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22 of the Biggest Marketing Fails of All Time (and Why They Sucked)

Bluleadz Marketing | August 8, 2023 | Marketing Campaigns | 20 min read

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• 1.   Why They Fail
• 2.   Worst Marketing Fails
• 3.   Social Media Fails
• 4.   What to Learn
• 5.   How to Create Successful Campaigns

An idea can sound great in the conference room, but when you get it out there... not so much. Sometimes what you thought was a great idea can go terribly wrong in so many ways.

Whether it’s how it's executed or how it's perceived, the end result can be a complicated mess that can hurt your brand.

Today, marketers are exploring new channels and new media. Competition is intense and as you chase after that viral video or trending tweet, marketing fails happen. In fact, even the biggest, most recognizable brands make them. And these blunders can be incredibly costly.

Why Do Marketing Campaigns Fail?

The most straightforward answer is marketers forget who they're advertising to.

A lot of blunders can be accounted for by the fact that marketers sometimes take their eye off the prize and focus on being "creative" or "unique" rather than reaching their target audience.

Creating campaigns that stand out is an important part of the process, but an effort to be ostentatious should never come with the compromise of alienating your buyers.

Some organizations simply didn't have realistic goals for their campaigns or they just got the timing wrong. Admittedly, a campaign can flop by sheer bad luck. But there are still certain precautions you can take to minimize the risk.

Marketing campaigns are meant to communicate the value your business can provide. What needs can you meet? How do you do it differently from others? 

If your campaigns are lacking the purpose of uplifting your brand and drawing in customers, then they're pretty much set to fail.

12 Worst Marketing Fails of All Time

In an age of consumerism and digital media, all eyes are locked on a brand's every move. That's great for product launches and brand awareness , but it can easily backfire on a company if they miss the mark. Here are some examples of marketing fails that made us wince:

1. Pepsi: Kendall Jenner TV Spot

We'd have loved to have been in on this creative meeting. The end result was arguably one of the most spectacular marketing fails of the year.

Pepsi wanted to equate its product as a culturally unifying force. OK, not a bad goal for your campaign. But what happened next must have been fun to see...

“Hey, let's get reality show star Kendall Jenner, and we can have her settle a Black Lives Matter standoff between protestors and police by offering a police officer a can of Pepsi...”

The result? Outrage.

The spot was ridiculed on social media, parodied on SNL, and quickly pulled. Advertising agencies used it to eviscerate Pepsi's in-house ad group by saying the fiasco never would have happened if only they'd used an agency.

Six months later PepsiCo president Brad Jakeman stepped down, telling Ad Age the spot was “the most gut-wrenching experience of my career.”

2. Dove: Body Positive Packaging

Dove had a win with the positive body image “Real Beauty" campaign featuring real women in a positive light. It was an empowering campaign.

In fact, the campaign has been running for 15 years and is widely noted as one of the most successful marketing campaigns. The company is striving to help reinforce a positive body image for women.

Then, Dove got their hands dirty. In England, they released limited edition packaging designed to present diverse representations of female bodies. Their packaging compared women's figures to abstract, shapeless soap bottles.

Simply put, the packaging sent the wrong message.

The release became a punchline and a source of genuine concern on social platforms like Twitter and Facebook. They only released seven different shapes to choose from, forcing women to choose the bottle that matched their shape.

Instead of reinforcing a strong body image, it ended up increasing self-consciousness.

3. McDonald's: UK TV Spot

Seems like advertisers in the UK took a lot of heat for a bunch of really bad marketing ideas in 2017! This time it was McDonald’s.

It's hard to offend anyone with fast food, but McDonald’s pulled it off with spectacularly bad taste.

The spot shows a young boy talking with his mother about his dead father. Well, it turns out that one of the things they both shared was a love for filet-o-fish sandwiches.

McDonald’s took a lot of heat from haters on social media who accused them of “exploiting grief to sell sandwiches.”

4. Ford: Print Misfire

In the year when the misdeeds of Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo dominated the news, Ford ran the worst possible visual for their ad campaign. It featured three women who were bound, gagged, and stuffed in the trunk of their new Ford hatchback.

The ad was pulled, and Ford had to issue a public apology because many people rightly found the ad offensive and felt that it encouraged violence against women.

5. Sony: "Racist" Print Ad

This Sony ad ran in 2006. It was promoting Sony's white Playstation Portable device.

Sony decided to promote the new product in a... well, questionable way. On the giant ad, a pale woman with white hair is seen grabbing a black woman by the face. The white figure looks upset and determined while the black figure looks very submissive.

The text reads "Playstation Portable. White is Coming."

There are tons of better ways to promote the launch of your new product. Sony was quoted as saying, "The images that were used in the campaign were intended solely to highlight the contrast between the different colors available for the PSP."

6. Burger King: Smartphone Campaign

In what was initially a great marketing idea, Burger King created a campaign to run on smart devices that activated the device to read a list of burger ingredients posted on Wikipedia, the crowdsourced online encyclopedia.

This was a great idea before hackers altered the Wikipedia post to include ingredients like cyanide.

As a result of the hack, the campaign was pulled, and a potentially innovative marketing channel was temporarily sidelined. This is particularly unfortunate because the concept of this campaign was pretty smart.

7. Audi: Chinese Wedding Commercial

It’s always important to check out a car before you purchase it. Audi turned this idea on its head. 

In the commercial, the groom's mother walks up to the altar and starts checking out her soon-to-be-daughter-in-law. She pinches her lip, pulls on her ears, and looks at her teeth and tongue, before giving a nod of approval to her son.

Then, the tagline reads, “An important decision must be made carefully."

Unfortunately, this commercial misses the mark by objectifying women and reducing their value to that of a vehicle. It was far more offensive than it was humorous.

8. Adidas: Boston Marathon Email

Customers who participated in the Boston Marathon in 2017 received a very poorly worded email from the major shoe and sports attire company.

The subject line simply read, "Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!"

In the context of any other fitness event, this might seem harmless. In fact, many people use this kind of phrasing when they refer to completing an event. For example, some might say they survived their first Crossfit class.

But this message was sent on the heels of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three people and injured more than 250 people. Needless to say, many people were offended.

Adidas immediately issued an apology, but the damage was already done.

9. Airbnb: Floating World Email

This is another marketing fail that was caused by bad timing. Airbnb launched its ‘floating world’ marketing campaign, which included an image of a water-themed house sitting on the surface of water.

The copy included, “Stay above water,” and “live the life aquatic with these floating homes.”

Harmless right?

Well, this campaign launched on August 28, 2017, when Hurricane Harvey was engulfing Houston. Not a great look! 

10. Ink Coffee: Gentrification Sign

What started out as a simple joke on a sign outside of a Denver coffee shop led to a national uproar. The owner of the cafe put out a sign that read, “Happily gentrifying the neighborhood since 2014.”

The issue is that gentrification also leads to the displacement of residents, who are typically lower-income minorities. Ink Coffee was met with big crowds of protestors and even vandalism.

11. Microsoft: Bing and Decide

When internet users think of a search engine, they think of Google. Conversations often start with “I Googled the address” or “Can you Google that?” In the early 2010s, Bing tried to get in on the action, encouraging users to “Bing and decide.”  Major fail. Nobody wanted to "Bing." To make matters worse, they let the campaign run a little too long. When Microsoft finally decided to scrap it, they remained convinced that it had been a good idea. 

12. Susan G. Komen Ditched Planned Parenthood

On January 30, 2014, Planned Parenthood issues a press release announcing that it was deeply disappointed that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation had decided to stop funding breast cancer prevention, screenings and education at Planned Parenthood health centers.

The move was political, and very unpopular. Per the press release, "Anti-choice groups in America have repeatedly threatened the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation for partnering with Planned Parenthood to provide these lifesaving cancer screenings and news articles suggest that the Komen Foundation ultimately succumbed to these pressures."

Needless to say, the effect was the reverse of what activists intended, since Planned Parenthood received over $3 million in just three days as a response to the funding pull. We're not political here at Bluleadz , but we know a bad marketing move when we see one and couldn't skip this one over!

12 Social Media Marketing Fails

It's a pretty big deal when marketing misses the mark on television or in print, but it can be just as harmful when it's on as small a screen as a smartphone. Here are some of the worst cases of social media flubs made by popular brands.

1. Dove: “Racist" Facebook Ad

Unilever had a bad year in 2017. Another Dove ad posted on Facebook was a four-panel image showing a young African American woman removing her shirt over three panels.

The fourth panel shows a young white woman. Oops!

The ad actually showed up in Google search results as “Dove racist ad.” While no agency has taken “credit,” Unilever said the ad was intended to show “the diversity of real beauty.”

What it got was pretty ugly reviews and plenty of well-deserved heat on social media. Dove apologized (for the second time in 2017), and it was strike two for Brad Jakeman.

2. Walkers: Selfie Competition

Walkers is a UK-based snack company that implemented a social media campaign where customers submitted selfies for an opportunity to win tickets to a major sporting event.

Unfortunately, some people submitted pictures of dictators, serial killers, and criminals.

The end result of their failure to audit the pictures before publishing them created a PR nightmare for the company.

3. Wendy's: Twitter Meme

Wendy's got into a tweet battle with customers over whether they really use fresh beef. At first, it wasn't a big deal, but it eventually escalated.

Then, Wendy's responded by posting a meme. No big deal right?

Wrong. The meme they posted was “Pepe the frog.” If you don't know what that is (and why should you?), Pepe was used by white supremacists in the U.S. presidential election in 2016.

The images were pulled, but not before screenshots were taken, and while Wendy's quickly realized their mistake, the damage was done. Not a great day for Wendy's. 

4. The Department of Education: Twitter Typos

Typos aren't usually a big deal unless you're the Department of Education! They tweeted a W.E.B. Du Bois quote that included his name misspelled.

Then, they responded with an apology that happened to include the word ‘apology’ misspelled. 

It was certainly not a great start for controversial Education Secretary at the time Betsy DeVos. In terms of marketing fails, this one got her and the department torched!

The computer systems at the DoE are old, we think they can still handle a spell check!

5. Facebook: VR Puerto Rico Tour

Following the devastation of a horrible hurricane season, Puerto Rico was left in shambles. Mark Zuckerberg used Facebook’s virtual reality app Spaces to tour through an NPR-produced 360 degree video of Puerto Rico.

While the intention behind this Facebook Live video was to show how much aid Facebook was providing to Puerto Rico, it made the company appear completely oblivious to reality. The avatars on screen sported cartoonish smiling faces.

The general reaction was that Zuckerberg seemed to be exploiting the disaster to show off Facebook’s VR capabilities. Just another hint that he may not be human...

6. United States Air Force: Yanny/Laurel Tweet

For a short while, the nation was captivated by a single audio clip. People heard either ‘yanny’ or ‘laurel.’ It was a fun, lighthearted debate, but the U.S. Air Force took it to a dark place.

They tweeted, “The Taliban Forces in Farah city #Afghanistan would much rather have heard #Yanny or #Laurel than the deafening #BRRRT they got courtesy of our #A10.”

This tweet was widely considered insensitive, and the Air Force eventually took it down and apologized. Come on guys! That's unacceptable!

7. Nivea: Purity Post

In Nivea’s Middle East division, the company posted an ad for their “ Invisible for Black and White ” deodorant. The image depicted the back of a woman’s head with long, dark hair covering her white outfit.

The tagline read, “White Is Purity.”

Obviously, this was interpreted as racially insensitive. In fact, white supremacist groups jumped at the opportunity to applaud Nivea for their messaging.

This is a bad sign. Let's leave black and white out of our social posts, okay?

8. Snapchat: Would You Rather Ad

The social app has experienced a dramatic and consistent decline in use after a layout update that upset pretty much all of its users. As if the disastrous change wasn't enough, Snapchat's introduction to ads led to a PR nightmare after insulting one of the world's most popular celebrities.

An ad for a game called Would You Rather? presented the user with a question: Would you rather slap Rihanna or punch Chris Brown?

Even though it was some time ago, people haven't forgotten Rihanna and Chris Brown's domestic violence case. Naturally, neither has the pop star business mogul.

She responded to Snapchat's public apology for the ad on Instagram (their competitor by the way) sharing her disappointment in the company and how a marketing stunt like that has let down not only her but other domestic violence victims, both past and present, as well.

9. Starbucks: Blonde Espresso Advertising

With the release of Starbucks' blonde espresso, which is meant to be a lighter and sweeter alternative to its standard drinks, came a pretty unremarkable marketing campaign.

Their bright yellow landing page advertising the new product read: " Who says espresso has to be intense? We have for 43 years. But we’re Starbucks Coffee Company. So we did the exact opposite."

Were you able to follow that?

Consumers were kind of able to get the gist of what they were trying to say, but their attempt at being edgy just made them sound absurd.

Not to mention, buying a "tall blonde" can sound a bit off!

10. Bootea Shake: Copy and Paste Caption

It's funny that we're starting this list and ending it with the same family, but that's what can happen with influencer marketing. The whole point of partnering with influencers is for their endorsement to feel organic and natural. Most of us understand it's a paid partnership, but still.

Unfortunately for Bootea Shake, Scott Disick didn't just give us a peek behind the curtain. He ripped it off the rod.

Scott posted the company's suggested caption for a promotional photo on Instagram with the instructions still in the text.

Fails like that are cringe-worthy and a strong reminder to make sure that you're partnering with influencers who align with your brand and double-check their work.

11. Elon Musk's Twitter Fails

There's no way to mention social media fails without mentioning Elon Musk! After purchasing Twitter for $44 billion, he has done nothing but confuse users, and make people angry.  #RIPTwitter and #GoodbyeTwitter trended for days after his takeover, and Twitter alternatives began popping up all over the place. 

Plus, what's up with all the different check mark colors? He has us completely confused. It's a shame for now, but hopefully he'll pull it together so we can continue reading (and laughing at) ridiculous public conversations!

12. Ryan Air's Offensive Tweet

When Jaden Sancho failed to make England’s squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, a controversial Tweet found the low-cost airline in some trouble. They jokingly offered that they would still fly him, and he did NOT find it cute. 

Many fans criticized the airling for publicly shaming a young, up and coming athlete who probably already had enough pressure on his mind without being laughed at. Ryanair, you already charge us too much for luggage. Make sure to keep the social media (actually) sweet. Sarcasm not recommended! 

What Should You Learn From These Bad Marketing Campaigns?

This is definitely one of those situations where you should take notes on another's mistakes. There's a lot to be learned from analyzing a failed marketing campaign.

Always Proof Your Projects.

Common sense is not so common after all. When you’re creating and publishing your content, build a process that ensures you have plenty of eyes on your content. That process should include an editor or someone who can proofread your text before you hit ‘publish.’

Don't Fall Out of Touch.

Most of these marketing campaigns bombed because they were essentially just completely out of touch. Always consider the implications behind your messaging. When you’re making jokes, look at them from all angles and perspectives.

When there’s a lighthearted, fun debate going on, keep the fun going! Leverage it to build brand awareness, but don’t make tasteless, insensitive jokes. If you’re going to use pop culture references in your marketing, do your research. Make sure you understand the context of your reference.

Humor can win big, but don’t sacrifice your brand’s values and beliefs for a few chuckles. Remember, comedy is subjective. While you may not intend to offend your audience, if you’re addressing a touchy subject, you might cause a backlash and hurt your brand and reputation.

When you’re running a campaign in a specific region, don’t forget that your messaging can (and in some cases, certainly will) be shared with markets in other parts of the world.

Pay Attention to Current Events.

Some of these examples were simply launched at the wrong time. It's hard to hold any one person accountable when nature speaks, but an organization should always take a moment to pause when disaster happens. It may be to your benefit to hold off on launching a campaign if it will wind up feeling misguided.

If you’re creating content that’s relevant to such events, do so with a genuine interest in educating your audience about the gravitas of the situation. Remember, consumers aren’t stupid. They will see right through your efforts to see what you’re truly striving for, capitalizing on a PR opportunity while real people suffer.

Campaigns are often planned out months in advance. It’s easy to overlook these slip- ups, but it’s important to consider national and international events before your campaign begins. Review your calendar regularly, and check for other poorly timed campaigns.

Aim for a Great Customer Experience.

When you’re creating a campaign that incorporates user-generated material (like Wikipedia updates or selfie submissions), prepare for the worst.

Unfortunately, trolls exist, and they will look for ways to sabotage your efforts. Build your strategy in a way that prevents these troll attacks.

How to Create a Successful Marketing Campaign

It's easy to criticize and judge those who have stumbled in the past, but it should be acknowledged that there's no copy-and-paste method for a fantastic marketing campaign . There's a lot of research to be done and a lot of creative manpower behind it.

A successful marketing campaign is comprised of:

• Clear objectives and goals
• A defined target audience
• Attention-grabbing content
• Monitoring results for optimization

While it's important to try to stand out with your marketing, it's easy to have a great idea go south when using new channels, and even traditional ones.

The bottom line is, before you publish, post, or print, take a close look at your message. Review your copy and take a hard look at your campaign in terms of the current social context. Oh, and always get an educated second opinion before publishing or going live with any campaign! A second pair of eyes is always appreciated when going live!

General FAQ

Marketing campaigns can fail for a lot of reasons. Some of the most common reasons are that they aren't targeting the right personas, you didn't do enough research, you didn't have realistic goals, you created the wrong message, and you delivered content at the wrong time in the buyer's journey.

What Makes a Successful Marketing Campaign?

A successful marketing campaign is comprised of the right market research, the right buyer personas, attention-grabbing content, and optimized landing pages. You should also properly monitor your results while your campaign runs to identify opportunities for improvement.

What Should You Take Away From Failed Marketing Campaigns?

When analyzing a failed marketing campaign, your business should consider:

• if you have the right processes in place
• if your customer data and information is accurate
• if your team has the skills to support your marketing objectives
• if you're delivering the right customer experience.

Kathryn Bouchard

Kathryn is a Content Marketer at Bluleadz. She graduated from James Madison University with a Master's degree in Political Science and is currently living in Castellon, Spain. From Arlington, VA, she loves to read, run, swim, and study all things legal.

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• Capital One

10-22-2020 25TH ANNIVERSARY

The 25 most spectacular branding fails of the last 25 years

From McDonald’s hamburger for adults to ‘The Dead Kid’ Super Bowl ad, these are corporate America’s biggest ‘what were they thinking?’ moments since 1995.

[Photos (left to right, top to bottom): Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images, Jozsef Soos/iStock, Rick Friedman/Corbis/Getty Images, Disney, Tropicana, Microsoft, Juicero, Alexander Migl/ Wiki Commons , Pepsi]

BY  Jeff Beer 10 minute read

Calvin Klein ‘kiddie porn’ campaign (1995)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVk21Pco-c

In a campaign shot by fashion photographer Steven Meisel, the young models, combined with the basement-amateur-porno vibes, sparked enough backlash that it forced the Justice Department to open an investigation. Ultimately, the brand had to take out a full-page New York Times ad to declare, basically, that it wasn’t child porn. Not exactly the image you want to sell jeans and underwear.

McDonald’s Arch Deluxe (1996)

WOW Chips (1996)

Orbitz bubble soda (1997)

Flooz (1999)

Pontiac Aztek (2000)

Segway (2001)

ESPN phone (2006)

Bank of America ‘One’ video (2006)

Microsoft Windows Vista (2007)

Tropicana redesign (2009)

Folgers ‘Coming Home’—aka The Incest Ad (2009)

It’s certainly not the worst ad in the last 25 years, but it’s definitely the only one that people associate with mild incest vibes and notorious enough to inspire an oral history a decade later. Sometimes there is such a thing as too much on-set chemistry.

‘United Breaks Guitars’ (2009)

Before user-generated content became a common channel for most marketers, Canadian musician Dave Carroll’s last ditch attempt to get United Airlines to pay for his guitar that was broken in transit after a year of asking became not only a viral YouTube smash, but a case study in the power of social media and how everything that a brand does can become brand communications.

Miracle Whip ‘We Will Not Tone It Down!’ (2009)

Rule No. 1: Miracle Whip may not be mayo, but it’s also not punk rock. Or cool. It’s a condiment. This campaign featuring hipster sandwich lovers dove headfirst into the “Hello, fellow kids” deep end, on its way to being a poster child for the idea that not every brand needs to be a lifestyle. A decade later, ad agency execs still whisper its name among the worst their business has ever spawned.

Gap logo redesign (2010)

Qwikster (2011)

Groupon Super Bowl ad (2011)

The Super Bowl is arguably the biggest stage for any brand, and here Groupon, then the fastest-growing internet phenomenon in history, bombed in front of 100 million people. The spot, created by agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, was meant to spoof celebrity ads and encourage people to donate to important causes. Instead, it came off as a fratty, racist dud that forced CEO Andrew Mason to issue a statement saying, “We hate that we offended people, and we’re very sorry that we did—it’s the last thing we wanted.” The ad was pulled within a week, but it lives on, on worst-ever Super Bowl ad lists.

‘John Carter’ (2012)

AT&T 9/11 tweet/product placement (2013)

Nationwide ‘Boy’ Super Bowl ad (aka The Dead Kid ad) (2015)

The Super Bowl is meant to be a fun time. Football! Beer ads! Snacks! Then Nationwide’s ad about a young boy who missed out on his life because he died in an accident completely managed to bum out millions of people and spoil the fun. The ad’s somber tone was widely panned, forcing the company to actually issue a statement explaining the ad . Much like a joke, if you have to explain your ad, you’ve already lost.

Subway: ‘Jared’s Pants Dance’ game (2015)

Juicero (2016)

Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad (2017)

[Image: Pepsi]Say the words “Kendall Jenner” and “Pepsi” and people know . Here we had a multicultural coalition protesting nothing in particular, when Kendall Jenner emerged to give a cop a Pepsi, and in the process, solve racism. Mocked by SNL , the blowback forced a tearful apology from Jenner and inspired conversations across corporate America about the importance of making sure that there are a diversity a perspectives in the room before a big decision. This is at the top of just about every Worst Ad list and will be for a long, long time.

Heineken’s ‘Sometimes, Lighter Is Better’ ad (2018)

A bartender notices a light-skinned woman disappointed by the calorie count of her white wine, so he pops open a Heineken Light and slides it across the party toward the young woman—and past a number of Black and brown-skinned patrons—as the tagline, “Sometimes, lighter is better” appears onscreen. The critical reaction was turbocharged when Chance The Rapper called the company out , forcing it to apologize and make a statement explaining itself.

North Face Wikipedia ‘hack’ (2019)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeff Beer is a senior staff editor covering advertising and branding . He is also the host of Fast Company’s video series Brand Hit or Miss   More

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Kodak’s Downfall Wasn’t About Technology

• Scott D. Anthony

What it missed was the business model.

A generation ago, a “Kodak moment” meant something that was worth saving and savoring. Today, the term increasingly serves as a corporate bogeyman that warns executives of the need to stand up and respond when disruptive developments encroach on their market. Unfortunately, as time marches on the subtleties of what actually happened to Eastman Kodak are being forgotten, leading executives to draw the wrong conclusions from its struggles.

• Scott D. Anthony is a clinical professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, a senior partner at Innosight , and the lead author of Eat, Sleep, Innovate (2020) and Dual Transformation (2017). ScottDAnthony

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7 Biggest Marketing Fails in History: Analyzing Lessons From the Industry

Why do marketing campaigns fail?

Seven biggest marketing fails, how to avoid marketing fails, final thoughts.

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Imagine launching a campaign you’re certain will be a hit, only to watch it become one of the highly publicized marketing fails. From misunderstood messages to campaigns that missed the mark, history is rich with lessons begging to be learned. This post isn’t about finger-pointing, though. We are taking you on a tour of the most monumental marketing fails, dissecting the missteps and mining them for the golden lessons they hold. So, by the end, hopefully, you and your business won’t fall into the same traps.

Sometimes, even the most promising ideas crash and burn, leaving marketers scratching their heads and asking, “Where did we go wrong?” The reasons can be as varied as the campaigns themselves, but they often circle back to a few common pitfalls:

• Unrealistic expectations . Setting your marketing goals too high can lead to disappointment.
• The lack of budgeting . Without adequate funds, a campaign might not reach its full potential, lacking in reach and impact.
• Customer experience troubles . If the process of making a purchase is as complicated as solving a Rubik’s cube, expect customers to head elsewhere, even in spite of all your marketing efforts.
• Wrong positioning and messaging . Your brand’s message only resonates when it aligns with your audience’s, your marketing personas’ expectations and values.
• Audience misunderstanding of the campaign . Sometimes, despite a brand’s best efforts, people misinterpret the advertising, warranting an apology and a reassessment of the approach.

And that’s just to name a few. But remember, every marketing fail, whether it’s by a startup owner or a big business, is unique and teaches us something new. Each mistake has its own story that can show us what not to do. Let’s take a closer look at some big brands’ marketing mess-ups to see exactly where things went wrong and how to keep our business from making the same mistakes.

Diving into the world of marketing blunders and similar topics, we’re about to explore some of the most “Wait, what?” moments the industry has ever seen. From ads that made us facepalm to campaigns that left many people asking, “Who greenlit this?” These seven stories are the marketing equivalent of accidentally texting your boss instead of your friend. 

Yet the biggest marketing fails have the same causes as the small ones. They are just more public. So you can not only laugh about them but also learn from them. Grab some popcorn as we take a closer look at these unforgettable fails, and find out how they can teach us to craft campaigns that hit the mark. (Or at least avoid the ones that don’t). 

Burger King: Feminism went wrong

In March 2021, Burger King’s UK Twitter (X) account decided to celebrate Women’s Day with a recipe for disaster rather than a burger, serving up a tweet that read, “Women belong in the kitchen.” 

Intended as a bait-and-switch to highlight a scholarship program for female chefs, the tweet instead led to a storm of backlash. The follow-up tweets, meant to clarify and promote gender diversity in the culinary world, were lost as people saw the initial message as tasteless and sexist.

This marketing misadventure teaches us a crucial lesson: words matter, especially on social media. Burger King’s attempt at a bold statement on Twitter ended up overcooked, showing that what might be a zesty idea in one context can easily become unpalatable in another.

Lesson learned: Know your business audience and choose the topics and words of your social media posts carefully, ensuring your message adds flavor without leaving a bad taste. Check out Selzy’s other articles if you want to see good Women’s Day marketing examples and learn what women think about equality and inclusion .

Pepsi: Commercializing protests

In 2017, Pepsi decided to venture into social activism topics with a fizz but ended up with a flat outcome.

The brand released a commercial depicting Kendall Jenner leaving a photo shoot to join a protest. Ultimately, she handed a can of Pepsi to a police officer, seemingly resolving the tension. 

The ad wanted the audience to sing along to “Kumbaya” but people got upset instead. The audience didn’t appreciate the oversimplification of the Black Lives Matter movement. The backlash on Instagram and Facebook led Pepsi to pull the ad and issue an apology, particularly to the movement’s activists and, awkwardly, to Jenner herself.

Critics, including Martin Luther King’s daughter, highlighted the ad’s insensitivity, with the final scene drawing direct comparisons to a powerful image of Ieshia Evans in Baton Rouge — a true moment of peaceful protest that became iconic within the movement.

Lesson learned: In Pepsi’s attempt to bottle peace, love, and understanding, they forgot their audience’s taste for authenticity and respect for serious social issues. This marketing blunder teaches us the importance of understanding the weight of social movements and making sure our campaigns respect and acknowledge their significance without trying to capitalize on them. 

Coca-Cola: Messing up with the classics

In 1985, Coca-Cola’s bold move to revamp its classic formula and introduce New Coke stirred up more than just bubbles. Despite conducting over 200,000 taste tests that suggested people preferred the sweeter New Coke, the brand overlooked one critical thing: those tests were sips, not full drinks.

Coca-Cola, brimming with confidence from taste tests, didn’t anticipate the uproar. Fans were dialing in their discontent, flooding the company with 1,500 daily calls. 79 days later, the company had to revert to its original formula and product branding. 

Lesson learned: Understanding your audience goes deeper than what they say they like in a moment. It’s about the memories, the moments, and, yes, the taste they’ve grown to love. Before you think of changing what works, remember that if your brand is loved, you should think twice before a major overhaul. And check your research insights twice.

Bud Light: Weak allyship

In 2023, Bud Light’s attempt to champion inclusivity by partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney quickly fermented into a marketing misstep, serving as a cautionary tale on the potency of purpose-driven campaigns. This seemingly groundbreaking campaign led the company to spiral into a 13.5% dive in revenue and a 29% tumble in U.S. dollar sales in four short weeks. 

The partnership, meant to celebrate diversity, spotlighted the brand’s struggle navigating social commentary’s choppy waters. It ended up with Bud Light losing its crown as America’s best-selling beer — a title it had proudly held for over two decades.

Instead of holding ground and standing up for the values it decided to promote, the company backtracked. Trying to appease the audience, it released a patriotic ad that was met with anger .

Lesson learned: This case is a reminder that the path to purpose-driven branding is fraught with pitfalls. You must understand your audience’s tastes and the importance of standing firmly by your campaign’s message. 

Adidas: Ignoring the signs

In the high-stakes world of celebrity endorsements, Adidas’s YEEZY sneakers in collaboration with Ye (Kanye West) was like striking gold, rivaling even Nike’s iconic partnership with Michael Jordan. This product contributed an estimated eye-popping 40% of profit. By 2023, however, this golden partnership had tarnished, not due to a dip in sneaker sales but from the corrosive effect of controversy. Ye’s series of troubling antisemitic statements turned this profitable collaboration into a cautionary tale, costing Adidas a $2 billion shortfall. Despite previous whispers and complaints about Ye’s behavior, it took a public outcry for Adidas to cut ties. 

Lesson learned: Selecting the right influencer for your business is not an easy task. Celebrity endorsement opportunities have to make sense and require more than just a compass pointed toward profit. It demands a moral compass, too. Aligning with stars whose values reflect your brand ensures that they will illuminate your brand positively rather than cast it into shadows. 

Volkswagen: Playing dirty

Back in 2016, Volkswagen found itself in hot water, big time. It all started when they decided to play a bit fast and loose with their diesel vehicle emissions tests. They rigged their cars to pass environmental standards tests and then led a huge marketing campaign advertising the low emissions. That’s the premise of the notoriously famous “Dieselgate.” And it was a marketing disaster that made VW look more villain than an eco-hero.

Here is one of the ads about VW diesel vehicles released the same year the scandal broke:

The fallout was massive. Volkswagen’s sales hit the brakes, especially in the U.S. and Europe, as trust in the brand tanked. To settle the score, they had to cough up a staggering $14.7 billion , covering fines, legal fees, and a fund to buy back or fix the “rogue” vehicles (because, let’s face it, those cars were acting more like undercover agents than trustworthy rides). This cash also went into cleaning up the pollution mess they made and investing in cleaner vehicle technology.

Lesson learned: The story’s moral is clear: honesty is not just the best policy. It’s the only policy if you want to avoid becoming an environmental and financial cautionary tale. In today’s digital age, where transparency is king and consumers are keen detectives, attempting to pull the wool over the world’s eyes is a sure path to scandal.

Steering clear of the marketing mishaps that have capsized others can send you floating through the stormy seas of marketing. Here are some valuable lessons to consider:  

• Understand the human aspect: Remember, at the heart of every successful marketing strategy is a pulse — your audience’s. Dive deep into the psychology and behaviors of your target demographic. Understanding your target audience’s currents, tides, and undercurrents can mean the difference between success and failure.
• Budget strategically: Treat your marketing budget like a pie. You wouldn’t eat it all in one bite, right? Spread it thoughtfully across different channels — social media (Facebook, X, Instagram, etc,) or that holiday email marketing calendar — ensuring each leads to a satisfying ROI.
• Align with long-term goals: Align your marketing goals directly with your company’s objectives to maintain a focused approach. Additionally, regularly review and adjust these goals to respond to any external changes and keep your marketing strategy agile.
• Stay true to your values: Authenticity is your North Star. In a world where trust can be elusive, staying true to your brand’s values ensures your audience never feels betrayed.

By embracing these simple strategies, you’re not just avoiding marketing fails but probably going to be ahead of many competitors.

To avoid marketing flops, it makes sense for anyone, including startup owners and marketers working for a large business, to take notes on past mistakes. Bud Light, Adidas, Volkswagen, and others — big names, big blunders, big lessons. Each case teaches the importance of knowing your audience and staying true to your brand’s essence, no matter what are you working at: whether it’s an email marketing strategy or a new advertising campaign. These stories remind us that successful marketing is built on authenticity, respect, and careful strategy. Let’s keep these lessons in mind, aiming for messages that connect genuinely and positively:

• Choose your words carefully.
• Respect social movements.
• Plan your budget.
• Think twice before changing what’s working well.
• Always keep your audience’s values and tastes in mind.
• Choose partnerships carefully.
• Don’t cheat. 

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Four marketing lessons from the sad fate of Crystal Pepsi

Kara Baskin

Apr 20, 2016

Do you long for the days of Diet Crystal Pepsi and coffee-flavored Coca-Cola? If so, you just might be a “harbinger of failure.” This group of consumers has a knack for repeatedly purchasing flop products, as identified in a recent study by MIT Sloan professors in the Journal of Marketing Research .

“People who like yellow nail polish are the same people who like watermelon Oreo cookies,” said Duncan Simester, an MIT Sloan marketing professor and one of the study’s authors.

Understanding purchasing tendencies offers a telling glimpse into consumer behavior. Harbingers’ early adoption of a new product is a strong signal that a product will fail—the more they buy, the less likely it is that the product will succeed. Firms can identify these customers through past purchases of either new products that failed or existing products that few other customers purchase.

The study turns conventional wisdom on its head: Not all positive feedback is good feedback, and product sales don’t translate to success if the wrong people are buying. Instead, Harbingers buy things that appeal to a narrow slice of the marketplace.

Indeed, said Simester, 60 percent of all products fail. Co-author Catherine Tucker—a marketing professor at MIT Sloan—and Simester share lessons for market researchers who want to avoid promoting the next New Coke or Frito-Lay Lemonade.

Not all positive feedback is good . Instead, it’s important that the positive feedback on a new product or service comes from customers who have previously adopted products that ended up being hits in the marketplace.

Consider your customers’ history. When researching the kind of customers who like a new product or service, it’s important to also understand their history of liking products that flopped.

Look at the big picture. Though it might be natural to focus on whether customers liked products that flopped in your natural niche or product segment, it’s also instructive if they brought flop products in an entirely unrelated product segment. For example, if you’re selling batteries, it’s still troublesome if the customers who like your new innovation also liked Crystal Pepsi.

Beware the repeat harbinger. Ask not just whether the products your customers bought earlier were flops or successes but also how many of them they bought: If they bought multiple successive units of a product that flopped, then that’s a sure sign that they’re a harbinger of failure.

To identify these Harbingers, the study analyzed data sets from a prominent convenience store chain. One data set focused on aggregate transactions from 111 store branches for six years to track product survival; the other focused on individual-level transaction data for two years. The researchers followed 127,925 customers covering 10 million transactions using the retailer’s frequent shopping card (enabling the researchers to track actual purchase history).

If researchers can draw these conclusions about consumer behavior, what’s next? Maybe politics.

“The next question is, where else does this happen? We’re not sure yet, but we’re contemplating ideas. One idea might be, there are harbingers of political failure: donors to political campaigns who systematically give to losing campaigns,” Simester said.

Presidential hopefuls take note.

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Biggest Marketing Fails Ever (and the Lessons to Take Home)

Alright, y’all, we’ve been talking about a lot of strategies and tips for marketing success, but it’s time we talk about marketing fails too.

We get you. You’ve got creative ideas for your campaigns, aiming to connect with and inspire people and turn them into loyal customers. You want your brand to shine; the name of your company needs to mean something when people hear it. 

And it’s not just about sales for you. It’s about building something real that the world needs, and reaching “your people” through imaginative and innovative ways.

Sure, studying and adopting successful marketing strategies lays the foundation for a business like this, but just as essential is digging into the marketing failures of the past to understand what went wrong, why, and how you can avoid making the same mistakes.

“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” and all that, right? 

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest marketing fails (and learn from them so we aren’t doomed 😉)

Burger King SpongeBob Ad

You’ve probably heard the old adage, “Sex sells.” 

The term often refers to cheap, out-of-touch sales tactics that end up perpetuating the objectification of women (sometimes men, mostly women), like this one from Burger King:

The ad, which features women with square-ish butts dancing to Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” alongside SpongeBob SquarePants and Burger King’s “The King,” is offensive, gross, and honestly just creepy.

Seriously, in 2009? This looks like a horror ad from the ’50s. 

We should be past this, people.

We’re not in the Mad Men era. We’re in 2021, and our society has changed for the better. As our culture shifts, so do the rules for what works in advertising – and what does not.

Take care that your selling tactics don’t stoop to the level of Burger King and its Spongebob ad. Beyond the fact that the dehumanization of women in advertising is incredibly harmful to society at large, using these cheap schemes will lead to a marketing fail in which your brand is associated with sexism, misogyny, and objectification. 

That’s neither a sustainable nor a respectable business, and, as evidenced by Burger King’s loss of customers and declining popularity, not a business that people stay loyal to.

Coke’s New Taste 

When Coke came out with its New Taste formula, marketers and Coca-Cola-lovers alike let out a collective gasp. 

Why change the very thing that your customers know and love? Coke was ubiquitous, international, beloved, and had been the same for 100 years until this fiasco. The backlash was so intense that it was only a few months until Coke did another switcheroo and brought back the Coca-Cola classic flavor.

But hey, if people have such an intense bond with your product or service that changing it has customers panicking and filling their basements with it , you’re doing something right. 

Don’t underestimate the importance of brand familiarity and connection. Otherwise, you might have a pretty bad marketing fail on your hands.

Snapchat’s Would You Rather Ad

Soooooooooooooooo… how much more distasteful can you get? 

This advert was for a game called “Would You Rather?” and posed the question: “Would you rather… slap Rihanna or punch Chris Brown?” 

Rihanna rightfully called Snapchat out for making light of a very real incident in which Chris Brown violently assaulted her, and of the greater, pervasive problem of domestic violence in society.

Snapchat quickly removed it and maintained that the third-party ad was “reviewed and approved in error.”

A few lessons here to avoid a marketing fail as bad as this. The most obvious: Don’t engage with content that trivializes domestic violence. The lesser-obvious: Have value-driven policies in place, and make sure your ad publishing process is tight enough that violations don’t slip through the cracks. 

Aldi’s Poorest Day Challenge 

Speaking of insensitivity.  

Aldi’s Poorest Day Challenge campaign had London-based influencer Natalie Lee purchase groceries for her family of four on no more than £25 per week. The “Poorest Day” refers to January 24th, which is the last Friday before pay day following December holiday shopping. 

The intentions behind this campaign were maaaaybe decent – trying to offer advice for feeding your family healthy, balanced meals on a budget – but the outcome is what matters. And the outcome was downright patronizing. 

An influencer “playing poor” for a week to show struggling families that they can still afford nutritious meals? Just… ugh . This was a bad marketing example all around, and a serious case of not knowing your base. Many people who shop at Aldi’s are, in fact, on a budget, and the campaign came across as a mockery of their lived experience. 

The ad received a lot of backlash, but Aldi stood behind its intent. 

Starbucks Blonde Espresso

Another marketing fail by a well-known, international company: the Starbucks Blonde Espresso ad.

Starbucks came out with its Blonde Espresso in 2018 for all the customers who couldn’t stand the household-cleaner taste of its signature roast and advertised the new product with the words: 

“Who says espresso has to be intense? We have for 43 years. But we’re Starbucks Coffee Company. So we did the exact opposite.”

Say what? 

We’ve said one thing forever, but now we’re saying the exact opposite, so you should trust what we say and buy the new stuff… not the best messaging. 

Coming out with new products and appealing to a different customer base is great, but let’s be a little smoother with how we package (puns!) the new offer. Proof your campaigns and copywriting before you publish! 

Kraft’s Inappropriate Noodles

This marketing fail is a lesson in knowing your audience and listening when feedback comes your way. 

On National Noodle Day, Kraft attempted to promote their Mac ’n’ Cheese with a campaign encouraging people to “send noods” to make friends and family smile. In the advertisement, Vanessa Bayer honed in on the pun, saying , “Send noods, not nudes.”

The backlash was swift and fierce. Parents were especially upset, calling the company out for sexualizing Mac ’n’ Cheese and being “predatory” towards children. 

Sure, adults eat Mac ‘n’ Cheese too, but Kraft’s target audience definitely includes kids, so this attempt at a funny pun ended up just being inappropriate. 

The positive here is that Kraft heard its customers, apologized, and immediately removed the ads.

  Source

Kendall Jenner and the Infamous Pepsi Ad

Ah, the Kylie Jenner Pepsi commercial. The poster child of tone-deaf, this one still makes us cringe. 

If your company is going to make a statement about a serious social injustice, you better first do your homework, check your own biases and blind spots, and probably get some perspective from the population actually affected by said the social issue before releasing a campaign as profoundly uninformed as this. 

I mean seriously, the New York Times wrote about how bad this marketing fail was .

In the ad, TV star Kylie Jenner leaves a modeling shoot to join protestors at a march that echoes the Black Lives Matter movement. She grabs a Pepsi, gives it to a police officer, and everyone cheers when he takes a sip. 

The ad was widely – widely , widely , widely – condemned as a thoughtless and ignorant attempt to sell a soda product by hijacking a sensitive socio-political movement. It seemed to people that the ad claimed that peace and unity could be achieved if everyone would just have a can of Pepsi, which completely trivializes a movement fueled by police brutality and widespread killings of Black people. 

The lesson from this marketing fail? Do your homework and don’t co-opt important social movements for your company’s gain. If you take a stance, make sure it’s genuine and informed. 

The Safety Warehouse Cash Dupe

The Safety Warehouse advertised “New Zealand’s first-ever mass cash drop,” promising “$100,000 in value” to fall from the sky. 

People showed up to the event only to find fake cash and $500 vouchers flying around. 

Needless to say, things got ugly . 

Schemes like these harm a brand’s reputation. You might get people’s attention and make headlines with a promise this sweet, but if it’s disingenuous, your customers are going to be upset. 

Don’t prey on people’s struggles to get them to buy your stuff. Too many of us really do need cash for real things like paying rent, and floating fake cash and vouchers from the sky after a vaguely dishonest ad campaign is just wrong. 

The shock factor of a “mass cash drop” definitely drew people in, but don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep. This was a bad marketing campaign entirely.

Tropicana’s New Look

Tropicana’s redesign was rolled out in January of 2009 and rolled right back in February. 

It was so bad that the fruit juice company lost $20 million in sales within one month. 

What went wrong? This was a branding fail all around.

The rebrand removed the orange, the epitome of orange juice, and put Tropicana’s lettering vertical instead of dead center and bold. It looked worse and made Tropicana’s lovable brand unrecognizable. 

Two key lessons here: 

1) Don’t let a redesign take away your brand’s personality; and 

2) Do some market research before revamping your look to see what’s resonating with your customers, and what’s not. 

Some of these bad campaign examples were fun, others offensive, but all shared one common denominator: marketing fail. 

Building a thriving business is centered around the relationship you have with your customers, and these advertising mishaps and marketing failures show just how delicate that relationship can be. Don’t lose touch with your audience (and current events) no matter how clever you try to be in your advertising.  If you’re ever unsure, come back to these examples of what not to do, and you’ll be golden.

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10 Marketing Strategy Failures, And What to Learn From Them

A lot of resources go into marketing plans each year, by businesses big and small. Likewise, planning marketing initiatives is a time-consuming process and requires several approvals. But more than half of the initiatives often end up becoming marketing strategy failures. They either do not generate the expected outcome or they do not turn out to be as productive as the initial idea when executed. One of the biggest reasons for such failures is the lack of concrete goals on the part of the marketers. Some campaigns are initiated on the grounds of unrealistic expectations, making them major marketing strategy failures to learn from. 

What Is a Marketing Strategy?

The long-term planning of a brand’s business objectives is known as its marketing strategy. By devising a marketing strategy, a brand defines how it wants to position its services in the market, and how it will be creating sales opportunities. The marketing strategy of a brand is determined by its business objectives and concrete goals. There are four distinct levels to a marketing strategy, which include product strategies, pricing strategies, distribution strategies, and promotion strategies. A sound marketing strategy includes the company’s vision, its target audiences, buyer personas , the brand’s positioning within the market, its multi-channel activity plan, and the timeline for the implementation of that plan.

What Is the Significance of a Marketing Strategy?

In order to make the most of its marketing and advertising efforts, your brand needs a sound marketing strategy. There are several benefits of having a marketing strategy. Some of them are as follows: 

• It leads to increased sales. 
• It helps the brand strengthen its relationship with the target market. 
• It helps bolster brand identity. 
• It creates a sustainable growth model for the brand. 
• It keeps the activities of a brand relevant and consistent
• It allows a brand to measure ROI. 

10 Examples of Marketing Strategy Failures

It is not uncommon for brands to take missteps when launching new marketing campaigns. Take the following marketing strategy failures as learning opportunities. 

1. Real Beauty Bottles by Dove 

Dove had been winning hearts with its #RealBeauty campaigns for quite some time. But the release of its limited-edition packaging, which was in the form of shapeless soap bottles representing women’s diverse body types, had the opposite effect on audiences. This packaging sent the wrong message to the customers and resulted in an angry social media backlash from people worldwide. Many women believed the bottles looked nothing like real bodies, and that Dove had taken the idea a little too further. 

2. Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad

One of the worst marketing strategy failures ever was the Pepsi ad starring Kendall Jenner. 

This commercial featured Kendall as a part of a protest. At the end of the commercial, she walks up to a police officer and hands him a can of Pepsi as a peace offering. As the cop takes the can, everyone can be seen cheering. While it was meant to promote global peace and unity, this ad did just the opposite of that. 

It, in fact, was known to trivialize the Black Lives Matter movement, and was extremely tone-deaf in its approach, wherein a protest was reduced to a party event. In a rush to show that your brand is trendy and updated, do not launch ill-designed ads that are not really thought through. 

3. Airbnb’s “floating world” email

Another one on the list of epic marketing strategy failures is Airbnb’s email which got a lot of flak due to bad timing. The email contained an image of a house on the surface of the water, and one of the subheads read, “Stay above water.” What led to the failure of this idea was that Airbnb probably didn’t keep up with the news at that point in time. It was the month of August, and Houston was engulfed by Hurricane Harvey. This situation made the email come across as extremely tone-deaf. 

4. Dove’s racist Facebook ad 

Once again, Dove’s plan of reinforcing positivity was ruined by an idea not executed properly. This Facebook ad features a young black woman removing her shirt, just for a white woman to emerge from underneath. 

The brand ended up getting ample bad reviews and a lot of social media heat. The biggest lesson from this marketing strategy failure is that it is crucial to have a multi-perspective strategy panel and a review team to ensure your campaigns are inclusive and well-documented through and through. Dove could have benefitted from more cause-based marketing than an ill-designed ad, such as this one.

5. “White is Purity” ad by Nivea 

Another one of the terrible marketing strategy failures was a Nivea ad with the tagline, “White is Purity.” The image accompanying it had a woman’s back covered by her long and dark hair. She was in a white outfit. The interpretation of the ad had audiences feeling quite enraged. It was seen as largely racist, exclusionary, and insensitive. Being sensitive to customers worldwide is extremely important when planning marketing strategies. 

6. “Would You Rather” game by Snapchat

An extremely degrading move on Snapchat’s part was a game called “Would You Rather.” It turned into an absolute PR nightmare for the social app. 

The game posed questions like, “Would you rather slap Rihanna or punch Chris Brown?” Since Rihanna has had a past experience with domestic violence, this move was disturbing for not just her fans, but also domestic violence victims worldwide.

7. “Lighter is Better” slogan by Heineken

Although Heineken was talking about its beer, the ad ended up getting added to the list of marketing strategy failures, owing to its slogan, “Sometimes, lighter is better.” There is nothing spectacularly wrong with the words of this ad, except for the fact that the beer bottle passes dark-skinned people before it can be seen in the hands of a fair-skinned woman. 

It is, therefore, a good idea to keep your marketing team diverse so that issues like this can be spotted before they spiral out of control.

8. The KFC-Oprah giveaway

KFC launched an interesting and attractive offer for its customers, announcing that viewers of The Oprah Winfrey Show would get a coupon, promising them a free chicken meal (two pieces) with two individual sides and a biscuit. The customers simply had to download the coupon from the Oprah website. 

The lack of proper research on KFC’s part led to millions of people downloading coupons (as many as 10.5 million). KFC had to give away free food worth $42 million as a result. Conducting proper research is important before offering discount offers, coupons, or giveaways. Otherwise, such campaigns can backfire and lead to more losses than profits. 

9. Burger King’s Tweet on Women’s Day

On the occasion of Women’s Day 2021, Burger King published a thread of Tweets announcing their scholarship program for women interested in pursuing culinary arts. But the content of the Tweet was clearly misguided. It was intended to reduce gender discrimination by means of this scholarship, but the words, “Women belong in the kitchen” had the opposite effect. It is advisable not to use controversial issues to grab attention. There is a high chance of misinterpretation in such cases. 

10. “Spiked eggnog” ad by Bloomingdale’s

The 2015 Christmas catalog by Bloomingdale’s featured a man looking at a woman laughing and it read, “Spike your best friend’s eggnog when they are not looking.” 

While it was not intended to do so, the ad was seen as promoting the idea of date rape. This was an absolutely terrible idea for any ad, let alone a Christmas ad. Playful humor is a good device to use when planning ads, but controversial and sensitive topics should be avoided at all costs. Since this was a print ad, Bloomingdale’s was unable to completely pull it from the market. This marketing strategy is also a good reminder to be extra careful with print media. 

Why Do Certain Marketing Strategies Fail?

Here are a few reasons why marketing strategy failures take place. 

1. Quality of the product

One of the most common reasons for failed market segmentation is a poorly designed product. Without a great product, a brand cannot achieve success. A bad product can lead to a lot of negative repercussions for a brand. For instance, Samsung has launched several amazing gadgets in the past years and is a trusted name in the world of smartphones and electronic gadgets. But the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was one of the worst failures of the brand, and they are remembered for it even now. 

2. Wrongly selected market segment

The major reason for any brand’s failed market segmentation is its wish to expand into all the realms as quickly as possible. In order to establish a strong and trusted position in the market, it is important to choose your market segment carefully. After you have gained a substantial user base in a select few markets, you can consider expanding.

3. Failure to adapt to trends

Marketing strategy failures also happen due to a brand’s incompetency when it comes to adapting to the rapid changes of the market. Technology, automation, analytics, artificial intelligence, data processing, and more—everything is changing around us, and there are a lot of brands need to keep up with. It is essential for a brand to adapt as quickly as possible to the trends in the market. 

4. Unfulfilled promises

Customers have expectations from your brand, and the way you deal with them is what will define your brand identity. If your brand is unable to successfully meet those expectations, customers are greatly dissatisfied. It is crucial that brands make their marketing plans agile, and are quick in responding to errors and fixing them. Making adaptable plans can save a brand from a situation of unmet promises and customer dissatisfaction.

We all have heard enough times that “to err is human.” However, marketing strategy failures are errors that can cost a brand a lifetime of reputation and trust. It is a good idea to observe strategies and campaigns of other brands and learn from them, thereby avoiding the same mistakes. 

Key Takeaways

• A marketing strategy is important, as it helps in increasing sales, establishes the brand’s identity, keeps the brand relevant and consistent, helps in its organic growth, and allows the brand to measure its ROI.
• A sound marketing strategy includes the company’s vision, its target audiences and their buyer personas, the brand’s positioning within the market, its multi-channel activity plan, and the timeline for the implementation of that plan.
• A bad product is one of the primary reasons for a marketing strategy failure to occur.
• A number of brands fail as they cannot adapt quickly to the changes in the market. 
• Sound research is essential before launching coupons and discount offers. 
• It is advisable not to use controversial issues to grab your audience’s attention. There is a high chance of misinterpretation in such cases. 

Some bad marketing strategies to avoid at all costs include filler advertising, spamming, cold calling, not doing enough research, and not paying attention to market trends.

Some of the major marketing fails of all time are as follows: 1. Dove’s “Real Beauty Bottles” ad 2. Bloomingdale’s “spiked eggnog” ad  3. Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad 4. Women’s Day Tweet by Burger King 5. KFC and Oprah Winfrey’s miscalculated giveaway

In order to make the most of your marketing efforts, you must educate your audience, update your content constantly, expand your guest blogging endeavors, personalize your marketing messages, invest in original research, use more data-driven ideas, and include more video content .

The most commonly observed reason for the failure of marketing campaigns is that marketers are not aware of what they are working towards. They start devising campaigns and strategies without setting an initial concrete goal.

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Marketing Misfires

Shelly jain, elizabeth stearns and dan turner offer 15 classic, cautionary cases of failed marketing campaigns.

If the best-laid plans of marketers often go awry, just imagine what happens to the worst-laid plans.

The history of marketing is littered with botches and blunders at every stage of the new product process, from value creation to value capture. For the sake of argument, we asked three of the University of Washington Foster School’s marketing faculty—associate professor  Shailendra Jain  and senior lecturers  Elizabeth Stearns  and  Daniel Turner —to share their favorite cautionary tales.

Value CREATION

The modern era of marketing failures began with the Edsel , the Ford Motor Company’s heavily hyped car, a revolution in style and technology that hit the marketplace in 1957 with a thud.

Offering unique value that the customer wants, it turns out, is fundamental but far from a given.

In 1985, Coca-Cola revamped its famous secret formula to counteract growing competition from Pepsi, which had stolen a chunk of its dominant market share. The sweeter New Coke beat both its original formula and Pepsi in blind taste tests. But when New Coke supplanted old, loyalists revolted. Coca-Cola ended the experiment quickly. Its brilliant comeback with Coke Classic not only recovered lost market share, but gained additional ground.

“In a naïve way, it made perfect sense for Coca-Cola to improve its product, making up for a known deficiency versus a focal competitor,” Turner says. “But it made a fundamental error in forgetting what value it was offering customers—brand associations of America, friendship, nostalgia. These are emotional associations we cannot ignore.”

Sony Betamax

Sony was first on the market with a home videocassette player/recorder in 1975. Its Betamax boasted better picture and sound quality and a smaller console, but a shorter recording time than JVC’s competing VHS technology, which arrived two years later. But while Sony attempted to dictate the industry standard, JVC recognized that consumers liked the added tape time, and opened its technology to multiple companies, quickly creating massive market dominance.

“Sony had a strong brand, but it could not do battle with 30 or 40 companies that jumped on the VHS bandwagon,” Jain says. “Once a technology is introduced and adopted widely, it becomes very difficult to dislodge.”

Honda Accord Hybrid

While the Toyota Prius has become an emblem of fuel economy and environmental responsibility, the similar class Honda Accord Hybrid barely registered with consumers during its brief existence from 2005-07. The hybrid version of the popular Accord offered more power but no greater fuel economy, and cost $9,000 more. While other car companies rolled out successful hybrids, Honda quickly cut its losses.

“There is a limit to the strength of a brand,” Jain says. “Honda failed to provide a utilitarian benefit—greater fuel economy—or a self-expressive benefit—a sense of doing something for the environment—that a hybrid customer demands to justify the premium price.”

Value COMMUNICATION

Ad campaigns, like hair styles and fashion trends, can look ridiculous in retrospect. But they also can do serious damage to a brand, as when a Xerox commercial from the 1960s memorably demonstrated that its new office copier was so easy to operate that a monkey could do it, enraging legions of secretaries.

From the illustrious history of modern marketing, here are some other notable failures to communicate:

Though Nike has created some of the most inspirational messaging in marketing history—“Just do it,” anyone?—it’s also responsible for some egregious overreaches. Most horrifying may have been a 2000 commercial in which elite runner Suzie Favor-Hamilton and her speedy Nike kicks outsprinted an eventually winded chainsaw-wielding maniac. The punch line: “Why Sport? You’ll live longer.” Amid predictable protest, the ad was quickly pulled.

“Throughout history marketers have made a plethora of mistakes in trying to capture and hold the attention of target customers long enough to deliver a marketing message,” Turner says. “Nike is a company that I greatly admire, but it has consistently pushed beyond the envelope in trying to convey its message.”

Toilet to Tap

That’s not a spectacularly bad product name, but rather the cheeky media-branding of an innovative wastewater-reclamation project in Orange County, California.

In a region that pipes in 90 percent of its water from the Colorado River—at enormous cost—the process has been somewhat successful for irrigation uses, but thus far failed to convince the public of its drinking potential.

“Reclaimed water is a good idea—it’s not a question of  if  but  when  we will adopt it,” Stearns says. “But in California, its marketing has been taken over by the consuming public. They haven’t figured out how to overcome the psychological barrier, the ‘yuck’ factor.”

You may have heard about the new compostable SunChips bag. Or, perhaps just as likely, you’ve actually  heard the bag, an absolute ear-sore according to rampant press reports.

“Unlike Sun Chips Canada, which stuck with the original packaging after successfully showing the actual composting of the product to reinforce its value,” Stearns says, “Sun Chips USA pulled all but its base brand, succumbing to critics.”

A stealth marketing campaign employed attractive actors to ride Vespa scooters up to restaurants, cafes and bars, flirt with customers and hand out their phone numbers—which turned out to connect them to the local Vespa dealership. Bait. And. Switch.

“A great example of an ill-conceived value communication gone horribly wrong,” says Turner.

The unique online coupon service had enjoyed mostly positive buzz until it aired a brazenly insensitive commercial during the 2011 Super Bowl that misappropriated the plight of the Tibetan people to sell its service. The public cried foul. Groupon pulled the ad and tumbled into damage control.

“You don’t always have to like an ad campaign, but your market segment does,” says Stearns. “This ad was in such bad taste that it begs the question: who at the agency and/or company approved it?”

The new Diet Pepsi “Skinny Can” is tall, thin and undeniably elegant. The problem? It debuted during New York Fashion Week, juxtaposed against willowy models and pronounced to be “in celebration of beautiful, confident women.” Critics found nothing to celebrate.

“Pepsi misunderstood the context into which they introduced the product,” Stearns says. “They did not foresee the charges of irresponsibility in an environment where obesity and eating disorders are so prevalent.”

Value CAPTURE

Execution and pricing gaffs may appear less spectacular than product or promotion misfires, but they can prove even more tragic. A good product or a good promotion—or both—can be shot down by a bad business model, or even just a myopic one.

EMI CT Scanner

The breakthrough medical imaging device was invented and introduced in the 1970s by Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI), a company better known for recording the Beatles.

“Technology is a moving target,” explains Jain. “You have to constantly be on the cutting edge. If you’ve shown that there’s money to be made and you don’t assume that competitors are already getting into the market, you’re sleeping.”

Laker Airways Skytrain

The original discount airline was a big success in the 1970s, carrying idealistic young people “across the pond” in no-frills flights for low, low cost. But when its charismatic British founder, Sir Freddie Laker, tried to expand into US domestic routes, the monopoly of big American carriers simply matched fares until they choked out the upstart.

“Flying with Freddie Laker—as I did when I was in grad school—was like being part of a movement, supporting an alternative, breaking up the cartel,” says Stearns. “Now it’s a revealing case study on the challenges of expanding in a regulated or monopolistic market.”

“It’s a great example of incentive misalignment,” Turner says. “The Tupperware chairman and CEO pronounced it big and bold… and ugly.”

Why the big bubble? The Internet promised a revolutionary business model but, initially, few knew how to make money with it. “Dot-com theory” dictated that an e-business expand its customer base as rapidly as possible, even if doing so meant huge annual losses. Presumably, profits would magically flow later. But for every Amazon and eBay that thrived, hundreds more pioneering dot-coms went down in flames.

Says Turner: “Pets.com, Webvan.com, Kozmo.com and many, many others generated impressive revenue lines but, sadly, failed in a massive collapse of wrong-headed pricing model logic. Poor value capture relegated them to the dustbin of marketing history.”

Read more the on the classic failure of  New Coke  from Dan Turner, as well as  iPhone’s struggles in Asia from Shelly Jain and Elizabeth Stearns on good marketing saving a flawed product—the VW Beetle .

Ed Kromer is the managing editor of Foster Business magazine. Over the past two decades, he has served as the school’s senior storyteller, writing about a wide array of people, programs, insights and innovations that power the Foster School community.

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Analyzing 10 Epic Marketing Failures [2024]

In the dynamic world of marketing, where bold strategies and innovative campaigns can lead to remarkable successes, the shadow of failure looms large.For every groundbreaking marketing triumph, some numerous missteps and miscalculations serve as stark reminders of the challenges and complexities of the field.

This blog delves into some notable marketing failures that exemplify not just the pitfalls of marketing but also serve as crucial learning opportunities.

Related: How to Become a Marketing Thought Leader?

#1 H&M’s “Monkey in the Jungle” Hoodie

The Blunder:

In 2018, H&M faced global outrage for a children’s hoodie featuring a black child modeling the slogan “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle.” The ad was widely condemned as racist and insensitive, highlighting the dangers of implicit bias in marketing.

 Reasons for Failure:

• Cultural Blindness: H&M failed to recognize the racist connotations of the imagery and messaging, particularly in the context of historical oppression and stereotypes linking black people to monkeys.
• Lack of Diversity: The lack of internal and external review processes involving diverse perspectives led to a tone-deaf campaign.
• Ignoring Social Context: H&M didn’t consider the heightened sensitivity around racial issues in the wake of social justice movements.

 Lessons Learned:

• Practice Cultural Sensitivity: Be mindful of the cultural context and potential implications of your messaging. Consult diverse perspectives to avoid offensive imagery or language.
• Embrace Diversity and Inclusion: Foster a diverse and inclusive environment within your company to ensure all viewpoints are considered.
• Stay Aware of Social Issues: Be attuned to social conversations and movements to avoid insensitive marketing campaigns that could damage your brand.

#2 Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts for Grown-Ups

Kellogg’s launched Pop-Tarts for Grown-Ups, a line of toaster pastries with gourmet flavors and higher price tags, aiming to capitalize on adult nostalgia for childhood treats.

Reasons for Failure:

• Misreading the Market: Adults found the flavors gimmicky and inauthentic, not a sophisticated upgrade to their childhood favorite.
• Overestimating Nostalgia: The marketing campaign relied heavily on nostalgia, failing to offer real value or innovation for discerning adult consumers.
• Price Disconnect: The premium pricing alienated budget-conscious customers who wouldn’t pay extra for fancy Pop-Tarts.

Lessons Learned:

• Don’t Exploit Nostalgia: Nostalgia can be a powerful tool, but it shouldn’t be the sole marketing strategy. Offer genuine value and innovation.
• Understand Your Target Audience: Don’t assume adults want childhood favorites repackaged. Cater to their evolving tastes and preferences.
• Price Value Alignment: Ensure the price reflects the product’s value and resonates with your target audience.

#3 Dove’s Real Beauty Bottles

Dove introduced six limited-edition body wash bottles in various shapes and sizes to represent the diversity of women’s bodies. While the intention was noble, the execution stumbled, resulting in a significant marketing misstep.

• Reinforcing Stereotypes: Instead of subverting conventional beauty standards, the bottle shapes inadvertently reinforced them. Critics argued that the bottles perpetuated stereotypes of women’s bodies, reducing them to mere curves and sizes.
• Objectification and Discomfort: The campaign shifted the conversation from individual beauty and confidence to an analysis of physical attributes, deviating from Dove’s original message of self-acceptance.
• Tokenism and Limited Representation: The limited selection of six bottle shapes felt tokenistic, failing to truly encompass the immense spectrum of body diversity.
• Authentic Inclusivity Over Tokenism : True inclusivity requires going beyond superficial gestures and actively seeking diverse perspectives. During the campaign development, Dove could have consulted with a broader range of women to ensure a more authentic and representative portrayal of diverse beauty.
• Focus on Individuality and Confidence: Shifting the focus from physical attributes to individual stories and experiences of confidence would have resonated better with the audience.
• Open Dialogue and Continuous Learning: Openly acknowledging the flaws in the campaign and engaging in a constructive dialogue with critics would have demonstrated transparency and a commitment to learning.

Related: Reasons Why Marketing Managers are Fired

#4 Fyre Festival by Fyre App

The Fyre Festival, executed by Fyre Media Inc., was primarily conceptualized as a promotional event for their Fyre app, designed to facilitate music talent booking.

Fyre Festival’s marketing portrayed it as a luxurious and exclusive event. They used high-profile influencers and social media to promote the festival. However, there was a significant disconnect between the luxurious marketing and the poor reality of the event.

Reasons for Failure

• Lack of transparency in marketing, with influencers not disclosing paid promotions.
• Unrealistic promises that vastly exceeded actual capabilities and resources.
• Mismanagement of logistics and resources led to inadequate facilities at the event.

Lessons Learned

• Importance of alignment between marketing promises and actual product/event delivery.
• Need for transparency and ethical practices in influencer marketing.
• The necessity of adequate planning and resource allocation for events.
• The risks of over-reliance on social media buzz without substantiating the actual offerings.

#5 Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner Ad

Pepsi released an ad featuring model Kendall Jenner joining a protest and offering a Pepsi can to a police officer, seemingly resolving the tensions.

Reasons for Failure :

• The ad was seen as trivializing the complex and sensitive issues surrounding social justice movements, particularly those related to Black Lives Matter.
• It faced backlash for appearing tone-deaf by suggesting that serious social conflicts could be resolved simply through a soft drink.
• Lack of genuine connection to the social issues it portrayed, making it seem like an opportunistic and insensitive marketing ploy.

Lessons Learned :

• There is a critical need for cultural sensitivity and relevance in advertising, especially when dealing with social justice and political protest themes.
• Understanding the societal context and the sentiments of the target audience to avoid misinterpretation and backlash is extremely important.
• It is necessary for brands to engage in social issues authentically and respectfully, ensuring their marketing campaigns do not trivialize or exploit sensitive topics.

#6 Burger King’s Moldy Whopper Campaign

Burger King launched a campaign showcasing a time-lapse of a Whopper becoming moldy over 34 days to highlight their removal of artificial preservatives.

• The visual imagery of moldy food contradicted typical appetizing food marketing, leading to mixed reactions and even disgust among some viewers.
• The campaign’s shock value overshadowed its intended message about fresh ingredients and no preservatives.
• There was a disconnect between what the brand intended to communicate (commitment to natural ingredients) and how the audience perceived it (unappetizing visuals).
• The risk-taking strategy of using negative imagery to convey a positive message didn’t resonate as expected with a significant portion of the target audience.
• The importance of aligning marketing visuals and messages with customer expectations and appetites.
• Need for careful consideration of how bold or unconventional marketing tactics will be received by the public.
• Understanding that shock value in advertising needs to be balanced with positive and appealing imagery to effectively communicate the intended message.
• The significance of testing marketing concepts to gauge public reaction before widespread release.

#7 Nokia’s Smartphone Strategy

Nokia, once a leading mobile brand, placed its bet on the Symbian operating system, which struggled to match the more intuitive and user-friendly interfaces offered by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms.

• Slow Adaptation to Market Trends : Nokia was slow to recognize and adapt to the shift towards smartphones, especially the touch screen interface, which became popular after the introduction of the iPhone.
• Overconfidence in Brand and Symbian OS : Nokia heavily relied on its Symbian operating system, which couldn’t compete with the user-friendly interfaces of iOS and Android. This overconfidence in its existing technology and brand loyalty hindered innovation.
• Inadequate Marketing Efforts : Nokia’s marketing did not effectively communicate its smartphones’ benefits or unique features. They lacked a compelling marketing narrative that resonated with consumers increasingly attracted to the ecosystems offered by Apple and Google.
• Organizational Challenges : Internally, Nokia faced organizational issues that delayed decision-making and hindered its ability to innovate rapidly. There was a lack of coherent vision for the future of its smartphone line.
• Importance of Agile Response to Market Changes : Companies must quickly adapt to technological and market shifts, rather than relying on past successes.
• Innovation Over Brand Reliance : The need to continuously innovate and upgrade technology to meet changing consumer demands, rather than depending solely on brand reputation.
• Effective Marketing Strategy : The critical role of marketing in communicating a product’s unique value proposition and keeping pace with competitors’ narratives.
• Organizational Agility : The importance of having a flexible and responsive organizational structure that can quickly implement strategic decisions and innovations.

Related: Top Marketing Analytics Case Studies

#8 McDStories Social Media Campaign

McDonald’s initiated the #McDStories hashtag campaign, aiming to create a platform for customers to share positive stories and experiences related to the brand. However, this seemingly innocent social media campaign quickly turned into a major marketing blunder as people began sharing negative and unflattering experiences with the fast-food giant.

• Lack of Control Over Narrative : McDonald’s failed to anticipate that an open-ended hashtag campaign could quickly spiral out of control. Once negative stories gained traction, it became challenging for the brand to regain control of the narrative.
• Underestimating Public Perception : McDonald’s did not take into account the significant number of dissatisfied customers and critics who were waiting for an opportunity to voice their grievances.
• Risks of Open-Ended Social Media Campaigns : This incident highlights the risks associated with open-ended social media campaigns. Brands should exercise caution when creating campaigns that allow user-generated content, as they can be easily hijacked for negative publicity.
• Understanding Public Perception : Before launching any social media campaign, brands should invest time in understanding their current public image. Recognizing and addressing existing criticisms can avoid spreading negative sentiments.
• Crisis Management : Brands should be prepared to respond swiftly and effectively to any unexpected developments or negative feedback to minimize damage to their reputation.

#9 Burger King’s “The Whopper Sacrifice” Campaign

Burger King’s “The Whopper Sacrifice” campaign on Facebook made a bold move in digital marketing. The premise was simple yet provocative: users would receive a coupon for a free Whopper if they unfriended 10 people on Facebook.

• Promotion of Negative Social Behavior : The campaign encouraged users to unfriend people on Facebook, a platform designed for building social connections, thus promoting ‘anti-social’ behavior.
• Violation of Platform Norms and Policies : The campaign breached Facebook’s user privacy guidelines by notifying users when they were unfriended, which was against the platform’s policies.
• Misalignment with Social Media Ethics : The campaign’s concept was fundamentally at odds with the ethos of social media, which is centered around fostering and maintaining relationships.
• Underestimation of User Privacy Concerns : The campaign did not adequately consider the privacy implications and user sensitivities around social connections and notifications.
• Align Marketing with Platform Values : Ensure that marketing strategies are in sync with the core values and policies of the platforms being used.
• Avoid Encouraging Negative Behaviors : Marketing initiatives should not promote actions that could be perceived as socially or ethically inappropriate.
• Consider the Social Impact of Marketing Strategies : Be mindful of how a campaign might affect social dynamics and public perception.
• Balance Innovation with Sensitivity : While innovative and disruptive marketing can be effective, it’s important to balance this with social sensitivity and ethical considerations.

#10 Audi’s Chinese Wedding Commercial

Audi faced a major marketing blunder with its “Second Hand Car Certification” campaign in China. The ad, titled “Perfect Match,” featured a mother-in-law inspecting her son’s bride-to-be at their wedding, scrutinizing her nose, ears, teeth, and even suggesting she lift her shirt to check her breasts.

• Cultural Insensitivity: The ad completely missed the mark in understanding Chinese cultural sensitivities. In China, mothers-in-law can hold significant power within families, but their authority is rarely exercised in such a public and humiliating manner.
• Misogyny and Objectification: The ad’s focus on the bride’s physical attributes, presented as commodities to be inspected, was blatantly sexist and objectifying. It reduced the woman to her physical appearance, ignoring her personality, intelligence, or other qualities that might be relevant to a marriage.
• Exploiting Stereotypes: The ad perpetuated harmful stereotypes about women in China, portraying them as passive objects to be scrutinized and judged. This reinforced existing gender inequalities and undermined the progress made in women’s rights advocacy in China.
• Engaging in thorough and nuanced cultural research before launching any marketing campaign in a foreign market is crucial. Understanding the local customs, sensitivities, and values is essential to avoid offensive and culturally inappropriate messages.
• Incorporating diverse perspectives into the creative process can help identify potential cultural pitfalls and ensure inclusivity. In this case, including women and individuals from Chinese backgrounds in the brainstorming and feedback stages could have prevented the blatant sexism and misogyny of the ad.
• Building marketing campaigns on authentic narratives and respectful portrayals is key to building trust and engagement with audiences. Audi’s attempt at humor backfired because it lacked authenticity and disrespected both women and Chinese cultural norms.

Related: Motivational Marketing Quotes

The exploration of these seven marketing failures underscores a fundamental truth in business: failure is as instructive as success, if not more so.

These examples are powerful guides in navigating the intricate landscape of consumer engagement, reminding us that even the most established brands are not immune to misjudgment. Ultimately, these lessons shape a more resilient and astute marketing approach, essential for navigating the ever-evolving market challenges of the future.

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7 Cringe Marketing Fails to Learn From

Don't make the same mistakes as the brands behind these cringe-worthy marketing fails.

Table of Contents

Though teams invest significant time and effort into marketing campaigns for months before they go live, some completely miss the mark. Maybe a campaign’s message becomes misinterpreted, the tone makes light of a serious social issue or an honest mistake turns into an embarrassing viral video. To avoid these mistakes in your own business, here are some of the most cringe-worthy marketing failures that big brands have suffered through and what you can learn from them.

1. Pepsi and Kendall Jenner miss the mark on social activism.

Pepsi’s infamous 2017 commercial with supermodel Kendall Jenner – pulled mere days after debuting – put itself in the crosshairs by completely missing the mark on its message of unity. In the commercial, Jenner notices a nearby protest amid her photoshoot. It’s unclear what the activists are marching for, but she joins them, takes a Pepsi from a cooler and approaches a police officer to hand them the can of soda. The officer takes a sip, someone snaps a photo and everyone cheers.

Public outcry, especially on Twitter, was so scathing that Pepsi had no choice but to issue an apology and pull the entire campaign from syndication. Pepsi also released a statement that read: “Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are removing the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologize for putting Kendall Jenner in this position.”

Interestingly, this isn’t the first time a soda company tried to use protest movements to sell its product. In 1971, Coca-Cola adopted the “flower power” opposition to the Vietnam War in its “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” advertisement.

The lesson: Strive for authenticity in messages that involve hot-button social issues. Even if the campaign’s aim is genuine and positive, pull in focus groups to ensure the message lands the way you intend with the appropriate audiences.  

2. Dove’s ‘body positivity’ packaging raises body image questions.

In 2017, the Unilever brand Dove sold body wash with limited-edition Real Beauty Bottle packaging in the U.K. The TV spot that announced packaging, which was designed to resemble different female body types, reminded buyers to “celebrate the many shapes and sizes of beauty.” Packaging came in six varieties and failed miserably after release.

Dove rarely fails to convey a message of body positivity, as it’s been the brand’s theme and vision for more than 15 years. Unfortunately, this well-intentioned campaign’s message communicated the opposite of what it wanted to do. The Real Beauty Bottles acted as a proxy for the buyer’s own body, forcing them to confront what is often a very difficult internal struggle with body image for many. Does the buyer choose the bottle they think they are or the one that is their ideal body type? Should they feel poorly about their body image and the bottle they chose? 

While Dove was left to do some damage control from the backlash, the brand’s well-respected image and loyal customer base ensured this failure didn’t sink the company.

The Lesson: Not every product needs to categorize your customers or remind them of their potential insecurities, even if the intention is to help embrace them. Sometimes functionality is better than kitschy segmenting.  

3. Huggies makes fun of fathers.

In 2012, Huggies marketing failed hard with “ The Dad Test .” The multichannel campaign pitted fathers against their children’s dirty diapers. One campaign spot stated, “To prove Huggies diapers and wipes can handle anything, we put them to the toughest test imaginable: dads, alone with their babies, in one house, for five days, while we gave moms some well-deserved time off. How did Huggies products hold up to daddyhood? The world is about to find out.”

Huggies hinged its campaign on the incorrect stereotype that dads, the “dunces” of the family, would struggle to take care of their children without their partners around. Not only did it make fun of fatherhood, but it also ostracized same-sex couples with two fathers, as well as single parents. The backlash from dad bloggers pointed out the ridicule. One father commented, “It seems to me they’re hoping for comments like ‘Huggies diapers are so good, even dad can use them.'” 

In the end, Huggies issued a half-hearted apology that reiterated the message it tried to get across: spotlighting real dads and their kids putting Huggies products to the test.

The lesson: If your message is fun or lighthearted, ensure it’s inclusive too. Consider all the people who use your product or service, and ensure messaging doesn’t lean on stereotypes to work.

4. Airbnb sends ‘Floating World’ email during a massive hurricane.

Airbnb’s “ Floating World ” email marketing campaign suffered horrible timing in 2017 as Hurricane Harvey pounded Houston, Texas. In an ill-timed email marketing campaign, Airbnb advertised water-themed homes and attractions like houseboats and waterfall slides, promising ways of “how to spend a day – or entire trip – without touching dry land.” Other headlines included “Stay above water” and “Live aquatic life with these floating homes.”

While the public didn’t widely condemn the brand, those affected felt it was insensitive and took to Twitter to call out the brand’s mistake. Airbnb apologized, stating, “The timing of this email marketing campaign was insensitive and we apologize for that. We continue to keep everyone affected by Harvey and all the first responders and their families in our thoughts.”

Unlike other brands, Airbnb has built disaster relief into its brand, often activating a disaster relief program that connects displaced people and emergency workers with local hosts who offer their homes for free. 

The lesson: While marketing teams can’t anticipate or avoid natural disasters, know what messages are running – and where – to enable quick pivoting. In addition, having a strong corporate social responsibility program can lessen a mistake’s impact.

5. Bing attempts to ‘verb’ itself.

When internet users think of a search engine, they think of Google. Conversations often start with “I Googled the address” or “Can you Google that?” In the early 2010s, Bing attempted to get in on the search engine-turned-verb action, encouraging users to “ Bing and decide .” 

It didn’t stick.

The campaign to overtake Google as the top search engine failed miserably, with users and even Microsoft employees refusing to adopt the awkward phrase in casual language. To make matters worse for Microsoft, the company continued the campaign for a bit. When it finally gave up, it chalked it up to failed marketing rather than a poor initial idea.

Over a decade later, Microsoft’s Bing remains a powerful search engine. Globally, it trails Google with the second-highest market share in the search engine market: 3% compared to Google’s 92.5%. 

The lesson: Focus on your unique value proposition, and avoid copying competitors’ messaging. It can painfully backfire, leaving you farther behind your competition than when you started.  

6. Audi compares women to used cars.

In 2017, German car manufacturer Audi released an ad with the used-car division of its joint venture in China. In the advertisement, a bride and groom stand ready to get married when the groom’s mother halts the wedding to aggressively inspect the bride’s body – pinching her nose, ears and lips. The mother then gives an A-OK hand gesture but drops her face as she sees the bride’s chest sigh in relief. The ad immediately cuts to an Audi driving on a highway, with a voiceover stating, “An important decision must be made carefully.” 

Unsurprisingly, Audi faced massive backlash for the ad that compared women to used cars, with many critics calling out the sexist undertones of the commercial. After the commercial aired, it became a trending topic, with nearly 200,000 views on Weibo (China’s version of Twitter). Audi apologized profusely and withdrew the commercial.

In an email to The Washington Post , Audi spokesman Moritz Drechsel said, “The ad’s perception that has been created for many people does not correspond to the values of our company in any way. The responsible department of the joint venture has arranged a thorough investigation of the internal control and coordination processes so that an incident like this can be excluded in the future.”

The lesson: Drawing humorous parallels from products to product users is tricky to get right. If you’d like to use a comparison, pilot the message with the audience you’re highlighting in the message to ensure clarity and inclusivity.

7. Susan G. Komen ‘breaks up’ with Planned Parenthood.

For foundations like Susan G. Komen, cause marketing seems easy enough with its built-in values and near-global reach. However, in 2012, the foundation publicly stopped funding a cause that it has supported since 2005: Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screenings. 

The negative uproar was immediate and swift, placing Komen’s value for comprehensive women’s health under a microscope. Instead of releasing a clear statement, Komen seemed to sidestep the issue by citing a new internal rule, refusing to respond to critics and blaming Planned Parenthood’s investigation from Congress for the split.

The lesson: Understand the impact partnerships have on your business, especially if the partnership is with a cause-driven organization your target audience cares about. If and when you need to break ties, strategize a transparent communication plan to lead the narrative instead of reacting to it.

Learning from big brands’ mistakes

Marketing trends come and go, and what’s viral today may be forgotten in a few weeks’ time. However, careful planning and consideration of your audience’s reaction to your campaigns is a timeless strategy that will help you avoid backlash like the brands listed above received.

As you develop your marketing materials, it’s wise to test your ideas with a small sample audience, whether it’s a colleague in another department or a formal focus group from your target demographic . Either way, getting an outside perspective on your team’s creative assets can help you spot potential issues and misinterpretations before they make (negative) headlines.

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More From Forbes

Why google glass failed: a marketing lesson.

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When Google announced that they had invented a device that put a computer in front of your eye, the world collectively gasped. Google Glass was, and is, a stunning technological accomplishment.

From the moment the actual product was revealed many saw the immense potential of it. You could video anything you are seeing. You could have a map in front of you wherever you walked. You could have a computer and the internet ready at a moment's notice, taking your experience of life to a whole new level.

But what happened to Google Glass?

In the last 2 weeks Google has let it be known that they're taking it back to the lab. The product, at least in its current incarnation, is over.

It was worse than simply a product that didn't catch on, even in its prerelease, from a sales point of view it has been a monumental failure.

The question is why?

Why weren't there long lines of people ready to fork out around $1500 to get this amazing device?

The answers are simple. And any of us wanting to sell our own products successfully should heed the important marketing lessons Google Glass's failure teaches.

Here, in my view is why Glass didn't make it.

1. No Real Product Launch

The product was launched in a novel way - give early adopters and a whole slew of celebrities Google Glass and let them be the advertising.

In one way this worked brilliantly - Glass got oodles of P.R. But in following this strategy Google dropped the ball on some fundamental and compulsory aspects of launch marketing. The first being that any product launched once announced publicly, must complete the launch by revealing an actual date the product can be purchased. This never happened with Glass.

It's not enough to show a product off and engender desire for purchase. You have to have a specific day when when the public can get it.

If Google Glass had such a date then I for one missed it. Apple of course do this superbly.

2. No Mainstream Advertising Campaign

If you seek to launch a global product, then history has shown it's best to support it with announcement advertising. Doing PR is fine, but you are never fully in charge of the message. If you want to sculpt public perception exactly to your specifications, it really helps to use paid media to get your key points across in the clearest way. Having spent presumably hundreds of millions of dollars developing Glass, Google should have spent at the very least $10 million explaining it. Instead, they left it all up to their public relations department and soon lost control of the key benefits messaging.

3. No Clear Explanation About Why The Product Was Fabulous

With any totally new product or service, companies must be very clear about telling the public why that product is great. The core benefits must be spelt out - and no more than three key points should be emphasized again and again. If you try to say too much, (or even worse, don't make a clear argument on the product's behalf at all ), then don't be surprised if it doesn't catch on. Any product that needs the public to spend time working out for themselves why it's valuable has already lost the battle. One of the problems with Glass was it arrived with great fanfare, but most of us were not sure how we could use the product.

4. No Easy Way To Buy It

It's all fine and dandy to tease the launch of the product and not initially have it available for purchase, but after a few months you've got to distribute it through physical outlets or the net. Otherwise you lose the buzz and then when the product is finally introduced in stores, the launch energy has been lost. Google teased us for far too long, then by the time they saw that the world's intrigue for Glass was waning, it was almost too late. The hot new product had become first a warm new product and then just an oddity no longer even garnering much press.

LESSONS WE ALL MUST LEARN FROM THIS.

The lessons for all companies and entrepreneurs looking to launch a product are as follows.

Launch with buzz like Google did with Glass, but use paid media if you can afford it to strengthen your PR, then make the everyday benefits of using your product crystal clear. Finally be sure to release the product quickly and widely to take advantage of the momentum.

None of this is difficult, but most of it was simply not done by the Google Glass team.

On a personal note, I really hope Google can come back from this and relaunch Glass with great success. Google's intention to not just be a search/advertising company but to use their immense cash flow to sponsor moonshot projects to help the world, is in my view truly wonderful. Glass is just the first of a myriad of exciting products that will soon emanate from the Google X lab. This is a magnificent company with mighty, world changing aims. It is a company with a genuine ability to change the world, many times.

Let's just hope they get their marketing right.

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International marketing failures: Lessons from big brands

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Have you ever had one of those facepalm moments when a seemingly brilliant marketing strategy goes hilariously awry? Trust me, you're not alone. 

Even the bigwigs, the brands we've come to recognize as giants in the world of international marketing , have had their fair share of "Oops, we didn't see that coming!" moments. 

From Mercedes Benz's naming hiccup in China to KFC's rather... "cannibalistic" translation, these tales of international marketing missteps are not just entertaining but chock-full of lessons for all of us. 

So, grab your favorite beverage, get comfy, and let's dive into these epic international marketing mistakes and see what golden nuggets of wisdom we can unearth together!

Main takeaways from this article:

Cultural sensitivity is crucial in global marketing; brands that understand and respect local cultures excel in international markets. Following are a few examples of international marketing failures:

Mercedes Benz in China: The mispronounced brand name sounded like "rush to die."

BMW's ad, showing Al Ain Football Club members distracted by a BMW engine during the Emirati anthem, faced backlash and was replaced due to perceived disrespect..

Parker Pens' slogan mistranslated in Spanish resulted in the unintended message, "It won't leak in your pocket and get you pregnant."

Pampers in Japan: Stork imagery on packaging confused customers unfamiliar with Western folklore.

HSBC Bank: Slogan "Assume Nothing" translated in some markets to "Do Nothing."

KFC in China: Slogan "Finger Lickin' Good" mistranslated as "Eat Your Fingers Off."

Ford in Brazil: The "Ford Pinto" name had an embarrassing slang connotation in the local language.

Best practices for international marketing include engaging local experts and consultants, providing continuous cultural training for marketing teams, conducting regular feedback and market testing, and maintaining flexibility and adaptability in marketing strategies.

The importance of cultural sensitivity in marketing

When we talk about marketing, especially on a global scale , understanding and respecting these cultural nuances isn't just a "nice-to-have" – it's an absolute must!

Imagine trying to sell an ice cream brand in Alaska during the dead of winter without taking into account local preferences or conditions. Sounds like a chilly disaster, right?

Now, let's flip the coin. When brands genuinely invest time and effort into understanding a culture, they can create campaigns that resonate deeply, almost magically, with their audience. 

It's like they're saying, "Hey, we get you," and who doesn't like feeling understood? This cultural sensitivity not only boosts brand loyalty but also paves the way for higher sales and a stronger brand image. It's a win-win!

Case studies: Notable international marketing blunders

Ready for some jaw-dropping tales from the marketing frontlines? These stories are more than just amusing anecdotes; they're real-life lessons on what NOT to do in the global arena. Let's dive in!

1. Mercedes Benz in China

Picture this: You're one of the world's most renowned luxury car brands, and you decide to make your grand entrance into the booming Chinese market. Exciting times, right? Well, Mercedes Benz sure thought so, until they hit a major linguistic roadblock.

Mercedes Benz stepped onto Chinese shores with a brand name that, when pronounced, sounded eerily close to "rush to die". Not exactly the message you want to send when you're in the business of selling high-end, reliable vehicles.

This wasn't a case of someone playing a prank; it was a genuine oversight in linguistics. When localizing the brand name for the Chinese market, Mercedes might've skipped the crucial step of checking how it would sound to the native ear.

As much as it might've given some people a chuckle, this story drives home a super important point for all of us in the marketing world: always, ALWAYS double-check (or even triple-check) your brand's name, slogan, or any linguistic element when moving into a new market. Hiring local experts or linguists, or using the right translation tools can save you from making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

2. BMW in the Middle East

Ever been so thrilled with an idea that you just ran with it, only to realize later that maybe, just maybe, you should’ve paused for a second thought? Well, that's what happened with BMW in the Middle East.

German car manufacturer BMW faced backlash for an advertisement that showed members of Al Ain Football Club halting the Emirati national anthem upon hearing a BMW engine, drawing their attention. Emiratis viewed this as a sign of disrespect to their national anthem. Despite BMW's efforts to clarify, they had to replace the ad with a more appropriate version.

In their zest to showcase the power and lure of their vehicles, BMW might've missed doing their homework. The primary reason appears to be a lack of understanding or appreciation of the cultural significance of the Emirati national anthem. Many cultures hold their national symbols, including anthems, in high regard, and any perceived disrespect can lead to significant backlash.

Here's a golden nugget: Always ensure your marketing content aligns with local norms and values. Comprehensive local market research, consulting with regional experts, and testing advertisements with local audiences can prevent such blunders. Assumptions or generalizations about foreign markets can lead to costly mistakes, both financially and in terms of brand reputation.

3. Parker Pens in Spain

Ah, the perfect pen that "never leaks in your pocket'. However, this global giant had a bit of a marketing hiccup in the Spanish market - a classic example of 'lost in translation'.

There was an uncomfortable moment when Parker Pens' slogan, 'It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you,' was translated for Spanish-speaking countries. Apparently, 'embarazada' doesn't translate to 'embarrassed'. The translated copy read, 'It won't leak in your pocket and get you pregnant'.

Sometimes, in the quest to be unique and groundbreaking, brands might inadvertently overlook language nuances. That's precisely what happened here, jeopardizing the brand's image. Parker Pens' oversight wasn’t malicious; it was just unaware.

This one's a biggie for all of us in the marketing world: if you are looking to expand internationally , always be keenly aware of language nuances in the regions you're marketing to. It's not just about avoiding backlash; it's about showing respect and understanding for the people you want to connect with.

4. Pampers in Japan

Let's journey to Japan, the land of cherry blossoms, sushi, and… confusion over storks? Yep, that's right! Our next story involves Pampers, and it's a classic case of "lost in translation," but not in the way you might think.

Blunder: Pampers, wanting to bring their global charm to Japan, featured the age-old stork imagery on their packaging. You know, the story where storks deliver babies? But there was a slight hiccup: many Japanese customers were left scratching their heads, wondering why there was a bird on a diaper pack.

Cause: Turns out, the Western story of storks bringing babies isn't a universal one. In Japan, this particular folklore isn't well-known, leading to confusion and a disconnect between the brand and its target audience.

Lesson: This quirky tale serves up a hearty lesson for all of us: Just because a symbol or story is universally accepted in one culture doesn't mean it translates everywhere. It's vital to rethink marketing materials and possibly adapt symbols to align with local myths, beliefs, and stories.

5. HSBC Bank

Banks and financial institutions thrive on trust, right? Well, imagine the surprise (and chuckles) when HSBC, a banking giant, ended up giving some rather unexpected advice to its customers in certain markets.

HSBC wanted to convey reliability with their catchphrase "Assume Nothing". A commendable message, except that in some markets, this got translated to "Do Nothing". Oops! Not exactly the kind of advice you'd expect from your bank.

This wasn't a case of a mischievous translator having a bit of fun. It was a genuine oversight where the nuances of language led to a phrase that had a completely different meaning than intended. So, they eventually changed the slogan translation to "The world's private bank".

It's crystal clear, isn't it? When crafting global campaigns , the precision of marketing translation isn't just a detail; it's the cornerstone. It's crucial to ensure that the essence of a message remains intact across languages and cultures. Sometimes, it's not just about the direct translation of words but understanding and conveying the underlying sentiments.

6. KFC in China

Who doesn’t love some good ol’ KFC? Well, the folks in China surely do, but they were in for a slight shock when the American fast-food chain tried to bring their iconic slogan to the Chinese market.

Ah, "Finger Lickin' Good", a phrase that has made many of us crave those crispy chicken pieces! But when it hit China, it turned into something more like "Eat Your Fingers Off". Talk about a culinary misunderstanding!

This wasn’t about using Google Translate and hoping for the best. It was an honest effort that overlooked the intricacies and nuances of the Chinese language, resulting in a phrase that was more macabre than mouthwatering.

If there’s one thing to take away from KFC’s crispy conundrum, it’s this: always seek local expertise when translating brand messages. Sometimes, it’s not about the words, but the cultural and linguistic essence they carry. A native touch can be the difference between a marketing win and a translation tragedy.

7. Ford in Brazil

Buckle up, because this next tale is quite the ride. We're shifting gears to Brazil, where the automobile giant Ford had a, let's just say, slightly "embarrassing" naming hiccup.

Ready to make a roaring entrance in the Brazilian market, Ford introduced the "Ford Pinto". Sounds innocuous, right? Well, not exactly. To the locals, the name Pinto evoked chuckles and raised eyebrows, as it resembled a local slang term (pinu) for male genitals. Definitely not the powerful image Ford was going for!

This wasn't a case of someone pulling a prank in the naming department. It was a genuine oversight stemming from a lack of thorough local market research. Ford might've been keen on global consistency, but this name was a definite miss in Brazil.

The Ford Pinto saga is a stark reminder (with a hint of humor) of the importance of comprehensive international market research before any product launch. It's not just about understanding the local language but also the colloquialisms, nuances, and even the slang. It goes to show that sometimes, a name is more than just a name; it carries weight, meaning, and yes, occasionally, unintended humor.

Best practices for successful international marketing

Alright, after traversing the rollercoaster of international marketing blunders, it's only fitting we pivot towards the guiding lights — the best practices . If you’re looking to make waves in the global arena without getting swept away, here are some tried-and-true strategies to keep your ship steady:

1. Engaging local experts and consultants

Remember the linguistic hurdles faced by the likes of Mercedes and KFC? That’s where local mavens come into play. They’re not just experts in the language but understand the cultural undertones, colloquialisms, and local humor. Teaming up with them can help brands steer clear of blunders and craft messages that resonate deeply with the local audience .

2. Continuous cultural training for marketing teams

Culture isn't static; it evolves. And so should our understanding of it. Brands looking to thrive in international waters should invest in regular cultural training for their teams. This ensures that everyone, from strategists to creatives, approaches their tasks with a nuanced understanding of the target market's cultural fabric.

3. Regular feedback and market testing

Think of this as your early warning system. Before going full throttle with a campaign, test the waters. Get feedback from a diverse group within the target market. This helps in identifying potential red flags and refining the message. It’s like having a focus group tell you, “Eh, maybe not that slogan?” before it’s plastered on billboards.

4. Flexibility and adaptability in strategy

In the world of international marketing, rigidity is the enemy. Markets change, sentiments shift, and brands need to be agile enough to adapt. Whether it’s tweaking a marketing message, redesigning a product, or rethinking a campaign, the ability to pivot is invaluable. It’s all about listening, learning, and being ready to change course when needed.

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Whether you're an entrepreneur, a creative spirit, or a global brand, we've got the localized touch to make your offerings resonate. Dive into the world of seamless global marketing with Gelato.

Sign up for Gelato and elevate your international brand journey today!

Top Failed Marketing Campaigns

You might have this fantastic idea that has everyone at work talking. But when you finally launch the new digital marketing campaign to the world, you receive less-than-thrilled responses. Maybe your excitement got the better of you or no one in the company stopped to wonder how others might perceive your new campaign.

Either way, we’ve compiled a list of the top failed marketing campaigns in recent years, to show you how some of the biggest names in business today set themselves up for failure—and lessons we can learn from bad marketing. 

1. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION - SPELLING REALLY DOES MATTER

Typos happen. Every marketer has made a few grammar gaffes along the way, and the occasional slip-up is forgivable. Unless you’re the Department of Education.

Already facing scrutiny amidst the controversial appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, the Department caused a social media storm with a couple of misplaced letters. In a tweet highlighting the importance of education, they misspelled the name of famous historian and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois. Twitter’s response was ruthless.

Education must not simply teach work - it must teach life. – W.E.B. DeBois pic.twitter.com/Re4cWkPSFA — U.S. Department of Education (@usedgov) February 12, 2017

To make matters worse, when they tweeted an apology, they misspelled the word “apologies,” which only furthered the ridicule.

Marketing Lesson:

Always edit your work. Whenever possible, have a few sets of proofreading eyes on marketing ads and campaigns before they go live to avoid simple fails like this.

2. American Airlines - free first-class travel

A one-time fee for unlimited first-class air travel. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, American Airlines learned the hard way that short-term thinking can result in long-term problems.

In 1981, the airline introduced the AAirpass, offering unlimited first-class flights for a flat rate of $250,000 USD. At the time, they were strapped for cash, and they hoped to raise millions during a time of record-high interest rates. The problem? The people who’ve purchased and used these passes have more than since made up for the investment— by 2007, a few AAirpass holders were taking 1,000’s of free flights every year, costing the company millions in lost sales.

American Airline’s response was to launch an investigation into these frequent fliers and revoke their passes, resulting in outrage and lawsuits.

Suddenly, a marketing campaign meant to build airline loyalty became a one-way system. That’s a no-no in the business world. Successful companies treat their customers as they want to be treated, which is why loyalty and reward programs succeed so often—they “return the favor” so to speak.

Instead of offering the golden ticket of airline passes, American could have simply doubled frequent flyer miles or offered more sustainable incentives for their loyalty programs. American’s interest in making a quick buck backfired and wound up alienating long-time customers, not to mention the huge loss in profits from all the free flights given to AAirpass holders.

Short-term, one-sided thinking is a recipe for a bad marketing campaign. If you’re offering an incentive to your customers, set reasonable boundaries so both sides can benefit, but make sure you’re prepared to deliver on your promises.

3. Coca-Cola - changing the formula 

Coke went nuclear during the cola wars against its competitor, Pepsi. While Pepsi played smart with ad campaigns like the Pepsi Challenge in 1975, Coke only succeeded in demonstrating how confused they were. At first, Coke railed against sweeter colas—until they developed New Coke. New Coke was a sweeter version of Coke they claimed had been sampled in over 200,000 taste tests, and which had received glowing reviews.

The problem? Tasting a soda is one thing, but that taste had to measure up to how people actually consumed soda, which was by the can or bottle. When customers started to purchase cans and bottles of New Coke they were instantly turned off by how sweet the new brew was.

Coke could have just fought fire with fire—with better ad campaigns. But as soon as they touched the actual product, they risked the integrity of their brand.  While they took out cocaine of their recipe a very long time ago, a study by Medical News Today shows that Coca-Cola is still 'comparable to heroin' because it stimulates the brain and your pleasure similarly to the drug.

When you have a product as successful (and addictive) as Coca-Cola, be cautious about changing it. Experimenting with new products is normal, but not at the expense of the core product that built the business’s success.

4. PEPSI - Kendall Jenner Ad Outrage

We couldn’t mention Coke without talking about their constant competitor, Pepsi, who fell flat with one of the biggest marketing fails in recent history. In 2017, the soda giant released an ad which depicted TV star and model Kendall Jenner joining a street protest and seemingly defusing tensions between protesters and police by handing a police officer a Pepsi.

The ad sparked a firestorm of anger and outrage, as people felt it trivialized important topics like racism, police violence, and Black Lives Matter. While Pepsi stated they intended to send a message of  “peace, unity, and understanding,” the ad came off as incredibly insensitive.

While Pepsi pulled the ad, you can still watch it on YouTube:

While modern companies often try to connect with important causes, jumping on the latest hot-button topics is a dangerous move.  Many ad campaigns have failed because they take advantage of important social issues or politically-charged news events to try to sell their products.

5. HOLD YOUR WEE FOR A WII - A PR STUNT GONE WRONG

In 2007, a California radio station held a contest called “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” where they promised a Nintendo Wii console to whoever could drink the most water without going to the bathroom. Turns out, too much water can be a very bad thing. One contestant, 28-year-old Jennifer Strange, actually died from water intoxication as a result.

Suddenly, an ill-conceived PR stunt became a tragedy that not only cost a life but cost the radio stations millions in lawsuit losses.

All press is not good press. Take a minute to think before you do something purely for publicity. It’s not worth potentially endangering someone else’s life or well-being.

6. Colgate - frozen dinners

You know that company that makes toothpaste? Yeah, that one. Well, they tried their hand at making frozen dinners.

They might have succeeded if they hadn’t been so good at their flagship product, toothpaste. People just didn’t associate tasty food with a brand that had, up until that point, brought them products that belong in the bathroom medicine cabinet.

A simple fix would have been to invest in a subsidiary company, or purchase a smaller one—giving the consumer a different brand to focus on while they pumped out a new product. Colgate could have just simply stuck with making our smiles brighter and left well enough alone.

Focus on what you’re good at. If you’re branching out in a totally new direction, think about separating your branding and marketing for the different products.

7. SONY - WHITE VS. BLACK PSP AD

Marketing is a field that can reward the bold, but when your ad metaphors take human form, you run the risk of drawing fire. In a famously failed advertising campaign in 2006, Sony celebrated the release of their new white PSP device with giant billboards that were a giant mistake.

The billboards all had a central theme: a white woman subduing a black woman, representing the new white PSP model’s dominance over the older black portable console. While Sony didn’t intend the ad campaign to be racist, the fact that so many people were offended by the photographs speaks for itself.

Perhaps the worse misstep was how Sony handled all the negative PR coming their way. Rather than simply apologize and roll with the punches, they seemed to defend the ads and the “stunningly photographed imagery.”

To add insult to injury, the campaign resurfaced again in 2017 with a single viral tweet. Many people who were seeing the ad for the first time thought it was current and rekindled the firestorm.

Remember that when you’re being artistic in your marketing campaigns, other people may interpret your message differently. And sometimes that interpretation isn’t positive. When you do face negative PR, respond quickly with understanding and humility.

8 . Starbucks - collapse into cool

Imagine a picture of two ice cold, frosty Starbucks drinks standing side by side on a field of grass, surrounded by summertime insects. Above the image is a caption: “Collapse into cool.” Nothing wrong yet, right?

Apparently, Starbucks exhibited some not-so-cool behavior when they charged EMT workers $130 for water following the collapse of the WTC towers on September 11. It seems that bad press followed them, resulting in public outcry over their “Collapse into cool” campaign (note the word ‘collapse’) that came out in April 2002. It left a bad taste in many people’s mouths as they took the combination of words and imagery as a reference to 9/11.

This brand blunder is a difficult one to pick apart given the events that lead to up to this marketing failure. Starbucks might not have gotten any flack had they given EMT workers free water, or maybe picking any other word besides collapse would have sufficed.

Like Sony’s marketing misstep, this one is another reminder that ads can be misinterpreted. Be sensitive to your customers, the culture, and current events when creating your marketing message. You may even want to show a major campaign it to a few trusted customers first as a test case.

9 . Nike - runner charged with firearm murder referred to as “a bullet”

Double-amputee Olympian Oscar Pistorius was featured in a Nike ad that depicted various athletes in motion, with a voice-over stating that an athlete’s body was their weapon. For Pistorius, his caption read, “I am the bullet in the chamber.” This is the same Olympian who was later charged with murder, using a firearm.

While there is some morbid irony at play here, it was out of Nike’s hands for the most part. Unfortunately, some marketing mistakes simply can’t be foreseen or avoided. All the company could do was release a few press statements and pull their sponsorship.

Nike certainly isn’t alone in having its brand or marketing campaign spoiled by celebrity endorsements. Companies take risks when they endorse individuals or groups. Those people often become face’s for the company and their mistakes can easily reflect back on the business.

Most small businesses aren’t looking for celebrity endorsements, but you still might associate with public figures, community groups, or well-known industry influencers. Just be aware of who’s acting on behalf of your company and seek to align yourself with trustworthy partners.

10. BLOOMINGDALES - DATE RAPE AD BLUNDER

In a 2015 holiday catalog, Bloomindale’s published an ad with a serious-looking man staring at a laughing woman who is faced away from him. A little creepy maybe, but it isn’t too bad until you read the caption: “Spike your best friend’s eggnog when they’re not looking.”

Make sure your marketing team puts multiple sets of eyes on a campaign before it runs. Editing for grammar and spelling is important, but getting multiple opinions helps ensure that potentially offensive and tone-deaf messages are caught before they ever get published.

11. Gap - a gap in brain signals

Last on the list is Gap’s brand blunder, which was a revised logo. This particular campaign was fairly straightforward—the company wanted to freshen up their look and tested out a new logo.

The problem? It seems that our brains are hardwired to react negatively to this sort of change. Particularly, sharp edges. When neuroscientists at NeuroFocus studied how volunteers’ eyes reacted to the new Gap logo, their findings showed that the new logo didn’t register as new or cool to the brain.

For a company in the apparel business, a lack of style is a huge loss of brand value.

A simple fix to this mistake would have been... to do absolutely nothing. Like Coca-Cola learned, don’t fix what isn’t broken.

Despite Gap’s intentions, they tried to redesign a familiar logo and the results weren’t positive. When it comes to visual ad campaigns and logos, everything from the colors used to the font of the text can affect how we perceive things. Careful thought has to go into every visual element or else marketing campaigns could ride or die on something as trivial as an out-of-place line.

When it comes to logos and the graphic design of your marketing, everything from the colors you use to the font of the text can affect how your customers perceive your business. Put careful thought into every visual element, because marketing campaigns really can live or die based on something as trivial as your color choice.

Final Thoughts

Across all of these bad marketing campaigns, the moral of the story is to always put a lot of thought into your marketing. Be intentional about your message, your offer, and the words and images you use to communicate.

Every business wants to make a big impact or go viral, but make sure you are getting attention for the right reason - not because of marketing fails like these that people just won’t forget.

What's the best way NOT to fail at marketing? Start with a solid strategy. Download our free marketing plan template to get started!

Of course the other way to avoid failing is to talk with our marketing agency in Lancaster, PA.

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The Story Behind 25 Epic Strategic Marketing Fails

By Chuck Thomas / in Blog , Branding & Market Views / April 15, 2018

Influencing public opinion and behavior is a complicated art, and hitting all the right notes in your advertising and marketing is rarely an easy task. That’s why developing a solid brand and market strategy is so very important .

We’ve compiled thumbnails on 25 efforts that haven’t worked out so well. They are organized in three categories:  strategy-thin campaigns, great companies that made huge strategic errors, and seriously flawed brand extensions. We study history to avoid its mistakes!

Strategy-Thin Marketing Campaigns

• Farewell to the King The folks at Burger King tried to make a star out of the burger King for years, starting in 2003, and all they ever got was that same consensus reaction: creepy. Of course, they didn’t set a good precedent with the King in their initial commercial (who wants to wake up in bed next to a guy with a head the size of the Elephant Man’s?)The next quarter sales for BK were down 6 percent, and while we don’t think it’s fair to lay it all at his throne, the King certainly didn’t help matters.
• New Coke New Coke tampered with a century old formula that, despite falling market shares, still resonated soundly with the public. What made New Coke such a bad marketing idea is that it essentially celebrated 100 years of a popular product by throwing out the formula people had grown to love and replacing it with something unproven. Coca-Cola executives soon learned from the mistake however, and brought back the old formula.
• Vomit Girl from Microsoft Dean Cain starred in the 2009 Microsoftad campaign, known as the “Oh my gosh, I’m gonna puke”commercial ( see video here ), that announced the arrival of Internet Explorer 8. While you do have to give the company some props for humor, that is negated by the fact they lost sight of their target audience: virtually every computer user in the world. The ad features a wife asking to use her husband’s laptop when he’s through. What she sees launches her into a vomiting frenzy.
• Ayds Diet Candy After a strong sales showing in the appetite suppressant market during the 70’s, the Ayds brand had the unfortunate circumstance of trying to find an audience right around the time AIDS was terrifying people around the world. Considering that AIDS was, at the time, a disease that withered its victims away to nothing, the fact that Ayds was sold as a weight loss product created a sort of double whammy for the marketing campaign. Sometimes marketing disasters are man-made. For this one, outside circumstances seemed to play a significant role.
• Skittles Kill People: Touch the Rainbow Campaign Skittles took a page out of the King Midas playbook with their 2008 ad campaign about a guy, who turns everything he touches into Skittles. This somewhat clever ploy takes a dark turn, however, when the man in question bemoans the curse that his Skittles Touch truly is, stating that he can’t hold his newborn grandson in his arms and that he accidentally killed a man on the bus that he met earlier in the day. “He’ll never see his family again.  
• Life Call: I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up Life Call’s product was designed to help senior citizens, and we suppose it did. But with the horribly acted 1989 commercials–you remember “I’m having chest pains!” and “I’ve fallen. And I CAN’T GET UP!”–the company turned situations that were meant to be serious into fodder for just about every bad sitcom and stand-up comedian for decades.
• McDonald’s’ “#McDStories” While baseball is touted as America’s favorite pastime, one could argue that McDonald’s is America’s favorite fast food joint. But when you combine the cautionary tale of 2006’s Fast Food Nationwith the movement of eating local, organic foods, you could have a potential recipe for a marketing disaster. So when McDonald’s tried to utilize social media to get some feedback from consumers on the McDonald’s experience, it created the #McDStories hashtag. It all started from McDonald’s official Twitter handle, @McDonalds, with the following tweet: “’When u make something w/pride, people can taste it:’ McD potato supplier.” Seems harmless enough. But McDonald’s should have known better. People don’t eat McDonald’s for the fresh, wholesome ingredients it puts in its food. In fact, they eat McDonald’s without caring what’s in it because it’s easily available, cheap, and tastes good. So, what happened was the hashtag took off and tweets like this came flying in: “#McDStories- I just read that McDonalds chicken nuggets have a foaming agent in them, similar to products used for building materials.” McDonald’s clearly didn’t think this one through. These days, people are starting to care about what’s in their food and how it’s made. And since they were given the opportunity, cynics and critics jumped on the hashtag in a negative way.
• Huggies’ “Have Dads Put Huggies to the Test” Imagine if someone were to ask, “What do you think a typical family looks like?” There would be many answers because every family is different. One stereotype that’s been turned on its head is that it’s the mother who is the main caregiver for the children of the family — and that’s just not universally true anymore. Families come in all shapes and sizes and in all different kinds of configurations, and stay-at-home dads aren’t a rare breed. Unfortunately, Huggies didn’t portray the image of the modern-day family with its campaign “Have Dads Put Huggies to the Test,” showing TV commercials in which dads were being inattentive to babies with full diapers. This scenario was explained by Huggies (in a voiceover) that Huggies diapers can handle anything, implying that it’s okay for dads to leave a full diaper on a baby because, hey, Huggies can handle it! The commercial made it seem like it was putting dads to the test, not diapers. The backlash was so severe that it caused a full-time stay-at-home father to create the petition “We’re Dads, Huggies. Not Dummies.” Huggies eventually removed the ads.
• Nesquik’s “National Bunny Ears Day” This Nesquik marketing campaign starts with good intentions and, actually, was really a good idea. Since the Nesquik Bunny is the brand’s mascot, the company decided to develop a mobile app that “bunny-fied” photos by adding in cute bunny ears. The company promoted its new app alongside the creation of “National Bunny Ears Day,” asking its followers to share their bunny-fied photos on the day through Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #nationalbunnyearsday. The reason this campaign failed may not be obvious, but here it is: Nobody cared about it. Not one bit. The hashtag received two mentions on Instagram and nine mentions on Twitter, even with celebrities involved. Had Nesquik tied its idea to a bigger industry event or holiday (not a day it made up) or paired it with an interesting announcement, it could have really taken off. Instead, it was quickly buried in the newsfeed of Nesquik’s fans and followers, soon to be forgotten.

Great Companies that Fell into a Strategic Trap

Even great companies can fall into strategic traps, in which leaders fixate on what made them successful and fail to notice when something new is displacing it, or when a company focuses purely on the marketplace of today and fails to anticipate the future.

• Eastman Kodak. For nearly a century, no company commercialized the camera as successfully as Kodak, whose breakthroughs included the Brownie camera in 1900, Kodachrome color film, the handheld movie camera, and the easy-load Instamatic camera. But Kodak’s storied run began to end with the advent of digital photography and all the printers, software, file sharing, and third-party apps that Kodak mostly missed out on. Since the late 1980s, Kodak has tried to expand into pharmaceuticals, memory chips, healthcare imaging, document management, and many other fields, but the magic has never returned. Its stock price plummeted.
• Sears . Many people still call it the Sears Tower, but Chicago’s tallest building is now officially the Willis Tower, named after a British insurance broker that is one of its main tenants. Sears moved out long ago—and also surrendered the spirit associated with such an architectural landmark. In earlier days, Sears put catalogs on the map, sold suburban Americans many of their household belongings (even Sears catalog homes), and introduced sturdy, affordable brands like Craftsman and Kenmore. But later in life, Sears stood flat-footed as competitors like Wal-Mart, Target, and Amazon chewed up its turf. Sears has dabbled in insurance, financial services, real estate, Internet service, and many other business lines as it has tried to find its way. Yet it’s still looking for a winning strategy, and is now paired with Kmart in a kind of faded-glory holding company.
• Sony . Not long ago, the Walkman was as ubiquitous as the iPod is today, and Sony dominated the market for TVs, cameras, video recorders, and many other consumer electronics. But as Sony became a huge conglomerate with film and music divisions, it lost leadership in many of its core product lines. What tripped up Sony and some of its competitors was the move from hardware to software, which put the emphasis on the brains of the device rather than the circuitry. As a result, faster-moving competitors like LG, Samsung, Vizio, Apple, and the various makers of cell phones—which of course come with cameras—have outpaced this old-school innovator.
• Toys “R” Us . This retailer thrived in the ’80s and ’90s, as its concept for specialty megastores aligned with a surge in American consumption. As it went national, Toys “R” Us drove many competitors out of business and gobbled up others. Then the tables turned, with the once-mighty toy giant suddenly bested by discounters like Wal-Mart and Target, online sites like Amazon, and smaller merchants with better quality and service. As of earlier this year, Toys R Us, R now more.

Seriously Flawed Brand Extensions

• Smith and Wesson Mountain Bikes A study commissioned by Smith and Wesson found that brand awareness was so strong, the company would consider S&W not only for handguns but for other products as well. On the back of that glowing recommendation, S&W decided to branch out into mountain bikes. In fact, S&W had been manufacturing bikes for law enforcement, security and emergency response since 1997, and in 2002 it took another step by offering the bikes to the civilian market. They should have stuck to guns.
• Coors Rocky Mountain Spring Water The trouble with being a famous beer company is that people associate you with beer, and the furthest thing from beer is water. Rocky Mountain Spring Water really was spring water from the Rocky Mountains, but Coors customers just weren’t interested.
• Cocaine Energy Drink A drink that peps you up, and it’s got cocaine in it… this sounds familiar. It even came in a red and white can. Although the drink didn’t contain any actual cocaine, it did have 3.5 times the caffeine content of Red Bull. It was pulled by the FDA who said that Redux Beverages, the drink’s producers, were ‘illegally marketing their drink as an alternative to street drugs.’
• Kellogg’s Breakfast mates Breakfast Mates was a whole breakfast cereal experience in a box. Cereal, milk and a spoon – all you had to do was mix and eat. The product fell on its design flaws – aimed at children, the packaging wasn’t child friendly, and while the milk in it didn’t require refrigeration, no-one really likes warm milk.
• Frito Lay Lemonade Evidently Frito Lay wasn’t watching Coors and Colgate. Frito Lay makes corn chips, which are salty and make you thirsty. But when people are shopping for lemonade, they’re inexplicably un-attracted to a brand that reminds them of feeling thirsty, and the product tanked.
• Harley Davidson Perfume Nothing says all-American masculinity like perfume?! Meanwhile, when customers were asked what they most wanted a perfume to smell like, they overwhelmingly answered, ‘motorcycles?!’ Brand associations and a backlash from fans of the brand did this one in.  

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/author/maggie-butler

https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2010/08/19/10-great-companies-that-lost-their-edge

https://www.slideshare.net/JesseDaniel1/25-biggest-company-and-product-failures

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8 Greatest Failed Marketing Campaigns of All Time

Niku Mandal

‘To err is human’ is a very famous quote. Yes! We are humans and we do make mistakes. It doesn’t matter whether you are the CEO of multi-million dollar organisation or a small businessman , things can go wrong. The world has witnessed many failed marketing campaigns. These marketing blunders can be helpful to a budding entrepreneur who wants to start their journey.

The main reason behind this article is to tell you that doing mistakes is common and will be useful only if you don’t repeat it and learn from it. So, here we have listed some failed marketing campaigns of famous brands.

Before proceeding, you can check this out to further reduce your chances of failure:

8 Greatest Failed Marketing Campaigns

Failure of Gillette Failure of Tata Nano Hoover's Free Flight Loss of $50 Million Red Lobster's All-You-Can-Eat Promotion Failure Lifelock – The Story Of An Irony McDonald’s Free Treat Offer Failure KFC Free Chicken Offer Failure Disaster of Panasonic

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Failure of Gillette

Gillette is a famous brand but when Gillette launched Vector razor in India, it was one of the biggest failed marketing campaigns in India. Here is where they went wrong. Before launching vector they did some market research and found that in India men had thicker and longer hair as compared to Americans. Keeping that in mind to unclog the razor while shaving they included a plastic piece that could slide down.

The biggest mistake Gillette did was that they didn't conduct the research in India . They simply researched with Indian students at MIT. So, they missed out on the biggest problem of Indian men, which is, access to running water while shaving. That is why unclogging the Vector razor while shaving isn't possible in India. This ultimately led to its marketing failure in India .

Failure of Tata Nano

For a middle-class Indian family, buying a brand-new car meant only three options: - Maruti 800, Alto or WagonR. Tata with a dream to provide the happiness of buying 4-wheeler to every family, came out with the cheapest car – NANO worth only INR 1 lakh.

When Ratan Tata's Tata Nano was launched it was considered as "the cheapest car" and marketed as one as well. But the word "cheap" prevented it from flourishing. It became one of the greatest failed marketing campaigns in India. It is a great example of famous products that failed in India and that all publicity is not good publicity .

Hoover's Free Flight Loss of $50 Million

It is a common practice of giving an offer on products which are old-fashioned, not in use or gathering dust in warehouses. This American based company which sold washing machines and vacuums began with a marketing promotion in 1992 with an offer to gift trip tickets to Europe on the purchase of $100 or more.

The company wasn’t expecting a huge response but they were well adorned by a flood of customers all across the world. This led to a whopping loss of $50 million. This shows that even if you want to lure the customer by giving an offer or a discount, make it realistic. This was one of the biggest losses of a failed marketing campaign of all time.

Red Lobster's All-You-Can-Eat Promotion Failure

You might have witnessed many restaurants where if you finish a special dish within a time-limit, you get a reward at the end of it. This leads to a good attraction of customers because very few can complete this challenge but everyone wants to participate. In 2003, Red Lobster also thought this and launched a promotional campaign named "Endless Crab".

The idea behind this was that Red Lobster was sure that people in America would either not be able to sit long just to eat or they would not be able to finish more than  a couple of plates at one go. This is because even though Crab is delicious, it is salty and rubbery making it hard to consume.

But here is a catch, Red Lobster never met Americans and after a few weeks of the launch, they realised that they were losing money on each order. The average customers were able to eat at least 2 dozen. Not only this, but the US government also capped on the number of crabs hauled from the ocean. This left the company with a net loss of $3.3 million. This definitely makes it on the list of worst marketing campaigns on all you can eat food challenges.

Lifelock – The Story Of An Irony

Lifelock is an American company that provides identity theft protection. It was co-founded in 2005 by Todd Davis and Robert J. Maynard. When Lifelock began promoting its services in 2006, they were so confident in their product that, as a symbol of trust, CEO Todd Davis’ Social Security number was displayed on its advertisement.

In 2007, their security system was breached, and Todd Davis himself became a victim of identity theft. The crime was discovered when a company called on his wife’s cell phone regarding an unpaid debt. Upon investigation, it was found that someone used Todd Davis’ identity and obtained a loan of $500.

Four months later, Davis’ identity was stolen again. The person who stole it used it to open an AT&T/Cingular wireless account and racked up a sum of $2,390 which remains unpaid. Later, Davis’ identity was stolen 11 more times resulting in losing the trust of people in his company. This proves that ad campaigns about security should not be done lightly and with great precaution or it might just backfire like in this case.

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McDonald’s Free Treat Offer Failure

In 1984 Olympics, McDonald's offered free burger, snacks and soft drinks for every medal US win. It worked like this, if a customer buys anything from McDonald  they would get a scratch-off card with an Olympic event on it and if the US wins the customer will get free food.  If the U.S. team won gold in that event, the customer would get a Big Mac. If the team won silver, the customer got french fries and Bronze meant a free soft drink. The motto was "U.S. Wins, You Win."

But they didn't realize that two strong opponents of US in the Olympics, Germany and Russia and other communist countries were not participating in the sports event. This resulting in the US winning 174 medals with 83 gold. This was McDonald's greatest failed marketing campaign.

KFC Free Chicken Offer Failure

Whenever we think of any fast food restaurant, the picture of KFC comes to our mind. But when thinking about failed marketing campaigns by fastfood restaurants, then also the picture of KFC ought to come to mind. KFC's biggest failure in marketing happened on the popular TV show Oprah. They started an offer, promising viewers a free coupon for a 2-piece chicken meal with two individual sides and a biscuit. The only condition was that the users have to download the coupon from the Oprah website.

KFC clearly hadn't done any research before the promotion and here is what happened. Millions of people coupons amounting to 10.5 million coupons downloaded. People from all over the US rushed to the KFC counter to get their free treat. KFC gave away almost $42 million free food but still couldn’t deliver what they had offered. They were then left with no other choice but to apologized to Oprah and their customers. So the moral of the story is to always, a lways, conduct a thorough market research before launching any marketing campaign.

Disaster of Panasonic

Coming up with product names is admittedly difficult but it is hard to believe that no one realized this mistake before it was out into the world. Panasonic which is a famous electronics brand launched a new PC named "Woody - the Internet pecker". Woody means male erection.

To make matters worse, they didn't realise the mistake and went on to rename it as "Touch Woody" to highlight the touch screen feature of the PC. This is one of the greatest fails done by a brand on naming their products.

Even after these failed marketing campaigns, these brands are doing well because they have learned from their mistake. That is what every human being and all the businesses should do. Don't repeat your mistake, learn from them and keep improving. And always remember that every failure is a door to a new opportunity or idea. And most times fear of failure stops us from creating anything new. So our advise is to do thourough market research and not skip over or skimp on this step as most of these fails could have been avoided with a couple more hours of research or meetings put behind the campaigns. Let us know which failed ad campaign shocked you the most or if you want to add anything else to this list. Untill next time!

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Why do marketing campaigns fail?

Most of the marketing campaigns fail due to a lack of research before the product launch. Other factors that can also lead to failed marketing campaigns are not focusing on the right direction, copying from others, budget, and timing.

What are the most successful marketing campaigns?

Some of the most successful marketing campaigns of All time:

• Idea cellular: What an Idea.
• Vodafone 'ZooZoos'
• Fortune Oil- Ghar Ka Khana.
• Ariel Matic – #ShareTheLoad.
• Fevikwik- Todo Nahi Jodo.
• Surf Excel- Daag acche hain.
• Coca Cola – Small world.
• Meri Maggi- Me and Meri Maggi.
• The "Share a Coke" campaign, Coca Cola.
• The “Real Beauty” campaign, Dove.

How do you know when a campaign has failed?

When a company or brand does not receive the response that they were expecting after marketing their campaign, or when a company loses money from a campaign instead of earning a profit, then it s evident that their marketing campaign has failed.

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• The 10 Biggest Market Research Fails of All Time
• TrendSource Trending Blog

We at TrendSource eat, breath, and sleep market research. So when we are looking to unwind after hours, we sit around and get excited about some really dorky marketing and market research things. A few weeks ago, somebody got us talking about some of the biggest market research fails (read: disasters) in memory and, after kicking it around for a while, we thought we’d turn it into a blog.

So follow us through the ten biggest market research failures of the last 100 years. And then call us to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes. 

Colgate Frozen Entrees 

Some of you may be too young to remember  (ok, some of us too) Colgate’s ill-advised foray into frozen dinners, but in 1982 the toothpaste producer sought to branch out of center-aisle CPG and into the frozen food section. Perhaps they thought customers would enjoy chomping through a Colgate chicken-and-peas dinner before cleaning their pearly-whites with a pea-sized dollop of Colgate toothpaste? Some kind of closed system for the digestive system? Frankly, it’s somewhat difficult to know what they were thinking.

Regardless, the expansion was unwise. Consumers had long associated Colgate with oral hygiene, and could not extend that brand association to food products like TV dinners. And while clean teeth certainly are attractive and desirable, toothpaste itself is not very appetizing. This, as marketing professors have taught aspiring MBAs ever since, is a classic lesson in brand extension: don’t ask customers to radically shift their understanding of your brand. Maybe if Colgate had come up with an entirely new name (through rigorous market research, no doubt), we would all be chowing down on some of their chicken-and-peas right now.

Playboy Magazine Becomes a Never Nude

This is not going to tread into NSFW territory, we promise. But a little over a year ago in March 2016, Playboy magazine (whose reputation hopefully precedes it), decided it should no longer feature nudity and published its first non-nude issue and even released a safe-for-work app.

It’s one thing to make a few subtle changes to stay current, but Playboy threw the baby out with the bathwater and alienated a customer base whose, um, tastes, were not that difficult to accommodate. One year after the change, the brand had lost its identity entirely. While they had made the change to increase the publications’ reputability and sharability in digital forums (few people want to share a link to Playboy on Facebook), their market research did not account for who would be doing the sharing once the brand had lost its cache and failed to draw eyeballs.

Exactly one year after the change, the new Playboy chairman concluded the experiment was over, and the Bunny Emperor could go back to not wearing any clothes. In hindsight, according to the new chair, it “was a bad idea, the whole thing.” It remains to be seen if the periodical will rebound, but there is at least one other take away from the Playboy experiment: for precisely one year, one could claim they only read Playboy “for the articles,” and not be immediately dismissed as a liar.

Starbucks Mazagran

For every Unicorn Frappuccino, there is a Mazagran.

In the mid-1990s, Starbucks partnered with Pepsi to sell Mazagran, a coffee-flavored, bottled soda found in grocery aisles. The product was a spectacular failure—described as tasting “interesting” at best—and was pulled within a year as sales declined after initial curiosity waned.

But maybe they needed to fail before they could succeed. Because the thing is, Starbucks got this one half right. Their market research had correctly told them that customers wanted a cold, sweet, bottled coffee beverage they could conveniently purchase in grocery stores. They just wanted it to resemble a milk shake, not a soda. Though it is impossible to prove, Starbucks urban legend even suggests that the idea for the Frappuccino was born out of Mazagran’s failure.

Wow! Chips 

Who doesn’t remember the potato chips that moved through us like the Norovirus?

Fried in Olestra, a sucrose-derived oil not absorbed by the body, Frito-Lay’s Wow! chips carried 1/3 the calories and none of the fat of their traditional crispy cousins. The late-1990s product came under Doritos, Ruffles, and Lays brands and, owing to the misguided low-fat diet craze of the era, initially sold like lowfat hotcakes. Within a year, however, sales had dropped by almost $150 million after the FDA forced the chips to carry a warning label advising they can cause, well, let’s just say gastrointestinal distress.

This was a market research failure of product testing, pure and simple. While exhaustive rounds of taste tests were no doubt performed, it would seem that none of those taste tests ever pushed past the suggested serving size. You see, Olestra is fine in small doses and issues only percolate when binge eating (also known as typical US snack-eating behavior) is involved. Thus, by overestimating Americans’ ability to eat just one (oh, the irony!) Frito-Lay walked themselves into an explosive disaster.

Celery Jell-O

It’s easy to look back on this one and say, well duh…because the thought of a seafood salad suspended in celery Jell-O is about as appetizing as…I got nothing, it just sounds disgusting. But remember, the product was coming on the heels of the late 1950s and early 1960s—an era of casseroles, tang, and the ambrosia salad. And lime Jell-O had long been used in the suspended salad craze, so they thought they’d help customers out with some savory Jell-O flavors. They were a bit late, however, as their 1965 release date came on the heels of the savory suspended salad trend.

The other problem? It did not taste good, holding a salad together or otherwise. They had, to quote a cinematic chaos theorist , been so worried about whether they could build something that they forgot to ask if they should. Customers continued using Lime Jell-O off-label for their savory recipes, and the vegetable flavor quickly disappeared.

Apple Newton

The classic example of being ahead of your time. The Apple Newton was an early PDA device that could take notes, store contacts, manage calendars, send faxes, and even translate handwriting to text (in theory).

That last point was the biggest problem, it turned out. By rushing the product to market before ironing out the handwriting to text feature, the company opened itself up to popular ridicule. In Doonesbury cartoonist Gary Tradeau’s hands, the Newton became a symbol of yuppie extravagance and excess—they were spending hundreds of dollars to buy hand-held computers to take inaccurate notes when a pen and paper could do it for a miniscule fraction of the cost. And without errors.

Market research will tell you consumers are enthusiastic about a potential new tech product. But only if that product works as advertised. If you can’t meet their expectations, your product is doomed to fail, no matter how high those expectations were.

Of course, nowadays, the technology has caught up to the market research and the personal handheld computer is so commonplace we can’t imagine a world not eagerly awaiting the next iPhone. But in the ‘90s, it was just ahead of its time.

This isn’t one brand in particular but TV manufacturers in general. Right around the time Avatar raked in its second billion dollars, TV-makers decided the iron was hot: Americans were ready for 3D TVs. Manufacturers pumped untold resources into developing units that were as non-disruptive and immersive as possible.

There were a couple of market research problems. First, everybody just assumed demand was there based on Avatar’s success. But in the hands of almost anybody not named James Cameron,  3DTV isn’t all that great: it requires glasses, eliminates second-screening, and gives some people headaches and neck strain. So while there was temporary enthusiasm in focus groups around the country, manufacturers mistook a flash in the pan for signs of a gold strike.

The second problem was an even bigger one, and frankly one that any market researcher worth her salt would have seen coming: even if the 3DTV works to perfection, what content will people watch on these magical boxes? Since the 3D movie craze died (did we really need Clash of the Titians 2 to be in 3D?) and channels like ESPN discontinued their 3D feeds, the answer is Nothing. 

With LG and Sony discontinuing their models, no major TV-makers manufactures currently offer 3D TVs, moving this one firmly into the loss column.

Netflix and Qwikster

This should go without saying, but don’t make things more difficult for your customer in order to make them easier for you. Just ask Qwikster, errr, Netflix.

Realizing it was time to phase out its DVD mailing program in order to focus on streaming, Netflix briefly split into Netflix and Qwikster, forcing customers with joint DVD and streaming accounts to sign up for two separate services. That meant two different accounts and two different bills where there had been one.  From Netflix’s perspective, this was tidier, eliminated confusion, and made both services better. They had failed to test and consider user experience and customer sentiment.

While the company certainly was correct about the destination—who, beyond the person looking for a copy of that one great independent French film they saw ten years ago, even gets DVDs from Netflix anymore?—they took the wrong path. Customers felt put upon and herded, and Netflix quickly reversed course.

In the late 1950s, the Ford Edsel was supposed to be a game changer, the new American car for the New American family. And that, right there, was a big part of why it failed—supremely high expectations. For all the promises Ford made in marketing campaigns before the debut, you would have guessed it doubled as a washer-dryer and space ship. And then, after all that promise, it was just a car. And not a great performing or cost-effective one at that.

The thing is, Ford did the market research—lots of it. But they used it in an effort to appeal to everybody instead of identifying and attacking a particular segment. Thus, the Edsel debuted in 18 different models and varieties and was dubbed the “Ford Hermaphrodite” but confused consumers. Combine that with an almost-immediately mocked front grille roughly the size of Detroit, a gas guzzling engine even by contemporary standards, and a perplexingly bad name you arrive at a product failure so famous, Billy Joel put it in a song .

Crystal Pepsi

When Crystal Clear Pepsi debuted in the mid-1990s, clean and pure were buzzwords much like they are today. Miller had debuted Zima, a clear malt liquor also destined to fail, Ivory was abandoning the milky for the clear, and even EBSCO gasoline was being touted as crystal clear. So, looking at their market research, Pepsi decided to jump into the clear market with Crystal Clear Pepsi, a transparent, caffeine-free soda that tasted exactly like Pepsi.

Pepsi saw the writing on the wall, it just misread it.

Yes, customers were interested in clean and clear products and they still are today. They just didn’t think of Cola as one of them. They wanted their cola brown and full of caffeine, they wanted their clear sodas light and crisp like 7-Up.

Pepsi had used market research to conjure a niche market—consumers craving a visually different, but similar tasting, caffeine-free version of Pepsi—where one simply didn’t exist. Of course, nostalgia can freshen up even the smelliest ideas and Pepsi will be relaunching the beverage in a limited capacity this year

Because no survey of product failures would be complete without at least a cursory tip-of-the-hat to New Coke.

Facing waning sales and a perception that Pepsi tasted better (those Pepsi Challenge taste test commercials worked!), Coke began testing a new formula and released it in 1985. Though focus groups had been extremely favorable to the new taste—ranking it ahead of both Pepsi and the Classic formulation—the product was a sales and public relations disaster.

Coke had been so focused on flavor superiority they had failed to consider the intangible nostalgia and familiarity people attached to the classic flavor, and failed to account for the ways popular opinion can snowball and trump a simple taste test.

Consumers boycotted the brand, launched protests, and even hoarded cases of the Classic variety. Acknowledging the mistake, they phased out the brand slowly, but not before going down in history as the single greatest failed product launch of all time.

But it wasn’t all a failure. The move ultimately reminded people of their deep bonds with the brand which extended beyond flavor, dramatically turning around the brand’s fortunes. It remains the best-selling soda on the planet.

The Male Romper?

One final entrant, though it is only included under duress.

Some members of the TrendSource team insist the male romper is a product failure in-the-making. They say there is no market for this fashion, and that those who wear it will subject themselves to ridicule and alienation. They don’t need all the investigative might of our market research company, because they already know it for a fact.

But, according to this humble blogger, these people are wrong.

Male rompers are adorable and we will all soon be wearing them. Detractors are retrograde reactionaries clinging to their dated ideas of gendered fashion. They think it looks silly. But look at that man and tell me “silly” is what comes to mind.

Yeah, I thought not.

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At the Democratic Convention, a Historic Nomination

What story did the democrats tell about kamala harris and will it be enough to win.

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

[BACKGROUND CHATTER]

I’m standing in a sea of people coming out of this vast convention. And people are holding signs, smiling. There’s confetti everywhere. There are balloons, white, red, and blue. And there’s a lot of excitement.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily” from inside the Democratic National Convention Hall, where Kamala Harris has just accepted her party’s nomination, becoming the first woman of color in US history to do so.

Today, the story this convention told about Harris and whether that story could be enough to win.

It’s Friday, August 23.

[SERENE MUSIC]

The work and prayers of centuries have brought us to this day. What shall our our legacy be? What will our children say? Let me in my heart, when my days are through, America, America, I gave my best to you.

On night one of the Democratic National Convention, the evening was really defined by this very emotional, quite bittersweet goodbye from President Biden.

And there’s nothing we cannot do when we do it together.

God bless you all. And may God protect our troops.

It was the closing of one chapter so that another could begin. It was Kamala Harris’s moment.

[UPBEAT JAZZ MUSIC]

So right now, it’s 7:40. We are on the floor at the Democratic National Convention. It is a crazy party atmosphere, which is like a massive understatement.

Day two kicked off with delegates gathering on the convention floor, casting their votes in a kind of symbolic way to make Harris the party’s nominee.

This giant festival of lights, people in cowboy hats, people with blinking bracelets, people with Christmas lights wrapped around their hats, heads, shoulders, people wearing donkey hats. I mean, it’s very, very, very celebratory in here.

We need to see that we’re moving on. We are turning a chapter in America.

How do you feel right now?

Awesome, excitement, energized. Ready to win this election.

I love it. I love it. People are just excited, electrified, and they’re just loving it, and they’re happy.

This has been the most electrifying event I’ve ever attended in my life. It’s my first convention. But what a convention to come for, right? To make history right now, as we charge forward to November 5, to elect the first female Black president. I’m excited.

So with Harris now the nominee, a new campaign slogan appeared everywhere. And that was, “A new way forward.” But in a campaign that’s just four weeks old, it was really an open question what “a new way forward” actually meant.

We’re not going back!

We’re not going back! We’re not going back!

And then over the course of the week, as speaker after speaker took the stage, we started to get an answer. The story of forward would be told through the story of Kamala Harris herself. And the question hanging over the week was really whether that story could appeal to a broad majority of Americans, voters outside of the convention hall who will ultimately decide the election.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

Astead, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

Again. The second time in a week. And I’m very excited for it.

So Astead, we had on the show on Monday to answer a question for us, that I think a lot of people have, which is, who is Kamala Harris? And you ended that conversation by saying that the Democratic Party also recognizes this reality, that for a lot of people, she is still this unknown quantity.

And that the party had a big task here at the convention this week, which was to find a way to finally tell her story. It does seem like they’ve tried to do that. Let’s walk through the case that they’re making for her. And what you’ve seen here in your reporting for your show, “The Run-Up.”

Yeah, I mean, I think that the Democrats have definitely laid out a case for her as a candidate, but also a story for her as a person. They have leaned into the different parts of her biography to really follow through on what, I think, is the best version of her campaign, which is a little bit for everybody. There is a story there about more moderate legislation, but pieces of progressive history. There’s different parts of her bio that speak to Black communities, immigrant communities.

Of course, the historic nature of her gender and the roles like that. And I really think it has followed through on what I expected for this week, which is that she seems to function politically as a mirror of some sort, where the party wants to position her as someone who basically, no matter what you’re looking for in terms of a vessel to beat Donald Trump, you can find it in this candidate.

Let’s dig into that more. Where did the convention start, that story?

Hello, Democrats!

Yeah, I think it really starts in her personal biography.

And I’m here tonight to tell you all about the Kamala Harris that I know.

They have told a story that she often tells about her being a first generation American.

Her mother moved here from India at 19.

And being a daughter of an immigrant mother who really raised two daughters in the Bay Area from working class roots. And that’s been a real thing that they’ve tried to own.

Kamala was not born into privilege. She had to work for what she’s got.

When she was young, she worked at McDonald’s.

They talk about her working at McDonald’s in college.

And she greeted every person without thousand watt smile and said, how can I help you?

I think it’s overall about trying to present this as someone who pulled himself up by bootstraps. It represents the American dream. And I think for Democrats, it really returns them back to the place they want to be. Democrats like thinking of themselves as a party who appeals to the diversity of America, both in racial ways, in gender ways, but also in class ways.

In Kamala Harris, we have a chance to elect a president who is for the middle class because she is from the middle class.

And I think they used other parts of her identity, specifically thinking about being the first Black woman to accept a major party’s nomination.

We know folks are going to do everything they can to distort her truth.

And I think Michelle Obama’s speech, specifically, spoke to the power and anxiety that sometimes that identity can bring.

My husband and I sadly know a little something about this.

For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us. See, his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black.

And I would also say that it was an implicit response to what Republicans and others have been trying to say, talking about Kamala Harris as a DEI hire, someone who was only in their position because of their identity. But the way that Michelle Obama framed it was that those identities have power.

I want to know. I want to know. Who’s going to tell him, who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?

Just because someone the first to be in a position, does not mean that is the only reason in the position. But it also doesn’t make those identities meaningless. The fact that she is a Black woman should be seen as a strength, not as a weakness.

Is there a risk to that, though? I mean, by openly talking about race, is there a risk that goes too far and begins to alienate voters outside the convention out in the world who they need to win in November.

I mean, there’s always a risk. But I don’t really think so. Democrats have had increasing trouble with Black voters. There’s been a downturn in Black vote share all the way dating back to 2012.

In Biden’s now suspended candidacy, that was one of the things driving his polling weaknesses was kind of tepid reception from Black voters. A pitch to them is something that is a upside of the Kamala Harris campaign. And the hope that they could consolidate that community is where any Democratic nominee needs to be as a baseline.

We both got our start as young lawyers, helping children who were abused and neglected.

One thing I noticed that came up a lot during the speeches was her background as a prosecutor. How did the party present that part of her biography?

As a prosecutor, Kamala stood up for children who had been victims of sexual abuse.

She put rapists, child molesters, and murderers behind bars.

They talk about it in the way that I think fuels what they want to say is the reason she can take on Trump, that this is someone who has stood up to bullies before, who’s not going to be intimidated easily —

And Kamala is as tough as it comes.

— who’s tough, and who doesn’t shirk away from a challenge.

And she knows the best way to deal with a coward is to take him head on, because we all know cowards are weak. And Kamala Harris can smell weakness.

I think all of that adds up to say, you can trust this person to go up against Donald Trump. You can trust this person to go up against the Republican Party, because she’s not someone who is scared.

She never runs from a fight.

A woman, a fierce woman for the people.

But then, of course, we heard about another side of Kamala Harris, a more personal side.

Yeah, and I think this is the part of Kamala Harris where I think was kind of most missing in the presidential run. Frankly, it’s the part that she keeps most private. She is a warm family member and friend.

Hello to my big, beautiful blended family up there.

And I think what the speech from her husband did was really show and lay that out.

I got married, became a dad to Cole and Ella. Unfortunately, went through a divorce, but eventually started worrying about how I would make it all work. And that’s when something unexpected happened, I ended up with Kamala Harris’s phone number.

He talks about the kind of awkwardness of their first interaction.

I got Kamala’s voicemail, and I just started rambling. “Hey, it’s Doug.”

And I think you have a real kind of sense of their genuine connection to one another.

By the way, Kamala saved that voicemail. And she makes me listen to it on every anniversary.

Like, yes, this is someone who is tough, who is taking on corporations and cartels and all of that stuff by day. But this is someone who also makes a point to cook Sunday dinner for family every week.

And she makes a mean brisket for Passover.

And makes sure to really go close to his kids and is very close with her family.

That’s Kamala. She’s always been there for our children. And I know she’ll always be there for yours, too.

Going back to the last time the Democratic Party nominated a woman, Hillary Clinton, she had presented herself in a very different way. She kind of ran away from that stuff. She was saying, I don’t bake cookies, that’s not what I do. I’m kind of out there with the men, fighting.

And this convention and this candidate, Harris, is very different. She’s a newer generation. And she can do her career and bake cookies. Those things are not in conflict. This is a different type of woman leader.

This week we talked to Senator Elizabeth Warren on “The Run-Up,” and one of the things that she mentioned was she feels that there’s been a big change from 2016, even 2020 to now. Not just the amount of women in public office, but she said they don’t have to choose between sides of themselves. And I think that’s what diversity means.

Of course, Kamala Harris can be a tough politician and also bake cookies. Hillary Clinton did that, too. It was just that she was told that was not the way that she had to present herself. What Kamala Harris is benefiting from is there’s a greater space and ability to choose multiple things at once. And so particularly if others are going to talk more directly about gender or race or other things, that kind of frees her from having the burden of doing that herself.

And in fact, Hillary Clinton, herself, did speak, of course, on day one. She talked about that glass ceiling in the history that has led to now, including her own experience in 2016.

Yeah, I thought the Hillary Clinton speech was really powerful. I think a lot of the speakers put this moment in historical context, both politically and personally.

My mother, Dorothy, was born right here in Chicago before women had the right to vote. That changed 104 years ago yesterday. And since that day, every generation has carried the torch forward. In 1972, a fearless Black congresswoman named Shirley Chisholm —

— she ran for president. In 1984, I brought my daughter to see Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman nominated for vice president. And then there was 2016, when it was the honor of my life to accept our party’s nomination for president.

The last time I was here in my hometown was to memorialize my mother, the woman who showed me the power of my own voice. My mother volunteered at the local school.

I’m the proud granddaughter of a housekeeper, Sarah Daisy, who raised her three children in a one-bedroom apartment. It was her dream to work in government, to help people.

My grandmother, the woman who helped raise me as a child, a little old white lady born in a tiny town called Peru, Kansas.

I want to talk now about somebody who’s not with us tonight. Tessie Prevost Williams was born in New Orleans not long after the Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. That was in 1954, same year I was born. Parents pulled their kids out of the school.

There was a way that I think the candidacy and the person was placed in a long legacy, both about gender identity and racial identity that kind of teed up this Thursday as a culminating moment, both politically and I think, in a broader historical context.

Together, we put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling. And you know what? On the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her hand and taking the oath of office as our 47th president of the United States!

I wish my mother and Kamala’s mother could see us. They would say, keep going. Shirley and Jerry would say, keep going!

I think you can do a lot to set up a candidate to be in a good position. All of this stuff adds up to some part of the puzzle, but the biggest piece is the candidate themself. At the end of the day, they have to close the deal. And I think this moment is her chance to tell her own story in a way that sometimes she has not decided to. And that’s still what this whole convention success and failure will ride on.

We’re going to watch tonight. We’re going to watch with our colleague, Reid Epstein. And you are going to have a great episode of “The Run-Up” on Friday. We will all be tuning in.

Thank you. I appreciate you doing this, Sabrina.

Really thanks a lot, Astead.

Are you a delegate?

Sorry, we caught you mid French fry eating. What’s your feeling about Kamala and what her story has been? Are you getting to know her this week? Are there things you’ve learned about her this week?

Yeah, I’m learning more and more as we go along. The more and more I learn about her, the more I’m impressed with her. I mean, she worked at McDonald’s when she was going to college to try to pay her way through.

Her very small beginnings. Not a trust fund baby type of thing. I relate to that. Like, I was on food stamps this year. So it’s like if she can do it with that background, it gives everybody hope.

Hillary was my girl. When Hillary ran, I championed her as well. But I didn’t feel this way as I feel about Harris. I’m like, do I want to run for office? If she can do it, I can. She looks just like me, right? She represents, she works at McDonald’s. She paid for every. It’s relatable. And that’s what everybody needs.

We’re going to break that glass ceiling. I’m getting teary, teary in my eyes. And it just means so much to be inclusive.

[WHIMSICAL MUSIC]

What does it mean to you that Kamala Harris is a woman? What does it mean to you that she’s a Black woman?

To have a Black woman become the president of the United States, and for her to turn the world upside down in 30 days, to know that I’m in the midst of this miraculous history is phenomenal.

One delegate who really stood out to us was Beverly Hatcher, a 76-year-old Black woman from Texas.

I was raised by a wonderful Baptist mama. I just lost her. But I am who I am because of my mother. We were always pushed to do whatever we wanted to do. I’ll never forget. I wanted to be a majorette. I taught myself, because we had no money for, what is it called, lessons

And a majorette is like the baton twirler, right?

Yes. And when I did finally try out in my 11th grade, I won right off. And my classmates, who were predominantly white, as years have gone by, have told me at class reunions and stuff, Beverly, the sleepy town of Wellington woke up.

Oh, my god, we got a Black girl getting ready to be the head majorette. But it happened because I had the drive and the will. My mother and my family stood behind me, and didn’t miss a parade, or a football game, or a basketball game.

And you see that in Harris?

Beverly, what would your mom say if she saw this?

My sisters have been telling me every day how proud my mom is. And I’m just happy. I’m happy to make her happy. Yeah.

We women, who have had mothers like Kamala, like Michelle, I remember Hillary’s mother, we women value their strength and their wisdom. And we’re just glad that they gave us a legacy to pass it on.

Thank you very much.

We’ll be right back.

Reid, hello.

OK. Kamala Harris just wrapped up her acceptance speech. Before we talk about what she said and the case she presented, tell us how her campaign was thinking about the stakes of this moment.

Sabrina, this evening was one of two opportunities, along with the debate next month, for her to speak to tens of millions of people at once. And so for that, the stakes were really high.

Her goal was to present herself as a serious person and a serious candidate, who was not the candidate who flamed out in 2019 or the unsteady vice president from the beginning of her term. She had to show that she had the gravitas to be the commander in chief, the political aptitude to reach out to the middle, and also to progressives in her party all at the same time.

A very tall order. Tell us how she went about doing that.

Good evening, everyone. Good evening.

Well, she started talking around 9:30 Chicago time to a packed United Center with 14,000 or 15,000 people, many, many wearing all white, the color of the suffragettes, a color that makes a statement just by wearing it. And when Harris took the stage —

— they erupted in a cheer that forced her for a couple of minutes to wait before she could start talking.

Thank you. OK, let’s get to business. Let’s get to business. All right.

And what did she finally say once she started talking?

She told the story of her life.

The path that led me here in recent weeks was, no doubt, unexpected. But I’m no stranger to unlikely journeys.

My mother, our mother, Shyamala Harris, had one of her own. And I miss her every day, and especially right now.

She talked about the influence of her mother, who raised her and her sister.

And she also taught us, “And never do anything half-assed.” And that is a direct quote. [LAUGHS]

She spoke about her family’s humble beginnings in Oakland.

Before she could finally afford to buy a home, she rented a small apartment in the East Bay.

Then she started talking about her career as a prosecutor.

In the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge and I said five words.

She brought back one of the lines that she used in her 2020 campaign about how when she stood up in a courtroom, she began with the same words.

Kamala Harris for the people.

And she said she would bring that same philosophy to the White House, that she was not working for specific individuals, but for the people at large.

And so on behalf of the people —

Eventually she did a bigger wind up to formally accepting the nomination.

— on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender, or the language your grandmother speaks —

And listed the people on whose behalf she did so.

— on behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth —

It was really a kind of a feat of speech writing to build up to this big emotional moment.

— I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America.

And what did you make of that, how she was doing that?

It was building up this speech to be a serious political document and present her as a serious figure in this moment. And so she still has to prove to people that she is capable of being the commander in chief and running the country.

And how does she try to prove that she’s capable of being a commander in chief?

What she did was try to draw the distinction between herself and Donald Trump.

In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences, but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.

And she warns that Trump would not have guardrails on him if he were elected to a second term.

Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.

And how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had, himself.

The speech was very clear-eyed about the stakes of the election.

They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself.

There was a whole section in the middle of the speech where she ticked through, one by one, a whole series of warnings about things that Trump would do to the country if he were back in the White House.

Get this, he plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator and force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions.

Simply put, they are out of their minds.

What else stuck out to you?

It was remarkable, the section of the speech where she talked about Gaza.

President Biden and I are working around the clock, because now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done.

She did not veer too far to the left.

I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself.

She managed to say things that would be appealing to both sides.

President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.

It was a remarkable moment to hear the arena erupt at the end of that section, to hear her support for both the Israelis and the Palestinians reveal that kind of enthusiasm, after the party has been really ripped apart for months about how to handle the situation.

Fellow Americans, I love our country with all my heart.

She ended this speech with a paean to patriotism.

We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world.

She dove headlong into the American exceptionalism argument that is native to Republicans and to older generations of politicians, like Joe Biden.

It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done. Guided by optimism and faith to fight for this country we love. To fight —

But is not something you always hear from younger Democrats, who are a little less comfortable with some of the flag waving.

Let’s vote for it. And together, let us write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told. Thank you. God bless you and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you all.

She seemed to really be taking aim at this criticism of her, which is that she’s this radical California liberal and she can’t be trusted with the keys to the country.

I mean, that was one of the tasks that she had tonight, was to make the argument, particularly to voters in the middle, the suburban voters that used to vote for Republicans, but have been repelled by Trump and driven to Democrats in the last several years, that they can vote for her without worrying that she’s some kind of Bernie Sanders acolyte.

And some of that is based on the way she ran her last presidential campaign. Some of it, frankly, is because she’s a Black woman from California. And that the voters who will determine this election are voters in less diverse states, for the most part.

So Reid stepping back here, it feels worth remembering just where we were at the end of the Republican National Convention that was just over a month ago. Things couldn’t have felt more different. The GOP was on top of the world, while the Democrats were in disarray over Biden’s refusal to leave the race.

And now here we are. And it feels like things couldn’t be better for the Democrats. At least that’s the feeling I’m having coming out of this convention.

I mean, the whole race has turned upside down from where it was when we left Milwaukee. And Democrats are upbeat. They are confident. It is a party that is remarkably united behind their candidate.

But you have to remember, this election will be very close. It is, indeed, a game of inches in the key battleground states. And what she was trying to do was to present herself as someone who can be trusted as commander in chief to win over the tiny slices of the electorate that will determine the winner in places like Wisconsin, and Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona.

And those are the states that will determine the election. And they have made a calculated decision that those voters needed to see her as a commander in chief, something they had not seen from her before. And we will see in the coming days and weeks whether she’s accomplished that in a way that brings enough of those people on board for her to win a term as president.

Reid, thank you.

Thank you, Sabrina. [WHIMSICAL MUSIC]

Here’s what else you should know today. On Thursday, the Supreme Court allowed Arizona Republicans, for now, to impose tougher voting requirements, including a new rule that people registering to vote there before the coming election must show proof of citizenship.

As a result, Arizonans newly registering to vote for this year’s presidential election must provide copies of one of several documents, such as a birth certificate or a passport, in order to prove that they are US citizens. Democrats have denounced the new rule as an attempt to prevent legal immigrants from voting.

And US Health officials have approved the latest slate of annual COVID vaccines, clearing the way for Americans six months and older to receive updated shots in the coming days. The approvals come amid a prolonged surge of COVID infections, which have risen all summer.

Remember to catch a new episode of “The Interview” right here tomorrow. This week, Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Jenna Ortega, the star of the Netflix series “Wednesday,” and the new “Bettlejuice” sequel, about her head-spinning success over the past few years.

One day I just I woke up in somebody else’s shoes. I felt like I had entered somebody else’s life. And I didn’t know how to get back to mine.

Today’s episode was produced by Lynsea Garrison, Rob Szypko, Jessica Cheung, Asthaa Chaturvedi, and Shannon Lin. It was edited by Rachel Quester, contains original music by Rowan Niemisto, Dan Powell, Diane Wong, and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

[THEME MUSIC]

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you on Monday.

• Apple Podcasts
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Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Featuring Astead W. Herndon and Reid J. Epstein

Produced by Lynsea Garrison Rob Szypko Jessica Cheung Asthaa Chaturvedi and Shannon Lin

Edited by Rachel Quester

Original music by Rowan Niemisto Marion Lozano Dan Powell and Diane Wong

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow ‘The Daily’ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Last night, at the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris accepted her party’s nomination, becoming the first woman of color in U.S. history to do so.

Astead W. Herndon and Reid J. Epstein, who cover politics for The Times, discuss the story this convention told about Ms. Harris — and whether that story could be enough to win the presidential election.

On today’s episode

Astead W. Herndon , a national politics reporter and the host of the politics podcast “ The Run-Up ” for The New York Times.

Reid J. Epstein , who covers politics for The New York Times.

Background reading

Kamala Harris promised to chart a “new way forward” as she accepted the nomination.

“The Run-Up”: It’s her party now. What’s different?

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Michael Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam and Nick Pitman.

Astead W. Herndon is a national politics reporter and the host of the politics podcast “The Run-Up.” More about Astead W. Herndon

Reid J. Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining The Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. More about Reid J. Epstein

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