Top 10 Surprisingly Awful Tech Advertisements

For consumer technology to make an impact, it has to be perceived as 'cool.' This is why many ad agencies try to create edgy, trendy campaigns. Sadly, these agencies often miss the mark, resulting in some incredibly embarrassing ads. Here’s a list of the 10 worst offenders.

10. Knockoff Nigel

An effort by the movie and audio industries to cast a negative light on video piracy. In this commercial, we see a jovial elderly man singing at the pub, suggesting that those who copy movies are also likely to steal TVs and beg for free drinks. In reality, his friends would probably ask him to be quiet while copying Nigel’s DVD.

Amstrad, which also produced computers, fell into the trap of believing advertising agencies when they were advised to incorporate rap into their campaign – a strategy that never works, ever!

This ad promotes a push-button slim-line telephone. The ad agency seemed to think that women dressed in lycra and sporting bouffant hairstyles would be the perfect sales pitch for these phones. Sadly, the English advertising industry has hardly improved since that time.

While I don't generally believe in revisionist history, ads like this really make me wonder if we should just erase all memories of the 1980s from our collective consciousness. This one “will bust your crack and leave skidmarks on your soul.”

So is stripping people of their right to copy the things they own! This absurd video clip appears at the beginning of most DVDs. The ironic part? When you download a movie, this clip is always omitted – meaning the only people who actually see it are those who have PAID for their copy.

This is unbelievably bad – and certainly not the first time Microsoft has turned to rap music to sell their software: 'we’re introducing something new, it is essential for the many and the few' – Microsoft, those lyrics are something else.

Are you keeping up with Commodore? Unfortunately, Commodore couldn’t keep up either – they went bankrupt. These were once very popular computers – I have fond memories of playing on my brother’s Vic 20 as a kid.

You knew this one would make the list, didn’t you? This ad was created to discourage kids from pirating software.

This wasn’t actually aired as an ad outside of Microsoft, but it’s so cringe-worthy it had to be included. Can you believe this guy is now leading Microsoft? If you’re curious to see more of him, here's a pretty good musical parody.

This is a promotional video for Windows 386 – what you're seeing here is only the second half, but it’s the worst part. You really need to watch it all the way through to believe it. The best part starts around 02:00.