The Five Worst Martin Luther King, Jr. Exploitation Ads

While he lags well behind Hitler as a creative linchpin, MLK has been used to sell suntan lotion, mattresses, beer...

1.

Creepy as crap in-store poster promoting biographies for South African bookstore chain, Booksellers. See the world through MLK's cut-out dead eyes.

Ad agency: Ogilvy Johannesburg.

2.

Sorry for the low resolution image. Ad is for Haywards black stout.

Copy reads: "I have a dream that one day little black bottles and little black glasses of beer will be able to sit at the table with little pale bottles and pale glasses of beer as sister and brothers."

Ad agency: Ogilvy, India.

3.

Ad for Dormimundo mattresses. Ad agency: DDB Mexico

4.

This billboard, the work of Apostle Claver T. Kamau-Imani, a black conservative activist who supported Herman Cain's presidential run, was erected in Texas, South Carolina, and Ohio in the fall of 2011.

5.

"It's Good To Be Black" says Sundown brand suntan lotion.

O—K.

The background is text from an MLK biography.

Ad agency: DDB Brazil.