Fictional advertisements for real products

• In the 1990s, the most famous series of parody advertisements were those for the Energizer battery. A parody itself of a Duracell battery commercial, in its initial commercial episode first shown in October 1989, a toy pink rabbit, is being filmed in a commercial. The toy, powered by the battery, escapes the studio and begins a rampage, pounding a drum and rolling through other commercials being made, including those for coffee, wine, a fictional upcoming TV series, long-distance service, breakfast cereal, and sinus medication. A total of 120 fictional commercials and 4 real ones (for Twinkies, Purina Cat Chow, Pepsi, and Duracell) in both English and Spanish involving the Energizer Bunny were made.
• In 1991, Eveready Battery Company sued the Adolph Coors Company over an ad for Coors beer it was producing, which showed actor Leslie Nielsen in a full-size rabbit suit pounding a drum, which was parodying Eveready's Energizer Bunny commercials, which themselves are parodies of Duracell advertisements and television program previews. Eveready claimed Coors' ad constituted copyright and trademark infringement. The court ruled that Coors' ad was a valid parody of Eveready's, considering that Mr. Nielsen "is not a toy, and does not run on batteries." Eveready Battery Co. v. Adolph Coors Co., 765 F. Supp. 440 (N.D. Ill. 1991).
• The GEICO insurance company ran a series of television commercials in which a victim in a disadvantaged situation hears their fate from the antagonist, that they have good news, only the good news is for the antagonist (The antagonist will usually say as the punchline, "I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to GEICO"). Some examples involved a fictional congressional hearing where the witness (the victim) is being informed he is subject to criminal penalties while the chairman of the committee (the antagonist) has saved money on his car insurance, a home repair show reminiscent of Bob Vila showing a victim couple with a home badly in need of repair, a fictional news report on a volcanic eruption, and a fictional hair restoration commercial. Another example parodied advertisements for reality TV shows, by showing a couple getting married, and getting disgruntled at living in a tiny house (the punchline: a voiceover saying "The drama may be real, but it won't save you any money on car insurance", followed by the wife asking her spouse in their tiny hot tub "Why haven't you called GEICO?").
• The Coca-Cola company's lemon-lime soft drink Sprite ran a series of ads for other fictional drink products, which had actual or fictional celebrities endorsing the other product, with the implication that the fictional product was inadequate for quenching one's thirst.
• The gimmick of characters from a commercial invading other spoof ads was first used by the British Lager brewers Carling Black Label. The advert featured a wild west outlaw being roped by a posse and dragging them off their horses and into adverts for a love compilation Album and Washing up powder.
• The 2005 "Poser Mobile Posse" in a print, online and point-of-sale campaign created by Publicis Seattle for T-Mobile's pay-as-you-go cell phone plan was an ethnically diverse group of hip-hop posers with racially stereotyped Latino, Asian, and white characters like "Big Spenda Lopez", "The Fee Jones", "25 cent Chang" who inauthentically appropriate Black culture, and in one video ad arrive in a stereotypical rice burner faux sports car. The group ambush cell phone customers demanding hidden cell phone service charges and fees, but are rebuffed and called "posers" or "clowns". It is somewhat of a parody on Boost Mobile's "Where You At?" advertising campaign which features prominent hip-hop artists such as Ludacris, Kanye West, and The Game.^[7][8][9]

Mad Magazine

Mad Magazine was notorious for regularly running obviously fictional ads for nonexistent products. However, many of these nonexistent products were clearly intended to be parodies of specific well-known brands of real-world products; frequently, the fictional advertisement in Mad parodied a specific genuine ad campaign for a recognizable brand-name product. For example, in the 1960s (when cigarettes could still be advertised on television), Kent Cigarettes ran a commercial featuring a series of line drawings illustrating the lyrics of a catchy jingle titled "The Taste of Kent". Mad promptly ran a fake print ad, using drawings which parodied the style of the line art, illustrating verses about lung cancer and emphysema to a lyric that parodied Kent's jingle, now titled "The Taste of Death".

According to Frank Jacobs's biography The Mad World of William M. Gaines, Mad's parodies of real advertisements generated so much attention that Mad publisher William Gaines received requests from the promotional departments of many real products, asking Mad to run parodies of their advertisements. Gaines's standard reply to such requests: "Come up with a really stupid ad campaign, and we'll be happy to make fun of it."

Hustler

The most serious incident involving a fictional advertisement in a magazine caused a lawsuit which reached all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, when Hustler Magazine ran a parody of a liquor ad which would ask people about their "first time." In the actual ad, what we are led to believe is that the person is being asked about their first sexual experience, when it turns out the question is about their first time they used the sponsor's product, a liqueur.

In the parody advertisement in Hustler, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, at the time a prominent promoter of social conservatism and opponent of pornography, is supposedly quoted describing the first time he had sexual intercourse with his mother in an outhouse while intoxicated. Falwell sued Hustler Magazine and its publisher Larry Flynt for invasion of privacy, libel and emotional distress. The jury found for the magazine on the issue of libel (the fictional advertisement clearly indicated it was a parody), but awarded Mr. Falwell $350,000 in damages for the emotional distress and invasion of privacy claims. The Supreme Court ruled that, since the advertisement was so obviously a parody that no reasonable person could have believed it, Falwell was not libelled and thus is not entitled to damages for emotional distress, and he was not entitled to damages for invasion of privacy because he is a well-known public figure. Hustler Magazine, Inc. et al. v. Jerry Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, (1988).

Other examples

• The Adbusters Media Foundation's magazine Adbusters features advertisement parodies that are intended as sharp commentary on the social implications of either the product or the advertising campaign involved (also known as "Culture jamming"). One example is a parody of the "Joe Camel" advertising campaign for Camel Cigarettes, with a pseudo Joe Camel in a hospital bed, his head bald and an intravenous drip bottle leading into his arm, with the legend "Joe Chemo" on the faux ad, implying that the many years of smoking cigarettes has left "Joe" with cancer and requiring chemotherapy treatment.
• The Wrigley Company created fictional print ads for Juicy Fruit, such as boy bands, an upcoming fictional movie poster, and a phony handheld game system.
• Games Magazine, a monthly publication featuring game- and puzzle-related material, through the 1980s carried a fake ad feature noted (without page number) in each issue's contents with the tagline, "Which of the pitches is full of hitches?" One featured item was an abacus simulator running on PCs made by the nonexistent Nat Soh Software Co. of Hong Kong . The challenge to readers was to scrutinize all of the ads to spot the fake.