Infected Tube

Could I sell you a Bridge To Nowhere?

We look at five ads that had to be yanked recently, where they went wrong, and who came out ahead. Read and learn:

First up: What happened: Nike’s ad depicting a b-ball player getting posterized sports an unfortunate tagline to go with the unfortunate image, and plays on a baseline of macho homophobia. The ad is pulled just days after the company feels the awesome power of mildly piqued blog readers.

The lesson: Sports must be slightly more gay-conscious.

Winners: Gays, basketball fans (in the long run), Adidas, which makes cooler shoes.

Losers: Nikes, macho guys, those who will be deprived of this perspective on Hyperdunk technology.
See ad here.

See the rest at Gawker.

THE sponsor of two commercials during Super Bowl XLII for Salesgenie.com, which drew complaints from viewers because of the characters’ ethnic accents, says he is sorry and promises to stop running one of them.

Vinod Gupta, the chairman and chief executive of InfoUSA in Omaha, the parent of Salesgenie.com, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that a commercial featuring two animated pandas speaking with what were intended as Chinese accents would be withdrawn.

“We never thought anyone would be offended,” said Mr. Gupta, who developed and wrote both commercials himself.

“The pandas are Chinese,” he said. “They don’t speak German.”

Still, “if I offended anybody,” Mr. Gupta said, “believe me, I apologize.”

Mr. Gupta said he planned to keep running the other Salesgenie commercial, featuring an animated salesman named Ramesh who speaks with an Indian or other South Asian accent.

The reason, Mr. Gupta said, was that “more people seem upset about the pandas than Ramesh.”

“People have been making fun of my accent for years,” said Mr. Gupta, who described himself in the interview as half-Indian and half-Jewish. “And I love it.”

Will Ferrell Bud Light Commercial - Watch more free videos

A new Pizza Hut ad uses clips from recent presidential debates to tout a new deal. “Are people seeing lower prices now?” the announcer in the ad asks before cutting to a debate segment where Kucinich says: “More people in this country have seen UFOs.”