Those marketing execs who were a few brain cells short of an inoffensive ad campaign: We can’t do an issue on human ineptitude without dedicating a segment to some of the truly awful advertising campaigns that we have had the misfortune to grace our screens. The fact that any of these ads weren’t immediately thrown on the scrapheap continues to amaze us, and amounts to nothing less than a spectacular misreading of what stands for acceptable messaging.

Kendall Jenner solves all of America’s social problems with a can of Pepsi: In an audacious bid for relevance in 2017, Pepsi attempted to score some woke points by sending bn’aire supermodel Kendall Jenner on a protest march towards some unusually friendly police officers. In an attempt to capitalize on a wave of social unrest sweeping the US, the soft drinks giant cast Jenner as a sort of Tiananmen tank woman armed only with a trusty can of Pepsi — a simple sip of which is able to dismantle structural racism, end the militarization of the police, and finally stamp out police brutality. Unsurprisingly, the cynical play at revolution earned no favors with swathes of the American public, and before long both Pepsi and Jenner were out with statements apologizing for the ill-thought-out ad.

It’s 2020 and for some reason ad execs are still getting into hot water for using overtly racist marketing to flog products. Some geniuses over at VW’s marketing department earlier this year thought it necessary to impress upon their white customers that the new VW Golf 8 was not created with black people in mind, in a fairly horrific Instagram ad that made use of explicitly racist imagery and references to colonialism. The German automaker at first insisted that it was simply “misunderstood” before later making an embarrassing climbdown, admitting to being “horrified” at the ad.

It was a similar story with Heineken, which was forced to remove a commercial that seemed to imply that light skin is preferable to dark. The 31-second advertisement showed a bartender pushing a beer can across the counter where it proceeded to roll by many dark-skinned individuals before stopping in front of a white-woman and the tagline “sometimes lighter is better” shows up on screen. Chance the Rapper was one of the reasons why the ad was finally removed after he tweeted that it was “terribly racist” and accused companies of releasing incendiary ads for more views.

Procter & Gamble bring the unabashed misogyny: Procter & Gamble’s cleaning products company, Mr. Clean, released an advertisement of a mother and her daughter wiping a surface with the tagline “This Mother’s Day, get back to the job that really matters.” The ad came under fire for being sexist and the company made sure to amend the matter in future ads such their successful super bowl ad with the tagline “You gotta love a man who cleans.”