A copy writer dies and Saint Peter offers him the choice between spending eternity in Heaven or in Hell, so he asks to see both. In Hell, Saint Peter leads him to a doorway marked “Especially For Copy Writers.” Inside he sees rows and rows of faceless hacks toiling over typewriters while huge red devils beat them mercilessly with whips, screaming “The meeting is in five minutes! The meeting is in five minutes!” Obviously put off, the copy writer asks to see Heaven. Saint Peter leads him to an identical door, and inside the same scenario is playing out, only there are angels holding the whips, screaming “The meeting is in five minutes!” The copy writer, confused, turns to Saint Peter saying “I thought you said this was Heaven!” Saint Peter replies: “It is. Up here the work actually gets produced.”

Of all the things on our ever-growing list of Stuff Ad People Like, spite is probably in the top ten. There is nothing more frustrating as a graphic designer or copy writer than to pull three consecutive all-nighters meeting an impossible deadline for an important client only to have your brilliant proposal flatly panned by that client in favour of some first-year intern’s cutesy, amateurish approach to the same project. You, the genius ad person, are left with this little piece of inspired creative and no client to run it, so what do you do? Where might you find a venue to display your talents to the advertising community and the world-at-large, just as much to spite your former client’s poor decision-making skills as to showcase your work?

Why, the internet of course.

We at SAPL recently came across the wonderful zeldman.com, self-proclaimed as “web design news and information since 1995”. In addition to Mister L. Jeffrey Zeldman’s extremely informative content on the main page, he has included for our personal enjoyment an archive of failed or otherwise defunct advertisements from the full spectrum of media, appropriately entitled Ads From The Crypt.

Each entry includes credits for art direction and writing, just in case you thought it was Photoshopped (and believe me, you will definitely have your suspicions with some of the featured ads), as well as who the client was, and the ad’s “cause of death” or, when appropriate, the client’s motivation for dropping the ad. (My favourite is the series of banner ads for the Beatles Anthology, “Killed by: Client. Motivation: Clients don’t need motivation.”)

One of the nice things about the advertising industry (or at least about the dedicated Ad People who work in its massive cogs) is that, on some level, we’re all on the same page. We might be in fierce competition for the next major corporate account, but at the end of the day, every one of us has had at least one outstanding piece of creative bold-faced shot down by the client, some outside focus group, or even our own Director. A lawyer friend once told me there’s nothing stronger than true love in the world – except for spite, and nobody knows that better than Ad People. So come share in the spite at Ads From The Crypt, and raise a glass to all those ads that never made it.