15 mind-bogglingly weird tech ads

9. Dog + iPhone

Love this. No idea what's going on though, sorry. Slightly off brand for Apple though!

10. Are You Keeping Up With The Commodore?

Are You Keeping Up With The Commodore? Why? Because the Commodore is keeping up with you, that's why! This ad would be guilty of nothing more than eighties cheese if it wasn't for the painful salute that the 'actors' employ. Eugh.

11. Atari moves into Pole Position

Another idea that must have looked great on paper, but the only word we can come up with is 'abysmal' for the screen incarnation. The fusion of in-game footage and real-time action is laughable and the dialogue...well, see for yourself.

12. Alan Sugar can't have approved this. Can he?

This cheesy ad for Amstrad's home studio set-up features a truly unconvincing rap as well as some awful 1980s-style camera shots. Classic. But terrible.

13. Switch. But why?

Apple-switcher Ellen Feis lost her work (it woz a PC that did it) and became the Mac lover's heroine overnight. The Apple 'Switch' ads might be some of the best-remembered the company has done (and the forerunner to the Get a Mac ads) but there was significant comment about how Feis looked either drunk or drugged. Be sure to check out our collection of the best Apple ads of the last decade, too.

14. That's one way of doing it....

In this ad for Intel's Core 2 Duo chips, a woman employs an unusual method of destroying her old PC. We're sure she backed up everything to the server first. We'd also have quite liked to run an amusing ad for the Core 2 Duo that shows a teenage girl waking up to find her breasts have grown significantly - two cores, geddit? Looks like Intel has asked all instances of that ad to be removed from YouTube but if you can find it, drop us a mail and we'll add it in here.

15. Time for a party

That Windows 7 has been a runaway success depends in no part on the ridiculous promo videos. Cheesy, uncomfortable and very, very weird.

Contributor

Dan (Twitter, Google+) is TechRadar's Former Deputy Editor and is now in charge at our sister site T3.com. Covering all things computing, internet and mobile he's a seasoned regular at major tech shows such as CES, IFA and Mobile World Congress. Dan has also been a tech expert for many outlets including BBC Radio 4, 5Live and the World Service, The Sun and ITV News.