I’m a big fan of provocative advertising, in particularly the unusual, the incredibly offensive, or the daring. Striking print ads are my preference: It’s crass modern art with a consumer message, and instead of toiling away in obscure contemporary art installations, advertising creatives make millions for conjuring up the wild, the weird, and the bizarre, and using it to sell a product or assign a message. One of my favorite blogs is Copyranter, ran by a NYC ad copyrwriter who has been digging up the the good, the bad, and the horrid for years. After years of running that blog, this week he finally quit his copy writing gig and made a move over to Buzzfeed, where his finds — and his profanity-fueled rants — can be appreciated by a wider audience. Among his posts, he now has a feature in which he posts a one sexist “Mad Men” era ad per week.
In honor of Copyranter, Mark Duffy, and the return of “Mad Men,” I scoured the Internet and unearthed the 20 Creepiest Print Ads I could find, all designed to give your eyeballs a heavy dose of the creeps. I guarantee you that Don Draper would never come up with anything herein.
