Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Unhinged Advertising: The Power of the Absurd

Episode Date: April 4, 2026

This week, we look at weird, unhinged advertising.Like the “PuppyMonkeyBaby” Super Bowl commercial. The sad Skittles commercial where everything a man touches turns to Skittles.A leather diaper you can wear to heavy metal concerts so you won’t miss any songs.And a pizza that takes a year and a half to be delivered to your home.We know you want to listen to all the ads in this show. On the off-chance you don’t, subscribe ad-free here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You don't like ads on this, a podcast about advertising? Listen, ad free at the link in the description. This is an apostrophe podcast production. We're going to show you our big news to debaker. That's a spicy meatball. What love doesn't conquer. Alka-Seltzer will. What a relief.

You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. Riley. At a farmer's market in a Chicago neighborhood, a man named Jacob Reno set up a table. He wasn't offering fruit or vegetables. He was offering portraits. Terrible portraits. His sign said, Terrible portraits, $5 in five terrible minutes. Dressed in a blue painter's smock and a cravat, which is hilarious, Reno sits at a small table with a small array of colored pencils and an egg timer. And every week, people line up to get the most terrible portrait of themselves as hand-drawn by Reno in under five minutes. In just three months, Reno had drawn absurd, hilarious portraits for more than 500 people.

According to a Washington Post story, Reno first tried his hand at portraiture at a house party in 2018. Reno and a friend thought it would be entertaining to sketch each other in the middle of the party. They set a timer. After five minutes, she turned hers around and it was pretty good. When Reno turned his around, she was visibly upset at what she saw. Then, they both broke up into uncontrollable laughter. It was at that moment Reno wondered if he might have a hidden talent as a terrible portraitist.

So Reno set up his table at that farmer's market that first day. He thought if he could draw four weird, portraits for $5 each, he'd be happy. To his surprise, a steady stream of people lined up for five terrible minutes to get their terrible portrait done. The reception was overwhelmingly positive. Reno doesn't just sit there and draw. He chats with his subjects and tries to get to know them a bit, to capture their essence,

he says. Not long after, Reno's terrible portraits caught the attention of a local news site. Soon, he was being hired for weddings, housewarmings, and birthday parties. He got so busy, he quit his job at an advertising agency. Reno's terrible portraits look like they were done by a four-year-old, with no talent. Although he insists he's really trying his best, but people love them and laugh their heads off when they see them. Some laugh for five full minutes. Reno says he understands why his weird, odd and seemingly unhinged portraits have struck a chord.

They are, quote, approachable, disarming, and comical. And in a world that is increasingly digital, his terrible artwork offers people a chance to sit down, connect, and laugh. The world of marketing has its own version of unhinged artwork. many advertisers are often to create weird commercials. Commercials that are so odd and surreal, they leave many people scratching their heads. But weird can be memorable and comical, and seemingly unhinged commercials can sell a lot of products.

You're under the influence. AdWeak magazine is a trade publication for the advertising industry. When it did a survey asking ad professionals what their favorite Super Bowl commercial of all time was, the ad that topped the poll was the famous Apple commercial titled 1984. But when Ad Week tallied the results of the survey, a very surprising commercial came in at number two. It was for E-Trade. It begins with a shot of an open garage in a typical suburban home. Inside the garage is an older man sitting on a lawn chair,

a monkey standing on a garbage can, and an odd-looking younger man sitting on what looks like a plastic cooler. Then the monkey, wearing an e-trade t-shirt, turns on a boom box. Then, for the next 18 very long and expensive seconds, the three of them, monkey included, just sit there and clap to La Cucaracha. At the 19-second mark, words on the screen said, Well, we've just wasted $2 million. What are you doing with your money?

It's time for e-trade. The number one place to invest online. It was, without a doubt, the weirdest commercial ever to air in the Super Bowl. Back then, in the year 2000, a Super Bowl commercial cost $2 million. dollars. The writer of that ad, Jerry Graff, said that while they were originally trying to think of a Super Bowl idea for E-Trade, they were stumped. At first they thought, wouldn't E-Trade invest that $2 million instead of buying Super Bowl ad time because that's what E-Trade does? It encourages stock investments. Then they thought, if E-Trade doesn't invest it and spends it on the Super Bowl,

isn't that wasting $2 million? At that point, he and his archery and his archery, he and his archer, director partner were still stumped. So they decided to clear their heads and go golfing. On the way back from golfing, Graff suddenly said, what if we have a monkey and the monkey is just dancing with an e-trade t-shirt on? So they presented that kooky idea to e-trade. At first, the e-trade lawyers were completely against the idea, fearing a backlash if a financial company were to be seen openly squandering $2 million. But the advertising agency pushed hard saying, yes, the commercial was weird,

but it made one clear point that if you're not investing, you're wasting your money, which was, in fact, the very message E-Trade wanted to convey. The idea was also self-referential, as it was a comment on the absurdity of spending $2 million on one single commercial

in the Super Bowl. Little did they know that rates would climb to $8 million by 2026. The commercial was also a comment on the dot-com era at the time and the outrageous valuations, a bubble that was about to burst. And the ad was subversive. It not only made fun of Super Bowl ads and dot-coms, it made fun of the advertising industry in general. For all that and more, e-trade finally approved the commercial.

Critics call the e-trade monkey commercial, impossibly stupid, impossibly brilliant. It has now been cited as a turning point in Super Bowl humor and PR, as many commercials have tried since to use absurd humor as a way of standing out, and the monkey ad generated so much PR for e-trade, it is now a case study. A writer for the drum also called it the best Super Bowl ad ever. his rationale, he says, and I quote,

what other ad do you remember 25 years later? My God, the clarity, the arrogance. Yep, that weird unhinged monkey ad put E-trade on the map. As that writer said, everyone wants to get their money's worth at the Super Bowl. Turns out, all you have to do is waste it. Just about any Skittles commercial could be included in this episode. the brand truly aspires to weirdvertising. A little background.

The Taste the Rainbow campaign began in 1994. The slogan, of course, references the multicolored Skittles candies, but it also gave the brand an unlimited creative platform. So, Taste the Rainbow becomes flexible and can transform into Romance the Rainbow, or blend the rainbow, or mob the rainbow. In other words, the slogan can morph, pending on the idea.

Take a Skittles commercial titled Skittles Pox. In this ad, a boy is talking to a girl. His face, neck, and arms are covered in Skittles. You're acting so funny. What's wrong, Billy? I should probably tell you this isn't just my complexion. My doctor says I have Skittles Pox.

Skittles Pox? She reaches over, pulls a Skittles off his face, and eats it. Then asks, Are they contagious? As she asks this, unbeknownst to her, Skittles start appearing on her skin. After a long, awkward pause, the boy says,

I don't think so. Contract the rainbow. Taste the rainbow. Contract the rainbow. Yet another weird surreal ad from a long line of weird surreal ads from Skittles. Like this next award-winning commercial, where everything a man touches turns to

skittles. Hey, Tim, show Joel how everything you touch turns into skittles. Tim reaches out and touches a stapler, and it turns into skittles. That's awesome. Is it awesome? Well, you can't hold your newborn baby boy in your arms. Did you feed and dress yourself this morning? I didn't.

Then his phone rings, and without thinking he grabs the receiver, and the entire phone turns into skittles that fall all over the desk. Tim is frustrated and slams his fist down on the desk. The entire desk turns into a mountain of Skittles that fall to the floor. Touch the rainbow. Taste the rainbow. Touch the rainbow. It's kind of a sad ad about someone who is doomed to never touch anyone or anything again, extremely unusual in the fun-filled candy commercial genre.

But the campaign is aimed at an audience who like absurd, surreal dark humor. They must, as the Skittles campaign has been running for over 30 years. When we come back, Mountain Dew creates the most terrifying mascot of all time. If you're enjoying this episode, you might also like Wacky Ad Spaces, Season 8, Episode 2, where we tell the story of a McDonald's location on the property of Windsor Castle. You'll find this episode on your favorite podcast app. During Super Bowl 50, Mountain Dew ran a commercial that was the love child of E-trade and Skittles. Mountain Dew wanted to advertise Kickstart, a beverage that combined Mountain Dew, fruit juice, and caffeine.

Three things people like. So Mountain Dew's advertising agency came up with a commercial they titled Puppy Monkey Baby. To say it was disturbing would be an unlawful. understatement. As the title suggests, Mountain Dew smashed three things together, a puppy, a puppy, and a baby. The commercial begins with three guys sitting on a couch when one of them says, man, I might just chill tonight. Then, out of nowhere, a creature appears carrying a pail of ice and cans of Kickstarter. This creature has the legs of a baby, the body of a monkey, and the face of a pug. It jumps up onto the coffee table and, and

and says... Puppie Monkey Baby. Puppy Monkey Baby. Puppy monkey baby. It hands a guy, a can of Kickstarter, and licks his face. Puppie. Monkey. Baby. Then all three of the guys get up and start dancing around the living room with the puppy monkey baby. Puppie monkey baby.

Puppie monkey baby. Puppie monkey baby. Words on the screen say, three awesome things combined. When that weird unsettling ad aired, you could hear the superlure the series of Super Bowl skid to a stop. It was unlike anything you had ever seen on TV. It was disturbing. And like a horrible car crash, you couldn't look away. Within seconds, the hashtag puppy monkey baby devoured the internet. One critic described the ad as a horror hallucination of brand awareness. Another said it was the most terrifying mascot of all time. It was definitely

polarizing. Some loved it, some absolutely hated it. Yet it generated 2.2 million views online and 300,000 social media interactions immediately after it aired on the 2016 Super Bowl. Most people have probably forgotten who won that Super Bowl game, who sang the national anthem and what the halftime show was. But just about everybody remembers puppy monkey baby. There is a running gag when it comes to Super Bowl commercials that the way to stand out is to either feature a puppy, a monkey, or a baby. So Mountain Dew smashed all three together. And today, it is one of the most remembered and recalled ads of the Super Bowl. Proving that, if you play your card weirdly, unhinged can pay off. Liquid Death is a water brand. We've talked about it on. We've talked about it

often on our show. Its purpose is to eliminate plastic water bottles from the earth. Liquid death is sold in cans because cans are recyclable, whereas most plastic doesn't get recycled. The slogan, Murder Your Thirst. Liquid Death is also no stranger to strange advertising. In the past, it has offered a corpse paint makeup line, a coffin-shaped ice cooler, and misfortune cookies. But this next collaboration takes it a bit further. Liquid Death actually partnered with Depend diapers to offer the Pit Diper. Picture a men's tight bathing suit, but made of black quilted pleather, and accented with a belt, spikes, and chains.

The Pit Diper is designed to hold and hide a Depends diaper. As the video advertiser, The pit diaper says, the most annoying thing at a concert is missing songs because you have to pee. And bathrooms at arenas are disgusting. So why miss a song when you can wear a pit diaper? Introducing the pit diaper from Liquid Debt. Now you never have to leave the pit or worry about leaks ever again. Powered by Depend Guards, the pit diaper locks away recycled liquid depth mountain water,

flavored, sparkling, or iced tea, and helps neutralize odor instantly. According to Depends, roughly 100 million men and women of all ages experience bladder leaks. The Depend spokesperson also said that humor is a great way to fight the stigma of bladder leaks, and that's why Depends partnered with liquid death. It was an opportunity to reach a new audience and show up in an unexpected way to challenge stereotypes. Liquid Death says the brand is so successful they have created a problem by keeping people too hydrated. And the pit diaper was the perfect solution for concerts. Liquid Death not only takes care of you at concerts, but also in the afterlife.

It teamed up with Spotify to create an urn with a built-in speaker, called the E. Eternal Playlist Earn, the urn contains a Bluetooth speaker in its lid, allowing it to connect to phones and other devices. Introducing the Eternal Playlist Earn from Liquid Death and Spotify, the first ever earn with a built-in wireless speaker. What's the worst part about being dead? You can't listen to music. Now you can enjoy all your favorite jams for eternity.

Designed to look right at home on a mantle, Spotify rolled out an Eternal Playlist generator. After answering a list of questions about the deceased and their musical preferences, Spotify generated a curated playlist that could be saved, streamed, and shared. Liquid Death also maintains that if you keep the dead happy, they are less likely to haunt you, as music has been shown to, quote, reduce hauntings by up to 47%.

So give them what they're asking for, with the latest innovation, in being dead. Get the Eternal Playlist Earn. Now at LiquidDeath.com slash Spotify. It's music to die for. Most pizza shops promised delivery in about 30 minutes. How would you feel about waiting a year and a half for your pizza? Cheese brand Sargento prides itself on its slow-aged premium cheeses. The slower the aging, the more flavorful, the formage.

To celebrate that fact, Sargento launched what it called, the world's slowest pizza delivery. People could go on its website and order one of four different pizzas made from the following cheeses, aged Italian margarita, Gouda, bacon and apple, chicken parmesan, and mac and cheddar. The pizzas take up to 18 months to arrive at your home. You heard right. That's how long it takes for the cheeses to mature. Customers could even watch a live cheese cam to track their pizzas slow progress. The world's slowest pizza delivery, an outrageously strange idea. I wonder how many people forgot all about the pizza they ordered when it arrives a year and a half later. Years ago, Old Spice emerged from decades of being your

dad's aftershave to become the hippest aftershave on the market. And it all started with the man, your man could smell like campaign. Remember this? Hello ladies. Look at your man. Now back to me. Now back at your man. Now back to me. Sadly, he isn't me. But if he stopped using ladies sent a very funny campaign, but odd. Well, Old Spice has kept that odd vibe in subsequent advertising, including this somewhat unsettling commercial. It's titled Mom Song. And it's sung by various mothers who blame Old Spice for, quote, spraying their sons into a man, because those sons are now discovering girls. In the commercial, moms pop up in all sorts of weird situations where their sons are with girls.

One sings as she holds onto the bumper of a car as her son drives along with his girlfriend. One sings while disguised as a janitor in the school cafeteria as her son sweet talks a girl there. Another mom's head pops through the sand as her son holds hands with his girl at the beach. Oh, I didn't see it coming, but it came in a can. Now my sweet sons sprayed into a man. Mine too, and hey we know just do to blame. When our sons have fun with women and women. misbehaved.

Old Spice Right a man of my son Now he's kissing all the women And his chores aren't done He was just my little sweety, tiny fingers Has infeathees Now he's touching kissing, feeling all the women Meikazone

Man on my soul Now he's spelled him like one You can find it on YouTube Search Old Spice Mom's song It's weird, it's funny But weird mostly in the creepy way it's shot,

with moms slithering out from under sofa cushions and hiding behind the bedroom doors of their son's rooms. But again, perfectly in keeping with the odd advertising of Old Spice. And that advertising put Old Spice back on the map. When we come back, a mattress company has a weird conversation with insomniacs. A while ago, Casper mattresses began air. short 15-second TV commercials at 2 in the morning. They wanted to talk to insomniacs, people who can't sleep.

The commercials were weird, showing slow-motion images of plants sprouting or salmon jumping upstream with elevator-type music in the background. Those images were created to be surreal, like the absurdity of dreams. They made no reference to the mattress company, but words on the screen said, Can't sleep? Call this phone number. And when people called that number, a British voice answered saying,

Hello, can't sleep. Callers were then given nine phone options. By pressing different numbers, you could hear the sounds of the ocean or a motivational speech. You could learn the history of the cocktail weener Or by pressing 8, you could hear actor Jaliel White, who played Steve Urkel on Family Matters, sing you a lullaby. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.

Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky. Go to bed. Yep. You can also press 9 to merge into the conference call with the most. marketing team who came up with this idea. Or you could stay on the line and speak to a Casper's sales representative. From the weird, surreal TV commercials that aired at 2 a.m. To the odd phone options, Casper wanted to stand out from all the other mattress companies

who give you straight, boring information about mattresses. Kind of a wake-up call for the mattress category. A weird unhinged ad is not everyone's cup of tea. But remember, if you don't get it, the ads are probably not aimed at you. Every generation has its own sense of humor. One journalist described these ads as a paint-by-numbers in abstract art. And there is a generation that loves abstract advertising. The world has changed enormously because of Internet culture.

Just peruse TikTok. There are a lot of very funny things on there, created by everyday people. That kind of shared humor used to be the domain of funny commercials. Remember those quaint days when people would email humorous ads to each other? Well, my friend, those days are gone. So to stand out in a sea of funny material, some advertisers are choosing to go weird. These unhinged commercials don't just take a bold stance against the boring, polished ads of the past.

They are fighting to carve out a space in a social media ocean crowded with quick funny videos. Advertisers are no longer just competing with other advertisers. They are competing with funny videos made by the very audience they are after. Today, it's be weird or die. When you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terstream mobile.

Recording Studio, producer Debbie O'Reilly, Chief Sound Engineer Jeff Devine, theme music by Casey Pick, Jeremiah Pick, and James Aiton. Tunes provided by APM Music. Follow me at Terry O. Influence. This podcast is powered by ACAST. Terry's top slogans of all time. Number 11. Canadian Tire.

Give like Santa, save like Scrooge. See you next week.