Think your advertising copy is lousy? It could be worse. You could work for Mondelez.

I was standing in line at Walmart–hoping that nobody I knew would notice me there–when I looked up and saw this POP display right over the checkout line. I did a double take when I saw the line.  Can you see it?

Super useful.

Huh? How is unwrapped gum “super useful?” I guess now you can use Trident gum to fix plumbing leaks or repair broken zippers. Silly me, I thought chewing gum’s main purpose was to help self-identify as an uncouth American tourist when traveling through Europe.

When I saw this misuse of valuable and expensive advertising space, I figured that the client never read this, the senior account executive never saw it or an even worse alternative happened–they all read this and thought it made sense.

We used to have copywriters on staff who were well-versed in the client’s products and integral to the advertising process. Now, my copywriter friends tell me that writing is relegated to the intern or palmed off on the low-cost bidder from an online crowdsourcing site. Paying peanuts and getting monkeys, as the old saying goes.

Maybe that’s what Modelez’s Project Sprout got them. Big savings, lots of monkeys and lousy copy.