Top 5 Most Pretentious Ad Campaigns

America is clearly obsessed with the boys and girls who work on Madison Avenue and spend their days debauching and finding ways to bilk you out of your money. We look at the five most highfalutin over-the-top ad campaigns that the real Mad Men made.

5) Kohler’s Dying Old Lady 

Kohler’s ad campaigns have always highlighted the art-deco designs of their bath and toilet fixtures, framing their products as must-haves for the lairs of the ever-tasteful yuppie generation. But the company soars into a new realm of highfalutin self-regard with a commercial that shows an old woman surrounded by her children in her last minutes, overcome with peace as she tells them that she has experienced everything pleasurable that life has to offer, only to look over through her neighbor’s window to see one of Koher’s new fangled bath tubs in action, she can only muster, “Damn!” as her last words. The commercial fades to the black and white Kohler title screen, as her children wail in sorrow. One can understand that Kohler makes fixtures for the discriminating bathroom user, but can Kohler’s steel and iron amalgamations really lead to spiritual closure? Only time and an expensive bathroom retrofit can tell.

 

4) Lexus’s Christmas to Remember Ad Campaign 

Lexus has found great success with its “Christmas to Remember” ad campaigns that have been with us (the television viewing public) for the past few years, with chummy ads revolving around good looking men who surreptitiously drive their new Lexuses, with a pretty red bow on top, into their driveways to surprise their elated trophy wives. Its entire ad campaign relies on an orgy of yuppie consumerist sentiment, celebrating Christmas as the time for an upper-class family or couple to come together at the thought of gaining a new status symbol to celebrate their wealth. Although in years past, such as ads came off as permissible to those who actually made enough to afford a Lexus as a Christmas gift, but with recent economic turbulence, and the lay offs at brokerage firms and other wealth garnering institutions, it may be the wealthy who grumble at such ads this season. 

3) Any recent Old Navy Ad

Retailing clothes to 15-25 year old women is hard work, to say the least. This especially finicky group of consumers migrates from fashion trend to fashion trend. Making any misstep in product planning is a hazardous and potentially bankruptcy-inducing gaffe. Old Navy seems to catch on to the zeitgeist of today with its new series of ads: look at me! In the age of Facebook and MySpace, glamour shots have been carefully edited to make one look like a Milan fashion show debutante. Old Navy introduced a line of clothing and a new ad campaign to carefully cultivate the notion that any young lady who adorns herself with Old Navy brand clothing will also gain model-like posture, tantalizing looks, and most importantly, self-esteem. Albeit, Old Navy is not alone, similar ads have been launched from rival retailers like JC Penney, Macy’s and many others who try to profit off of America’s youth. 

2) Korean Air Commercial

With the airline industry beset by expensive fuel, and testy consumers, Korean Air appeals to American fliers for their patronage with its commercial. This ad is heavy on slow paced instrumental music, fused with revolving scenes of rather dashing western models doing the elegant things that they are expected to do (especially one woman twirling around in a desert in an avant-garde two piece with a turquoise bow). Words such as, “elegant, understanding, and admired” are interspersed throughout the commercial, without any actual reference to what makes Korean Air so… special. The commercial ends with a docile-looking Korean air hostess placing a plate of gourmet food on some fine linen. Although the commercial ’s presentation is already too pretentious, the ad is hampered by a lack of cohesiveness. In the cutthroat airline industry where every perk and amenity is a deciding factor in ticket sales, Korean Air’s decision to portray itself as a lifestyle airliner may end up costing them bourgeois customers.

 

1) I’m a Mac

Apple’s notable ad campaign showcases how up-and-coming actor Justin Long can effortlessly copy his hip self onto Apple products. PC is portrayed by the older, short and dumpy John Hodgman. While discourse between the calm and collected, Mac and the frenetic petty accusations of the jealous PC are intended to show Mac’s brilliantly engineered software. These ads also lends an air of self-aggrandizement to Mac users. Unfortunately, the ads don’t help the stereotype held within the computing subculture that Apple users are nothing more than technically challenged airheads with money to burn. The type that would surprise spouses with Lexuses on Christmas, furnish their homes with Kohler products, wear Old Navy clothing, or more likely, wear Banana Republic clothing, then fly with Korean Air, while typing away on their glossy new Macs! 

 

-Written by Parag Santhosh