Stupid, Stupid Ads! — Me Are College Sutdent!

“Stupid, Stupid Ads!” dissects ads that try to do something underhanded or just plain stupid.

I honestly can’t tell what these ads for City University are trying to get across?  Remedial spelling classes seem a bit below what you expect from adult education programs at a “university”.

The flip side of that, however, is that they are pushing graphic design skills with the idea that using all uppercase text turns words into rectangular blocks, making them harder to differentiate based on shape (and thus uppercase text is harder to proofread).  But that doesn’t seem like an easy message to get across in ads, nor does it seem to actually be the point of these ads.

So maybe they are doing an ironic push for Marketing classes: attend City University and you’ll be able to make ads that do a better job of getting your message across than these do.