Ugliest part of advertising?

The political ad season is just starting and I think at times it can be one of the ugliest parts of advertising. The ads are personal, slanderous, and can be down right dirty. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like there is an end in sight because these ads have been proven to work. I thought this was an interesting article about a father-in-law who spent millions to develop several attack ads on his son-in-laws opponent for Kentucky governor. http://factcheck.org/2011/10/a-father-in-laws-attack-ads/

BMW Z4 Ad

I had remembered it wrong. I knew the piece had been somewhere you could see it. It was up in Grand Central Terminal for awhile. I saw it while I was living back in New York.

The documentary was aired on Discovery TV.

Advertising Authors I like

Grant McCracken - http://cultureby.com/
and his books; I've listed two here: Culture and Consumption (1990), and Chief Culture Officer (2011)

I also like Bob Garfield, who wrote an influential column in AdAge for quite a long time.

Dr, Pepper Ten

The funny thing here is that they are also supposedly getting tripped up by the FDA rounding rules. If you read through the comments, you'll also notice the problem with their marketing campaign. There is a tremendous amount of bad will being built up against the thrust of their campaign.

The tongue in cheek nature of their ads is offending a lot of people or making them dislike the product simply because the ads are pretty stupid.