One may wonder exactly what marketing managers actually do. They make and manage marketing plans for a company or brand. But they are human, which means that they do make mistakes. But the level they operate on means that they make mistakes, which we as consumers choose not to remain quiet and to speak up in order to ensure that these mistakes are never repeated again. There are great success ideas too, but, we already know marketing campaigns are successful enough… what’s the fun in that. It’s much more entertaining to look at all Epic Marketing Fails instead.
So, here are the top 5 epic marketing fails that really ended up sabotaging their marketing strategies to the cores.
1.Sending knuckles as their marketing game
Now this is called breaking all barriers to head right for the benchmark. Sometimes the top position is at the bottom, and that is exactly what happened to EA. What they did in the name of marketing game, GodFather II, was not only a marketing fail, but also criminal and unlawful. They sent actual brass knuckles with the pre-release copy of the game to the media folks as a plan to market the game. But not only did this turned out to be a criminal offense, it also ended up being a big commercial and reputation fail.
2. Kendell Jenner Pepsi Ad
Don’t know what the ad makers were thinking… but how can they really think of promoting their product not only in the midst of a major social issue but using the social issue to actually sell your product. So the ad goes something like this, the star character is offering Pepsi beverage to the police officer during a protest. Is that how social issues are solved? Really Pepsi? Well it is understandable how this made people offended to such an extent that Pepsi had to apologise and delete the whole commercial. It looks like even Kendell would not count this ad to be of any notable achievement to her career graph.
3. DiGiorno’s Twitter Marketing disaster
Marketing managers need to know that if they plan on digitally promoting their brand… they must mind each step. DiGiorno Pizza stepped into the hands of offensive marketing the moment they linked Pizza with a hashtag #WhyIStayed. Apparently it took a while for them to understand that the hashtag was associated with horrifying and sad stories of domestic abuse sufferers. As an after action, not only did they deleted the post but also tweeted a public apology. But what’s done is done, and it is a hard learned lesson – “research before posting online”.
4. Not everything could be sorted over a Heineken
Heineken made a huge marketing mistake the moment they promoted the tagline “Sometimes, lighter is better”. It totally enraged audiences subjecting the brand with angry remarks. Since the tagline sounded so racist and ignorant, they had to pull down all ads holding the same tagline with an obvious public apology. Well yes, even though this matter is age old news, it still looks like this marketing failure has registered itself to be bought up every time “epic marketing failures” are discussed. LOL.
5. Comparing Pre-Marriage and Buying Audi… Does that even make sense?
A woman comes out onto the screen in the midst of a marriage ceremony and checks that her daughter-to-be is normal by pulling her ears and chin and some more unappreciative moves before waving a yes to his son. Is this really a wise assurance of her son’s future happiness with his to-be-wife? Getting back to the point, is this really an ad you must showcase to sell your car. Sometimes, ad managers only understand where they went wrong after they receive backlashes from the audiences. How do panelists even say a yes to release such ads. Well since this ad is showcased no more, this could be the only band-aid Audi can provide itself.
What did we learn from these 5 Epic Marketing Fails? That ad managers need to understand that being sensitive, aware and conscious is the key to good marketing. But ad agencies are going to make new mistakes, because practically speaking they believe in pure publicity – good or bad, and from whichever way.
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