A few years ago, fellow perma-blogger Dan Ellsworth and I decided to boycott McDonalds for a year because of one of their “I’m lovin’ it” ads that was as ubiquitous as it was annoying. We planned to reconvene after a year to discuss lifting the boycott, but a couple of weeks before the year mark, they ran the same obnoxious ad again on TV! Unbelievable. We decided McDonalds apparently hadn’t learned its lesson, so we extended the boycott for another year. This time they must have gotten the message. After the second year, the ads were gone, so we lifted the boycott.

Unfortunately, Timberland hasn’t learned the lesson I taught McDonalds. Every day for the past few weeks I’ve had to endure an annoying ad campaign by Timberand in the subway station. Here is one of a series of photos they use to promote their shoes. Others include descriptions of bears or wolves and how vicious and ferocious they are, followed by the line: “If you’re not fast, you’re food.” It’s a pretty stupid slogan, considering most people, no matter what kind of shoes they’re wearing, aren’t going to be able to out run these animals. I have no idea how effective these ads have been with others, but I can say that they’ve effectively convinced me NOT to buy Timberland shoes.

I’m sorry that McDonalds and Timberland are learning this lesson the hard way. Here they are spending millions of dollars on advertising, and think of the tens of dollars they are losing by annoying me. Pretty sad.

Any ads that have had this kind of effect on you?