tl;dr While I do exaggerate the “badness” of 80s tech ads to make things more fun, a nostalgic ad is not the same thing as an effective ad. What we see in advertising today is so depressing because it is often so bland AND more effective than its more playful predecessors. 

It is impossible to define a bad ad. What convinces you to buy something and what convinces me to buy something are totally different, even if we are the same age, in the same income bracket, have the same interests, and live in the same geographic location or time period. Change any one of those variables (or one of the millions I didn’t mention) and an advertisement’s effectiveness, what The Suits call its “conversion rate,” lands in the gutter. 

I am not and do not purport to be an all-knowing advertising critic. And this newsletter is first and foremost interested in tech ads that are wistful and funny and weird. But as that is an extraordinarily wide net, I have added the dimension that most (although not all!) must also fit into my definition of “bad advertising” to be featured in this newsletter.

The most common fault I have found with ads in BYTE, PC World, and other computer magazines from the 80s and 90s is that they often lack any clarity or specificity. If you spend more time on some convoluted metaphor involving wizardry and magic (like Computer-Mate Inc. so often did) than on your product itself, potential buyers will turn the page before even knowing what you sell.

It’s not that bad of an ad at first glance. The concept and execution pass the cavemen test: you immediately know what’s for sale and why it’s worth the money. It’s eye-catching and memorable. But Franklin Computer Corporation’s hardware, software, and ad concepts were stolen intellectual property, which, I think, qualifies as “bad.”

Franklin was focused on cloning Apple products and selling them for less, from day one. Their first computer was the ACE 100, an acronym for Apple Compatible Equipment according to nosher.net. 

Only a handful of the ads I save to investigate later end up being worthy of full write-ups. So I figured I’d experiment with a mid-month issue that shares a few that are fun to look at, but not worth reading about:

Because back-alley deals with guys smoking cigars and selling computer hardware out of trenchcoats must surely generate feelings of trust and reliability.

The idea of robots literally eating your precious and portable files must have been far more terrifying than it was exciting that Maxell’s 5.25” disks were on some Michelin-rated menu of computer hardware.

That could be oil in their glasses but it sure looks like white wine. And what, they’re going to season their floppy appetizer with table salt? Pick a lane, Maxell!

The ad above was a massive departure from Maxell’s previous “Gold Standard” campaigns, those with their rainbow prisms and racecar disks. The restaurant ad seems like it had a lot more money behind it too, showing up in several issues of PC Mag, Personal Computer, and Byte throughout 1985 and 1986. It is not hard to find online or in print, whether on eBay, WorthPoint, or in a frame at a Value Village in Ottawa.

“Bring your daydreams to reality,” Integrix wrote of a hellspawn workstation chaperoned by Pierrot clowns. 

I M A G I N E, reads a too-small tagline beneath a monitor birthing fire-wielding skeletons.  

Did anyone care that the jesters’ eyelines didn’t line up or that the exposure of the lava didn’t match the sky? It was 1996 and half the reason marketing teams were excited about design software was the included libraries of 3D images.