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Bored Panda

Rugilė Žemaitytė

These 52 Ads Had No Right To Be This Funny, But Their Placement Changed Everything

Most of us are bombarded with ads wherever we look. They pop up persistently while we’re scrolling, sneak into our takeout orders, or interrupt our sports viewing mid-play. Most of the time, they’re at least a little annoying—unwelcome bids for our attention (and hard-earned money). But every so often, we’re blessed with an ad that’s truly masterful. I’m talking about the kinds of ads that are so brilliantly (and seemingly effortlessly) executed that we don’t mind giving them our attention. Often, they stick with us long after the fact, too.

The ads featured here certainly aren’t ones we’ll forget in a hurry. But they didn’t earn that distinction through witty copy or clever creative. It’s their placement or some other unfortunate decision that does the work, landing somewhere so wrong it loops back around to feeling hilariously and sometimes painfully right—so much so that you can’t tell if it’s an HR headache or the smartest PR move a brand ever made.

#1 Speaks For Itself

#2 This Church Has Some Rather Unfortunate Ad Placement For Its Bible Camp

#3 The Irony In This Photo

Whether we realize (or like) it or not, advertising has become an ever-present part of our modern lives. From the moment we open our eyes for our morning scroll (admit it, you do it too) till we shut off whatever we’re watching at night, we come across ads in all sorts of places. There’s that pop-up you’ve closed for the bazillionth time, the commercial break in your favorite podcast, the billboard on your way to work, or even the ad carefully disguised as a free recipe in your online grocery shopping haul.

#4 There's An Optometrist Business Near My House That Has This Giant Poster Outside Advertising Colored Contacts. It Seems To Have Aged In A "Is That A Demon?" Way

#5 Poor Choice Of Ad Placement

#6 Installed That Billboard Boss!

But while these forms of advertising might seem distinctly modern, Alison Hahn, PhD, reminds us that advertisements “can be traced back to the oldest human communities,” with examples found “in Egyptian ruins, in the ashes of Pompeii, and in Mayan cities.” Of course, advertising has become considerably more ubiquitous since then: some estimates suggest that the average American is exposed to thousands of ads every day, with that number increasing considerably over the past few decades.

#7 Not Very Good Advertising!

#8 "Join Hands" To Make Hospitals "Infection Free"

#9 Math Is Hard. Don't Let It Get You Down

The reason for making ads has arguably remained pretty constant—to capture our attention and, ultimately, persuade us to buy (or buy into) something—but what’s changed is that the various forms advertising takes have multiplied. Whereas early modern advertisements often took the form of words and images printed on paper, either as part of a newspaper or as advertisements posted in community settings, advertising changed, Hahn explains, “with the development of new printing technologies, as well as other communicative media such as the radio and television, and later the Internet.”

#10 Welcome To El Paso, TX

#11 Great Ad Placement Along Marathon Route

#12 Unfortunate Shadow

Each new medium has brought with it new possibilities for where, when, and how brands can reach us. Radio and television allowed advertisers to incorporate sound, movement, timing, and programming context into their campaigns, while the Internet—and all that came with it—opened up an entirely new world of possibilities. Suddenly, ads didn’t have to be static messages aimed at a broad audience. They could be tailored to particular groups and delivered directly to people based on their interests and online behavior.

#13 I Followed This Bus For 4 Blocks To Wait For It To Pull Over To Share This Beautiful Work Of Art

#14 Unfortunate Mirror Placement In Spanish Sephora Store

#15 The Placement Of This Baby's Head Wasn't Quite Thought Through

As Derek D. Rucker and Tim Calkins write for the Harvard Business Review, “With new technological advancements happening every day—better customer segmentation abilities, automation tools, new social media platforms—marketers have the opportunity to share their ideas more widely and expand their audiences, perhaps more than ever.”

With all these new opportunities, however, the challenge for marketers now becomes getting people to actually pay attention to what they’re putting in front of them. We’re often described as living in an “attention economy,” and that’s because, as Emilia Kirk writes for Forbes, “Attention is a finite resource.”

#16 I Can’t Decide If This Being At A Hospital Makes It Better Or Worse

#17 Sometimes The Answer Is In The Box Too

#18 “Make The Athlete Look Like She’s In Motion”

We might be exposed to thousands upon thousands of ads each day, Kirk explains, but “The average human brain is simply incapable of processing such a bombardment of content.” That means that we ignore or very quickly forget about the vast majority of ads that we encounter. What this means for advertisers is that they have to find increasingly effective ways to stand out from the noise.

#19 An Anti Drunk Driving Ad I Saw In India

#20 We're Not Happy 'Til You're Not Happy

#21 Hand Sanitizer Station Disguised With Eye Hydration Advertising

And when it comes to standing out, these ads certainly managed to do just that. Whether their unfortunate placements or other dubious design decisions were a stroke of marketing genius is highly debatable—and, frankly, highly unlikely. But they sure made us stop, look, do a double take, laugh, and cringe. And in a landscape where the average ad barely registers, perhaps that’s the one metric that actually matters.