Buygone Ad: Prudential Life Insurance

Time to bring back a dormant feature here on ANIMAL—The Buygone Ad of the Week. About the evilest advertisers out there are insurance companies—”like a good neighbor” my fucking ass. Would a good neighbor freak me out by placing fake damage stickers on my new car? Such scare tactics are of course the ad strategy of choice for life insurance companies. And since using real people in negative testimonial ads might mean negative press, they all go the fake route. Like this Prudential ad from a 1926 National Geographic. Just look at the look on that fake orphan’s face. And, check out the background fake orphan pathetically batting a piece of garbage with a stick. Or is it a rock? A rock representing the “piece of the rock” evil dead Daddy didn’t buy? Mommy, our porridge has bugs in it! |Image: flickr/Vintage Advertising|

Buygone Ad: Heinz Condensed Soups

Travel back with me, if you will, to the 1950s American dining room. The economy is booming. Every man has a job and no worries except Communism and dinner. You’re a proud housewife who cleans and cooks every blessed day. It’s 6pm. You’ve taken your Ivory soap bath and put on your new yellow chiffon dress and some perfume. It’s time to eat. OK Heinz ad copy, take it from there: “The things women have to put up with. Most husbands, nowadays, have stopped beating their wives, but what can be more agonizing to a sensitive soul than a man’s boredom at meals. Yet, lady, there must be a reason. If your cooking and not your conversation is monotonous, that’s easily fixed…” Yes, lady. You better spice up the conversation and the meal with some scrumptious condensed soup. Otherwise, the agonizing beatings may return. Which won’t be as agonizing as the cause of those beatings—your man’s boredom at meals. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED, LADY.
|Ad: Vintage Advertising| (Click image to enlarge)