? Lame.

Next, Kaiser Permanente's billboard promoting fitness/getting outdoors, a nice photo of a trail in the woods with the copy: "Do tread on me" The word they emphasized? - "tread." Not "do," but "tread." Why not "Do tread on me"? Do it! Get off the couch and do it! Or just leave out "do" and make it "Tread on me." Lame.

Then there's the homegrown cable TV ad for a channel that provides info about local road trips. It's a computer animated piece that shows a road winding through a barren landscape, nothing on either side of it, and the road ends at a cartoony sign with the channel info.

So, not only is the "road trip" ad showing you absolutely nothing that might sell you on the idea of a road trip, let alone the idea of tuning into the channel for road trip info, the road DEAD ENDS in that barren landscape. Not at a lovely destination of some sort - beach, amusement park, vista point, mountain lodge or similar - just a barren, empty, wasteland of lame public access cable TV. FAIL.

Finally, the latest BMW ad showing a dufus holding an unlit light bulb in the dark. He's talking about how Americans are so responsible or something, but the bulb is UNLIT and he's standing IN THE DARK.

Not sure what a light bulb has to do with being responsible, except that it is a compact fluorescent bulb he's holding... But wouldn't it have been much more effective, nay, clever, to have the dufus hold a LIT light bulb? Wouldn't that be much more engaging, visually? Hello! Television!

Then, as he's talking about how BMW is committed to helping to lower emissions - I guess they're trying to be environmentally responsible - the room lights up with a million ginormous bulbs that are not CFLs. HILarious. FAIL.

Just wanted to get that off my chest.