I generally go out of my way to avoid wearing clothing with brand names emblazoned on them. I figure that if I’m going to be providing advertising for them, they ought to be paying me rather than the other way around.

But what about when the advertising isn’t visible? Would I still feel taken advantage of? Does that even still count as advertising? (If an advertisement falls in the woods and no one is there to see it…)

Why would this question even come up? A Japanese company is offering free underpants with ads on them. (Here’s the Gizmodo post. The company’s site is in Japanese.)

On its own, underwear certainly doesn’t qualify for the Wrongest Product Awards. But the addition of advertising, visible or otherwise, changes everything.

Previous Wrongest Product Award nominations

The Wrongest Product Awards will go to those products (and their designers) that embody the least amount of redeeming value while incurring the use of unnecessary, often gratuitous, materials or energy.

How is this relevant to EcoOptimism, you might ask? Easy – it shows how extraneous so many products are, often in a “what-were-they-thinking” sense.

Nominations are open. Send yours to ImNotBuyinIt (at) EcoOptimism.com.