Anna Hamilton | Writer

[Description: A young-looking white woman enters what looks like a fancy lobby and climbs a set of stairs, to soft music. Cut to a closet, where a pair of anthropomorphic orange slip-on shoes peek out of the door. One makes a “quiet” motion to the other. The woman unlocks the door to her apartment, and the shoes open the closet door. A dog looks at them as they come running out of the closet, tripping over some dog toys as they do so. The shoes grab onto the woman’s ankles as she enters the apartment. She sits down, and they remove her high heeled-shoes, then begin to massage her feet. Voiceover: “Meet Croslite, the loyal, loving, good-for-you-technology in every pair of Crocs.” The woman stands up from the couch, and this time her feet are clad in a pair of red flats. She walks into another room as text onscreen reads “Feel the love” and Crocs shoe-styles “rotate” near the text, and the Crocs logo appears below it.]

I can’t be the only one who’s creeped out by this TV ad for Crocs; it has the general aura of one of those ads that’s supposed to be cute but just ends up seeming totally fucking creepy. As comfortable as Crocs are, I do not want to associate my pair (surprise, they are orange!) with scary little shoe-people who are just so excited when I come home that they cannot help but grab onto my ankles, then smile and blink as they massage my feet (which are probably stinky and certainly not that nicely manicured).

Furthermore, I can only imagine what the pitch meeting for this ad must have been like.

So, what are your favorite ad campaigns in which a sense of creepiness (or outright horror) rises from the ashes of cute and/or endearing?