Nothing sucks like an ad myth

Oy vey. I've spotted this in a few Swedish blogs recently, and then to top it all off someone mentioned it at work - the old "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux" myth. It goes a little something like this and can be found on countless funny pages, in silly list emails, and spoken during water cooler chats in offices around the world.

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign, "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux".

The funny of course being that Swedes are unaware of the double entendre.

Here is the mythical ad poster.

(originally posted in the comments for "both of these ads really suck")

So lets be clear, it was not an American ad, it was a British advertising poster, and the pun was intended. Look, the Electrolux sucks so hard it explains the leaning tower of Pisa.

The ad agency that created it was Cogent Elliot - and this was one of the questions that had everyone stumped in the ad trivia game.

Sorry about the photocopy, but it's all I could get my hands on and many thanks to adlister Michiel who had this in his scrap book. The ad won UK awards back in 1991/1990 if anyone has creative teams credits. I want to put this ad myth to death already - the "nothing sucks like an Electrolux" ad was real but British. And don't let anyone tell you any different.

Snark Hunting even snarked about it when they read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that "trot out the same old apocryphal tales of ad campaigns that got lost in translation."

What will it take to kill this myth?

@adland @CogentElliottPR You're going back a bit! Creative Director was Mike Fox, but our memories aren't that good to remember anyone else

— Cogent Elliott (@CogentElliott) November 14, 2014