We can’t believe this not quite NSFW old ‘Ship my pants!’ Kmart ad didn’t save the brand

Poke Staff. Updated July 25th, 2022

The former shopping giant Kmart has fallen on hard times in the US. In April this year, there were just three stores remaining, and the writing is very much on the wall for them.

This Kmart TV commercial from 2013 should really have saved the business, because it’s advertising gold. It deliberately attempted to make people think their slogan was a lot more NSFW than it was.

Watch …and listen very carefully.

The ‘Ship my pants’ slogan got the message through to customers that they could order things for home delivery, but generated a lot of complaints, sending the ad wildly viral at the time.

When it recently cropped up on Reddit’s r/funny, it brought the ad to fresh eyes – and these comments show just what people thought of it.

I love this commercial. Never noticed before, but it looked like the last employee was leaning in to try to kiss the guy’s wife during the group hug.
Dart_Nephilim

I still can’t mentally correct the “Shipped my drawers.” lady. It sounds like she’s saying “Shit” no matter how many times I’ve listened to it.
Moose_Cake

My grandpa used to shout “I just shipped my drawers” and there’s a 25% chance it was in reference to this.
gmanz33

I just shipped my pants laughing.
Embarrassed-Dirt7152

The kind of ad you make when you’re going out of business and don’t give a fuck.
thediesel26

Ahem. Don’t give a ship.
automaticgainsaying

More than one person shared their suspicions about what ruined the brand, like this –

I bought a 42” LCD tv there about 11 years ago, it was a big splurge for me and weighed a good bit. Anyway, my roommate managed to swing a pair of keys into it the very next day and cracked the screen.

We had all the packaging still so we put it together and returned it and said the screen wasn’t right and I wanted to exchange it.

The guy behind the customer service counter did not give a single shit because he said something like “You could have filled this box with bricks and rocks and I wouldn’t give a shit, go get another TV.” No wonder that place closed.
PM_ME_YOUR_JELLIES

This could be why the advert didn’t do the trick.

I think the biggest problem from a marketing perspective was a complete lack of decent Kmart branding in the scenes. I recall the commercial, but didn’t recall it being Kmart. That’s a problem. Only see and hear the word Kmart once, at the end.
lightknight7777

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Source YouTube H/T r/funny Image Screengrab