As someone who worked in marketing before, I am well aware of the painful process behind a brilliant ad. From ideation to execution, it takes skill and luck as well. Honestly, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and marketing campaigns often fail to grip their target audience.

Speaking of bad ads, there are many out there that were actually approved and made public. Some turned out unintentionally hilarious , while others crossed the line into weird. The r/AdvertisingFails community has an amusing collection of these ads. We have put together the wildest ones below that will make you laugh or question the marketing manager. Scroll down to check them out!

I can remember a lot of brilliant ads done by Nike. Whether it’s TV commercials or billboards, they effortlessly grab attention, which is exactly what a good ad is supposed to do. They seem to have a really talented marketing team that does a wonderful job connecting with the target audience.

Then there are the really terrible ads that, far from making an impression, annoy people more. In fact, more than eight in 10 U.S. consumers (81%) say they try to ignore and tune out ads, according to a Gartner survey .

So why do some ads become big hits while others are labeled terrible? For instance, let’s look at McDonald’s advert about a boy mourning the loss of his father. They were going for emotional storytelling. 

But they faced massive backlash for trivializing something traumatic. They were accused of trying to make money by using grief to sell food, which didn’t sit right with many customers.

Then there are racist ads that fail immediately. For example, NIVEA’s print ad claimed: “White is Purity.” People extensively criticized it for mirroring historically racist ideas about whiteness as being pure and non-whiteness as being impure. They drew a lot of negative public and media attention for this one, so they ended up withdrawing the whole campaign just 2 days after release.

Some brands also underestimate customer loyalty. Take Jaguar’s rebranding that happened in 2024. To signal its shift to an electric future, the brand introduced a new identity.