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  • A rusted, bent shopping cart overflowing with pixelated digital icons like shattered red hearts, a broken blue verified checkmark, and smiling emojis, set against a background of a crumbling, post-apocalyptic city street.
    March 5, 2026 The Cranky Creative

    Age of decay: the enshittification of everything

    Am I the only one noticing that everything is turning to crap? Crap ads. Crap

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  • Pringles Super Bowl LX ad "Pringleleo" featuring Sabrina Carpenter; a prime example of modern advertising’s decline into absurdism and celebrity worship.
    February 10, 2026 The Cranky Creative

    Bad ads for bad brains: the mutual dumbing down of ads and audiences

    Is the advertising industry dying because creatives are lazy, or because audiences are too dumb

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  • Nuclear explosion symbolizing the explosive fallout from calling out hypocrisy in the 'bold' ad industry
    January 21, 2026 The Cranky Creative

    The creative farce: why the world’s “boldest” thinkers are actually the biggest cowards

    If your “boldness” requires a permission slip from the HR department, you are not a

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  • Image reminiscent of the final scene from the movie Planet of the Apes in which Charles Heston's astronaut character finds the ruined Statue of Liberty on the beach and realizes that mankind has destroyed itself
    October 26, 2025 The Cranky Creative

    How advertising created a nation of entitled assholes

    It’s over. I’m done. For years, I’ve used The Cranky Creative to vent about the

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  • A collage of virtue-signaling ad campaigns that flopped: Bud Light, Pepsi, Jaguar and more
    August 20, 2025 The Cranky Creative

    Virtue, Inc.: How progressive politics hijacked business and marketing

    Marketing used to be about connection — understanding what people wanted and selling it with

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  • In 1957, researchers experimented to see if subliminal messages could be used to increase sales of popcorn and Coca-Cola
    May 8, 2023 The Cranky Creative

    Subliminal messages in advertising … and Disney cartoons?

    A phallic shadow. The word “SEX” etched in ice. The American public has been bombarded

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  • Today's blog post talks about the top 10 reasons why people hate TV commercials
    February 28, 2023 The Cranky Creative

    The real reasons people hate TV commercials

    Oh, advertisers. It didn’t have to be this way. Once upon a time, consumers might

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  • The Cranky Creative explores where all the white people are in commercials
    January 5, 2022 The Cranky Creative

    What happened to white people in TV commercials?

    If you only watched TV, you might think that white people (including fumbling, bumbling white

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Cutting through the BS, one blog post at a time

peloton wife receives bike as christmas gift
December 6, 2019 The Cranky Creative

Peloton holiday ad triggers snowflake meltdown

This week, the Internet exploded in furor over a holiday ad for the luxury stationary bike company Peloton. Critics mocked and hate-tweeted the ad mercilessly, calling it “sexist,” “mysogynistic,” and

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Thanksgiving table set outside in country
November 28, 2019 The Cranky Creative

The Cranky Creative gives thanks

Happy Thanksgiving, friends and readers! It’s good to count our blessings every once in a while, and today is the perfect day to do so. Here are a few things

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marketing copywriter working at laptop
November 19, 2019 The Cranky Creative

We are copywriters, not typists or order takers

Back in the days when I worked as someone else’s employee, a manager would occasionally ask why I seemed so resistant to making seemingly minor copy changes requested by other

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cranky creative reviews the little caesars tv commercial, can't see the crust
November 12, 2019 The Cranky Creative

This Little Caesars TV commercial is supremely unappetizing

One of the worst TV commercials of 2018 is back on the air. Let’s all point and laugh at Little Caesars’s “Can’t See The Crust,” a deliberate nipple-slip of an

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ad review for the playstation vue tv commercial
October 31, 2019 The Cranky Creative

Ad Review: PS Vue gets it right

Sony’s live TV streaming service, PS Vue, is ending. But don’t blame the ads, because they were great. Let’s see what PS Vue advertising got right that so many ads

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freelance writer writing on a laptop at a coffee shop
October 17, 2019 The Cranky Creative

Survival tips for full-time freelancers

I made my first foray into the freelance world in 2010 while working full-time at a job I hated. Copywriting jobs were few and far between where I lived, and

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cranky ad review dennis quaid for esurance
September 24, 2019 The Cranky Creative

Ad Review: Esurance commercials with Dennis Quaid

Remember Erin, the pink-haired secret agent who starred in the first Esurance TV commercials? Alas, some people liked the character a little too much and the company was forced to

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my favorite advertising quotes from david ogilvy and other advertising men
September 9, 2019 The Cranky Creative

Advertising quotes from the real-life Mad Men

I just finished watching all seven seasons of the hit TV show, “Mad Men,” which takes place in the 1960s at the start of the Golden Age of Advertising. It

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rob placing wedding ring on bride's finger
August 19, 2019 The Cranky Creative

The Cranky Creative ties the knot

I wrote the most important copy of my life in July 2004. I was responding to an online personals ad posted by the woman who is now my wife. We

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the cranky creative reviews liberty mutual's new truth tellers ads including zoltar
July 29, 2019 The Cranky Creative

Liberty Mutual Ad Review: Zoltar, bad actors, and other dumb ideas

Liberty Mutual’s “Truth Tellers” ads are back, and they’re as bizarre and unfunny as ever. Let’s look at the four new car insurance commercials we’ll all be muting with extreme

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three young women trimming bushes in schick hydro silk trimstyle razor tv commercial
July 25, 2019 The Cranky Creative

Ad Review: Schick Hydro Silk TrimStyle “trimming bushes”

Schick’s “trimming the bushes” TV commercial for its Hydro Silk TrimStyle women’s razor debuted in 2015, raising eyebrows and sparking controversy across the ad world. Schick received a fair few

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Posts pagination

«Previous Posts 1 … 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next Posts»

Today’s Top Posts

  • Age of decay: the enshittification of everything
  • Liberty Mutual's branded idiocy: is this the future of advertising?
  • Subliminal messages in advertising ... and Disney cartoons?
  • My short-lived career as a United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier
  • Yes, the Gillette Venus Pubic Hair and Skin razor ad goes (down) there
  • What happened to white people in TV commercials?

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