The intended purpose of advertising is to reach out to and create customers. Companies spend millions to produce ads aimed at besting their competitors, capturing market share, and communicating a message. Every so often, however, there are ads so bad they turn people off from a brand, even to the point of potential customers going out of their way to not buy the advertised product or service. Below are some of the most noteworthy examples of poorly executed and horribly Photoshopped ads, which should act as a ‘what not to do’ guide for potential advertisers:

Race-Changing

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This specific ad became famous when Microsoft executives decided the Polish market was not ready for a black male to be prominently featured in one of its ads. When they swapped the man from the original ad’s head (above) for that of a white male (below), the angle was off, and, the hands were not adjusted to reflect the change. To top it off, it looks like the subject of the change is using a MacBook with the logo removed. This ad has been widely distributed online as a an example of what not to do with ads in Photoshop, and it’s safe to assume a lot of people got fired for this.

Body-Swapping and Failing to use Spell Check

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This is one of the many ‘extreme weight loss’ ads, as well as one of the more well-known types of badly produced advertisements you would find online. The premise is that one could find the secrets to weight loss by clicking through this ad and purchasing whatever is on the other side. However the creators of the ad failed to use the same model in both images (which doesn’t help the believability of the claim), nor did they run spell check.

Using Upside-Down Numbers

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This ad features the use of $100 bills to communicate that employment opportunities advertised by this ad could make you lots of money. But, a failure to pay attention to detail has resulted in an embarrassing mistake. If you notice, the $100 bills have Benjamin Franklin’s head upside-down, or because of they way the artwork was flipped, it appears that the numbers are upside-down. Featuring fake money in an advertisement for employment opportunities probably led to less-than-ideal results.

Adding Sunglasses at the Last Minute

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Giving a free gift with purchase is one of the oldest types of marketing around. But promotions should either: A) be some thing that someone would want; or, B) be some thing people believe to actually exist. In this ad, it looks like the designer simply changed the opacity of a sunglass vector file, and slapped it on the model’s face. In any event, the fabricated sunglasses are the more eye-catching than any else in the ad, which is not good.

Manipulating Anatomy

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There is no shortage of glaring Photoshop mistakes online, but few are as bad as this one. The very fact that this final product made it into an ad should be alarming. If you look at the dozing young man for more than a few seconds, you’ll notice that he has three arms. While this might not preclude one buying a last minute plane ticket, it doesn’t do much to strengthen the brand.

Manipulating Anatomy II

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Changing body parts around in Photoshop can be tricky. The difficulty lies in maintaining proportions and placement. In the case of the ad above, the model’s forehead is made to look about 400% larger because of the insertion of the green banner that reads, “Sei klug, studier in Halle!” . The picture at the bottom right corner shows how the image looked before the addition of the banners.

Manipulating Anatomy III

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This is another fairly well-known ad, and what makes its execution so poor may seem subtle at first. But, If you look long enough, you will notice that her right leg is quite a lot longer than her left. Once you notice this, the longer you look at the leg, the longer the leg looks. As is the case with the above ads, it completely detracts attention from the product being advertised.

Manipulating Anatomy IV

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This ad is interesting because it appears the Photoshop mishap (her right eye) could have been avoided by simply leaving the image alone. This ad, featured online and in print, quickly brings attention to her strangely sized/colored eye rather than the watch. There is also something strange going on with her smallest finger, but this might just be the angle of her hand.

Failing to Line up Objects and People

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This Russian computer ad is a perfect example of how not to blend two images together. The result: the computer tower appears to be floating in front of the girl. Her hands also look very strange. It’s peculiar that the advertisers did not have the girl hold the tower for the picture.

Using Multiple Rates of Motion

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This ad is interesting because the car’s wheels appear to be rotating, even though the rest of the car appears to be parked in front of the house. I don’t know what the ad agency that came up with this was thinking, but it looks like the picture of a car in-motion was just added to the image of the front of the house. The alternative, is that the wheels were made to appear spinning on purpose — but I don’t know why that would be the case.

Offering a Fake Survey

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This is one of the worst examples of a failure to disguise an ad banner as a survey. The question: “Which tastes better?”. The possible answers; “Yes”, and “No.” Fake banner advertisements are generally regarded as annoying, and this one fails to even suggest that a real survey is on the other side of the banner. As such, it reflects poorly on both Coke and Pepsi, regardless if one of these brands were even paying for this ad campaign or not.

Failing to Account for Reflection

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At first glance this ad doesn’t look absolutely horrible. But upon further inspection, you will notice that the check is simply an art file super-imposed over the man’s torso. Note: the check has no reflection on the Hummer. To make matters worse, the ad is for a ‘make millions at work from home’ scams so popular now online. You would think advertising a questionable product would lead to some slick ads, but you would be wrong in this case.

Replicating an Reflection for no Reason

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While you have to admire the intentions of this ad’s designer, something doesn’t quite ad up. If you notice, the iPod that is front in center is actually leaning up against the iPod that is facing to the right. And as a result, there should not be a reflection. Instead, there should be a reflection of the back and side of the iPod. Perhaps this is an example of a designer being over anxious with showing their ability to reproduce reflections in such a way.