After hundreds of submissions, it seems we have a pretty clear winner. How bad is it? The commercial has been removed everywhere by the company that made it. You can go online in any number of places and see other ads by the company, but this particular one has been removed from every place we’ve found. The embed is still there, but the “This video has been removed by the user” notice comes up.

So what is the offender? It’s Target’s commercial “From Santa.” You might remember it as the one where parents are arguing on Christmas morning about the new flat screen TV that Santa brought. We’d love to show you the video but apparently Target is aware of the reaction it caused, so here is the text:

“Wow. Thanks, Santa,” says the dad as he sees the new TV. ”I thought we weren’t going to spend too much.”

“But these gifts are from Santa,” his wife shoots back. 

“Guess Santa forgot we’re in a recession.”

“Well, maybe Santa was a little thriftier than you think. Hmm.”

Keep in mind this is while their sweet, innocent child looks on.

The father starts with ”Well, maybe Santa…” and is cut off by his wife with “Maybe Santa doesn’t need any help doing Santa’s job” with a frozen smile.

Now we’re normally fans of Target’s commercials. They’ve had a lot of good ones in recent years, including several of their holiday ads. But this one really, really missed the mark. Here are just a few of the many reasons why:

1. Arguing in front of the kids on Christmas morning while opening presents. Nothing says great holiday like open family discord. Is there a more joyous time than opening presents on Christmas morning? There is if your parents are fighting.

2. How about we just pour salt in consumer’s wounds? This is the biggest one. What are the vast majority of American’s worried about right now? The fact that they are struggling financially. Christmas is expensive every year. How many people didn’t sweat about coming up with money for presents this year? Their main worry/panic/sleepless-night-inducer is the cost of the holiday (yes, we’re aware that not everyone celebrates Christmas, but this ad was aimed at those who do). So, for a commercial, why don’t we drag that fear up and throw it in people’s faces?

What they were trying to do was show that people didn’t have to have that fear because the TV wasn’t that expensive. The fundamental logic was there. But what they actually did was confront viewers with the very thing they were trying to avoid. Viewers don’t react to ads based on logic. They react based on emotion. They don’t sort through the underlying themes of a commercial. They don’t spend much time on it at all. They just walk away with an impression or a feeling, which in this case was panic, insecurity and dread.

3. This goes hand in hand with #2. They’re showing an unpleasant situation that hit home for far too many people. Most ads that deal with husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend or friendship issues use humor to illustrate the differences. This one didn’t get into the humor category, it was more of a barely-keep-the-lid-on argument. How many people that saw the ad hadn’t gone through a similar situation? How many couples didn’t have an uncomfortable talk or an explosive argument about how much holiday money was spent and on what? If there was a way to show that in a humorous light the commercial might have worked. But the subject is so raw for most people right now that it would have been incredibly difficult. It’s just not a funny subject for most people.

4. The gender roles were a gamble. Showing a guy getting upset with his wife for spending too much, especially with no humor, doesn’t play well with either sex. Reading some forum discussion boards about the ad confirms this, though there were a few (very few) that found the ad funny.

5. Overconsumption is a message that isn’t getting much traction right now. Even if the TV was cheaper at Target, they obviously couldn’t afford it. Another of Target’s ads, “Layaway”  understood this and conveyed it well.

What else? A lot of things, really. Leave a comment and tell us what you think.