I know this could sound like a weird topic but unintentionally (or intentionally) scary commercials are really common.

My experience: As a kid there was this commercial which sadly i don't remember the brand behind it but it showed people doing different stuff like eating or resting in a beach, and then some random effect showed unexpectedly the insides of their bodies and how negative the effects were and how they were getting destroyed on the inside (for example the stomach of the man who was eating started to get filled with blood), to top it off there was sad piano music on the background, it scared me as a child and i still remember it to this day

Experiences like that?

The baby from the Play Station 3 commercial still lives in my head rent free to this day, even worse I had to have been like 7 or 8 when it was on air. shit was scarring.

I know at this point it's a meme but this commercial from the 90s is fucking scary.

That Skittles commercial where the “Jamaican” guy is milking (jacking off?) a giraffe for Skittles.

Either that or any ASPCA ad with the Sarah McLachlan song. It creeps me out/depresses me to see sad/abused animal imagery, and it also creeps me out/depresses me to know just how shitty humanity can be at times.

I remember there was one on youtube where there was a medicine being advertised with a "fake" skip this ad button on the bottom right. Then after the ad finishes We see the bad the consequences of that medicine on a middle aged woman. Note that the advertisement inside the advertisement had a blurry figure of the woman in the background. Then she abused her children or something like that. Can somone else remember that? Also I was traumatized by drunk driving commercials and a commercial that spoke about water waste. Most PSA's are fuckin' nightmare fuel.

There have been a TON of commercials over the years that are super annoying- for example, any medicines dealing with "moderate to Severe" anything, or any that feature talking lizards blabbing about "Cawnsurance" or a fat guy dressed as a caterpillar sitting in a tree. Those aren't creepy as much as they make you want to road rage your TV.

But "Creepy?" That's a whole other deal and one commercial in particular takes the cake.

It was a Levi's commercial from the mid-1990s (I think. It was a while ago.) There was a kid, maybe 16 years old, shirtless, posing for what appeared to be a modeling shot. In the background you hear this man's voice "So, you look pretty buffed. You work out a lot?" You could totally feel the "Creepy old pervert" vibe from the guy's voice. The point of it was to sell Levi's, but hopefully it hurt the brand's sales. I think they pulled that ad pretty quickly

This was an Australian AIDS awareness advertisement which was on tv when I was a lad. Pretty grim stuff.

Quiznos- because nothing says "mmmmmmmmm" like dead rats singing about sandwiches

I love how creepy this Kay Jewelers commercial is if you mute it. Of course it's a different kind of creepy than the OP is asking for, but it's still worth posting imo. Oh and ignore the dumb editing towards the end; I couldn't find an original version of the commercial on YouTube.

Ads are not good for you.

So I read the thread and I start thinking maybe in light of recent events, some of the ads Kevin Spacey was in seem creepy in hindsight? I go on Google and yeah, the very first one I found already, didn't even check any of the other ones:

As a kid, I used to get inconsolably freaked out by the Emergency Broadcasting System testing. I still get chills when I think about it, for some reason. I think as a kid, watching like Mr. Rogers or Sesame street and then hearing a voice saying "IF THIS WERE AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY...." is kind of unnerving.

Over in Florida earlier this month I heard a radio ad for a strip bar.

Fine thinks me, it's the USA, it's different.

The ad then described the bar as having "over 100 girls, PRISTINE AND CLEAN"

Coincidently, or perhaps not- Quiznos, as far as I know, is no longer in business. Maybe there are still some open in some other states, but on the west coast and inland northwest, all Quiznos shops shut down years ago. I actually liked their sandwhiches, the food was better than Subway, but they also had a reputation for treating their employees terribly.

There's still a few in Denver, but yeah their business shrank really quickly in like a matter of two or three years. I agree with you though, their sandwiches are really good, actually quality ingredients compared to Subway. I love their Classic Italian

ahh so creepy commerical talk and no one mentions this one!


https://youtu.be/owiQuISIBsQ

They did a whole series of Duracell battery commercials in the mid-90s featuring a bunch of robot people called The Puttermans. Used to creep me out even at the age of 14, though on the bright side, it inspired one of Primus' best music videos and led to the lead singer of Soul Asylum getting royally pissed off at Les Claypool over a little misunderstanding regarding the song's title. Here's one of the commercials, it has a couple skips in it, but it's a clear presentation of how creepy the people look.

I remember being pretty creeped out by the [first?] Burger King commercial to feature "the king." I think it opened with some dude waking up to the king watching him as he slept. I recall thinking, "whoa, this looks like a legitimately scary horror movie trailer..." and then realized it was for a fast food joint haha.

This is the scariest commercial i've ever seen.

I mean, it looks like the start to a horror movie.

The stuff nightmares are made of:

https://youtu.be/f9Dm-8EOaSQ

I recall coming home from school one evening back in 2007 and watching the magnificent triple threat of Judge Judy, Jerry Springer, and Steve Wilkos; and during a commercial, there was a bizarre local funeral home advertisement (FOX 11 / WSAZ) for some sort of see-through casket / mausoleum - still to this day I haven't heard of anything like this other than for historical figures like Vladimir Lenin. It was extremely morbid, especially when they interviewed this old woman and she remarked how wonderful it was to get to see her husband anytime she likes, while the camera zoomed in on his leathery, mummy-like face. I shook my head in disbelief and wondered if I had actually saw something so ultra-surreal and off-kilter on daytime television.