marketing

Do you ever just stop to think about how we're living in a dystopian nightmare and that life doesn't matter at all? You go to work every day to make money just to pay for your miserable life, and then you die without ever retiring. Enjoy these tidbits from our corporate overlords!

Refinery29 probably made a bad call with publishing this article in their series entitled Money Diaries, which chronicles how the Millennial woman budgets her "hard-earned" money. In this particular installment, R29 interviews a 21-year-old college student and marketing intern living in New York City who makes $25 per hour and can somehow still afford to have a little extra cash left over after she pays the bills.

Sounds like a pretty typical Millennial life, right? Well sure, until you learn that said marketing intern has rich parents who pay her rent, phone bill and health insurance costs. Needless to say, the internet is absolutely raging about this spoiled rich girl's lavish lifestyle.

Setting yourself apart from the crowd is a clutch part of owning a business and creating advertising campaigns. Here are 22 businesses and ad geniuses that really deserve our utmost respect. 

The internet has been pretty freaking weird the past few days. Tom Brady making out with his son, Liam Neeson's racism confessions, and then yesterday Sunny D went viral for tweeting about depression. The orange-flavored beverage brand tweeted "I can't do this anymore" and the entire internet seemed to step up to provide support, with brands (like Moon Pie) and concerned citizens sending wholesome messages. The exchange is very entertaining. 

While we're having fun with it, this marketing tactic is not without its critics. Food website Eater was quick to denounce not only Sunny D's tweet, but trying to gain brand clout by posting vague and bleak messages. Many people agreed that the practice was decidedly uncute. While we are into brands embracing "weird Twitter," depression is not a joke, and maybe they should put a little more thought in their tweets. 

These people all tried to market something - whether that something was good or not is debatable, but they all produced some pretty WTF-worthy ways of pushing their services.

(Sidenote: these are not real ads - check out Alan Wagner for more).

These companies should hire new creative departments!

Sometimes adults and brands try way too hard to seem current, hip, and with it. These are some of our favorite (and fresh) pandering moments. We kind of want to give these people credit for trying.

Artist and CEO Douglas Bevans sold his "hot dog water" at the Car-Free Day festival in Vancouver, BC. What the hell is "hot dog water," you ask? It's unfiltered water in an extra fancy glass bottle with a hot dog floating inside. Bevans sold the water for a whopping $38 a piece, boasting bogus health benefits including weight loss, increased brain function and vitality.

Bevans has stated that his hot dog water was all a performance-art piece, intending to poke fun at other "health" products with no evidence to support any of their claims. So for all of you who were actually getting excited about trying out this new health craze: womp womp.

These days fast food brands are generally in the news for their hilarious and sassy social media antics. In a way, this is still true for Burger King Russia - the brand just took the fire to a bizarre new level. The social media account for the train restaurant decided it was a good idea to offer a lifetime supply of burgers and 3 million rubles - if they managed to become impregnated by a World Cup soccer player. 

The move was almost immediately criticized by the media, and BK Russia scrambled to take the Facebook post down. This isn't the first time that Burger King Russia was flame-broiled over tasteless and offensive marketing ploys. The chain horrified the world after using the likeness of a controversial 16-year-old rape victim in a promotion. We don't know about you, but it's pretty clear that someone has got to be fired.