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Some ads are weird. Some ads are even weirder. Then there are weird tech ads.
It seems that the job of selling shiny kit sends ad guys round the twist – especially if this lot are anything to go by. Some use sex, others humour and some, just plain weirdness. And, as you'll see, a strangely large number are Japanese.
So here, gathered together for your amusement, are our 15 favourite bizarre tech ads.
1. Canon copier goes bust
Laser printer/copier turns into attractive woman who then fires colour prints from her breasts. We kid you not. Seriously, the Japanese seem to use sex to sell absolutely everything. Apart from Windows 3.1, obviously.
2. Android eructation
Android isn't advertised that much in the UK, so it's a bit odd to take in this Japanese ad for the OS. What's the burping all about? We'd love to hear Google PR's take on that one...
3. Kevin Costner helps out Apple
Tech ads featuring celebs are usually inane enough. This is just plain odd and one can only assume that Costner was paid a hefty wedge to do this ad that supposedly pointed towards a new way of doing business as, to be honest, it's dull as ditchwater. If anybody watched this and thought 'I want a Mac,' they must have been pretty darn depressing to have a conversation with.
4. Piss-poor Dutch phone ad
This is the kind of slightly-sick clip that's two-a-penny in Europe, but would probably get Ofcom hot under the collar in the UK. Still, what high jinks eh?
5. Beat-em-up Sega commercial
The guys behind this ad must have been on some pretty strong drugs. Business man overhears kids talking about Sega and daydreams about what he heard all day. So much so that he bumps into a nasty gang member as he walks by them and gets beaten to a pulp as a consequence. Great message there guys.
6. Mad Japanese Microsoft Windows 3.1 ad
Man, this one is CRAZY! If you can work out what's going on, you're better than us but basically some Japanese guy lives in a haunted house and is obsessed by Windows. So much so, that he decides to shout it out 26 times at the top of his voice.
7. Brits go for aerobic Slimtel
WTF wasn't common parlance in the 1980s, but if it had been it would have been used numerous times to describe this messed up ad from good ol' BT. Sorry, we meant British Telecom. It probably sums up the zeitgesist, but we want to poke our eyes out after watching it. Cool that the phone goes on the wall though. WHO'D HAVE THUNK?
8. Hairy Mario Kart DS ad
What is going on with these moustaches? We hope no kids saw this ad as it would surely have caused a permanent fear of face fuzz.
9. Dog + iPhone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVj53Kj_kis&feature=player_embedded
Love this. No idea what's going on though, sorry. Slightly off brand for Apple though!
10. Are You Keeping Up With The Commodore?
Are You Keeping Up With The Commodore? Why? Because the Commodore is keeping up with you, that's why! This ad would be guilty of nothing more than eighties cheese if it wasn't for the painful salute that the 'actors' employ. Eugh.
11. Atari moves into Pole Position
Another idea that must have looked great on paper, but the only word we can come up with is 'abysmal' for the screen incarnation. The fusion of in-game footage and real-time action is laughable and the dialogue...well, see for yourself.
12. Alan Sugar can't have approved this. Can he?
This cheesy ad for Amstrad's home studio set-up features a truly unconvincing rap as well as some awful 1980s-style camera shots. Classic. But terrible.
13. Switch. But why?
Apple-switcher Ellen Feis lost her work (it woz a PC that did it) and became the Mac lover's heroine overnight. The Apple 'Switch' ads might be some of the best-remembered the company has done (and the forerunner to the Get a Mac ads) but there was significant comment about how Feis looked either drunk or drugged. Be sure to check out our collection of the best Apple ads of the last decade, too.
14. That's one way of doing it....
In this Japanese ad for Intel's Core 2 Duo chips, a woman employs an unusual method of destroying her old PC. We're sure she backed up everything to the server first. We'd also have quite liked to run an amusing (again Japanese) ad for the Core 2 Duo that shows a teenage girl waking up to find her breasts have grown significantly - two cores, geddit? Looks like Intel has asked all instances of that ad to be removed from YouTube but if you can find it, drop us a mail and we'll add it in here.
15. Time for a party
That Windows 7 has been a runaway success depends in no part on the ridiculous promo videos. Cheesy, uncomfortable and very, very weird.
