The Weirdest Ad Stories of the Month

(MoneyWatch)  Mad Men inspires office alcoholism! Steve Jobs compared to skeleton! Larry Ellison tells lies! Carrots kill themselves! It all happened in September 2009.

1. Skeletal Steve Jobs appears next to skeleton ad in WSJ What is Martha Stewart serving up for Halloween? The Apple boss's animated corpse, freshly back from the dead (to investors' delight)!
2. Mad Men spurs in-office drinking trend, forcing agency crackdown IAS had to send a memo to staff to ask them not to drink during work hours or come in with a hangover.
3. Microsoft's Windows 7 party video is bizarre, cringe-inducing hit "In a lot of ways you're just throwing a party with Windows 7 as an honored guest," gushes one idiot in this "how-to" video for the operating system. Makes no sense at all -- and it's huge.
4. When Dow drops, Puma models take off clothes Droga5 made the web video. You can choose a male or female stripper.
5. Euro RSCG creates "suicide food" ad for Ristorante Cantina Onions and carrots kill themselves to get into this restaurant, it's so good.
6. Insurance salesman complains that graffiti swastika on his billboard was painted backwards The quality of Nazi graffiti on ads is dropping.
7. David & Goliath CD trying to sell his Venice, Calif., pad He wants $1.25 million for 1,000 square feet. It's a few blocks from the beach, though.
8. Charles Saatchi plagiarized his first ad He tells the Guardian: "So I looked through copies of Farmer and Stock-Breeder and Poultry World, chose some inspiring-sounding words and phrases, cobbled them together, stuck on a headline ?€" I think I stole it from an old American advertisement ?€" and produced 'Ask the man who owns them' as a testimonial campaign featuring beaming Thornber farmers. The client bought it."
9. Darth Vader loves McDonald's Part of BETC Euro RSCG's campaign for the fast feeder.
10. Larry Ellison fined for not telling truth in ads Computer standards council slaps Sun for $10,000 because an ad claimed its processor was faster than IBM's without proof.

• Want more?
• The Top 10 Weirdest Stories of August
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of July
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of June
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of May
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of the April
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of March
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of February
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of January
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of December
• The Top 10 Weirdest Ad Stories of November