Super Bowl 2013: 15 Worst Super Bowl Commercials of All-Time
By Josh Hill
10. SoBe – SoBe Life Water Dance (2009)
SoBe tried to bust out the dancing lizard routine with Naomi Campbell as the spokesperson. Then, when the company realized Campbell was crazy, they replaced her in 2009’s Super Bowl ad with animated characters and real-life NFL players.
The result: we begged to have Naomi back.
The ad makes no sense, it doesn’t at all feel like a Super Bowl commercial and it makes you never ever want to try something that a monster, and alien a crazy lizard and a fat white guy are dancing about.
9. Burger King – Where’s Herb? (1986)
The initial ad made no sense whatsoever, as various people from Herb’s life were interviewed and basically made fun of Herb for being a dork. To this day, the ‘Find Herb’ campaign remains one of the lamest and least successful campaigns ever run by a major United State corporation.
We still don’t know where the hell Herb is and still nobody cares one bit.
8. Dirt Devil – A Dead Fred Astaire Sells Out to Sell Dirt Devils (1997)
[RELATED: 15 Best Super Bowl Commercials of All-Time]
Here’s the ting though: Astaire had been dead for over ten years when this ad aired, so a dead guy dancing with a vacuum isn’t the best way to get housewives to head out and get a cleaning product. While some die-hard Astaire fans still loathe the existence of Dirt Devil to this day, the ad campaign continued for much of 1997 despite it’s mild reception.
7. Noxzema – Joe Namath Enjoys Cream on His Face (1973)
It’s 1973 and an ad executive approaches you with the premise of putting you in a commercial in which you’ll get creamed on by Farrah Fawcett. Joe Namath said yes to this idea and the result is one of the most awkward commercials ever put on American airwaves. Namath laughs and giggles as a young Farrah Fawcett lathers up his face with shaving cream.
The innuendo likely wasn’t understood at the time, but today creaming your face has a whole new meaning and the fact that this exists is one of the many reasons I’m very happy to be alive.
6. Budweiser – Flaming Horse Fart (2004)
“Hey, let’s make an ad where a guy and a girl are on a date and the horse farts in front of a candle and burns the lady’s face off“, said the six year old to his ad executive father. Hours later that father would pitch that idea to a boardroom and the boardroom full of three year olds giggled and thought they had struck advertising gold.
What happens when Beavis and Butt-Head’s run America’s ad agencies: the Horse fart ad. It was criticized when it aired for being absolute low-brow filth and it remains one of the least funny and least effective ads to have ever aired during a Super Bowl.