Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
75 Marketing Tricks That Backfired Spectacularly
Brandy loyalty is a win-win for companies and customers alike. And yet, honest and transparent companies that sincerely put their customers’ wants and needs first are rare. Much more often, you’ll come across greedy business owners who will do anything it takes to trick consumers into buying their products or services.
However, eagle-eyed customers can spot shadiness, shrinkflation, false advertising, and manipulative marketing from a mile away. Our team at Bored Panda has collected examples of the most egregious and infuriating practices that companies use to deceive customers, and we hope you’re taking notes.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Plastic Is The New Paper!
RELATED:
#2
The Illusion Of Choice
A supermarket shelf looks like freedom.
Hundreds of brands. Endless options.
But behind many of those logos are just a handful of powerful corporations.
Companies like Nestlé, PepsiCo, The Coca-Cola Company, Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Mondelez International own hundreds of smaller brands that appear to compete with each other.
Different packaging.
Different marketing.
Often the same parent company.
This is called the illusion of choice. The market looks diverse, but much of it is controlled by a small group of mega-corporations.
Understanding this doesn’t mean you stop buying products. It simply means you start seeing how modern consumer systems actually work.
The shelf looks crowded.
But the power behind it is concentrated
#3
I Want My Money Back
#4
The Sticker Was A Lie
#5
Contains Vitamins B3, B6, B12, And Zinc, Except It Doesn't Contain Those
#6
That Should Be Illegal
#7
False Ad
#8
So It Was A Lie
#9
Chocolate Boxes
#10
A New Low From Colgate. This Tube Came In This Box! I Feel Done Over
#11
Cup Design That Makes The Drink Look Like It Has Actual Fruit
#12
A “Textbook” Example Of How Big Brands Lie To Us
I can’t believe they actually teach this at an established business school!
JND = just noticeable difference
Simply put, they gradually and unnoticeably reduce the size and then all of sudden increase the size by a lot to trick you that it’s a great deal
#13
Natural My Foot
#14
Labelling Wipes That Are Toxic For Aquatic Life And Non-Degradable As ‘Flushable’
#15
I Would Have Liked Atleast 3 Mushrooms
#16
My Expectations Were Low, But Holy Cow
Danny Trejo (told/you/so) 3 months ago
Text in the lower right corner should say: "Contains milk, wheat and barley, but barely."
#17
Standard Misleading Packaging
#18
Sewing Kits Are Now Affected By Shrinkflation
#19
I Chose The Bottle Because A Tube Wasn't Enough! This Trojan Trickery Is An Abuse Coming From A Brand With Recognition
#20
Coffee A Month Or So Apart
StumblingThroughLife 3 months ago (edited)
Coffee Mate powder did that - it jumped from 1kg to 750g - and they raised the price. I found a 1kg non-brand (catering/bulk) version, which did eventually drop to750g, but the price was slightly less than the 1kg. Still annoyed, though. #RipoffArtists. I t should be illegal, but #Lobbying & #Backhanders are the flavour of the day, re: Govts. Sorry, if my letter get jumbled at times. Dyslexia, however mild, is a bitca. I do mostly double-check via a spellcheck and correct the text.
#21
I’ve Been Pissed About This For Weeks. 75% Air. My Hands Are Small And I Could Hold All Of It In My Palm What Do You Mean “Share Size”
#22
So Much For "Two Scoops" There Kellogg's
#23
Ah, There It Is
#24
Feeling Scammed
#25
Snickers "Yard" With Hollow Cardboard Center
#26
Brand New Protein Powder, Not Even Filled Half Whey
#28
Cheese Ball Size Comparison
I love stuff like this. My family has saved cheese ball buckets for years and finally after cleaning out some stuff, I found some with significant expiration age gaps. We've been robbed. Take me back to 2010. It's absolutely ridiculous how they reduced the size and thought we wouldn't notice.
Multa Nocte (she/her/8647) 3 months ago
This is sad. When I lived in the US I lived for Utz pretzels.
#29
New-Ish Toblerone Has More Empty Space Between The Pieces In The Same Size Package
#30
Brand, Are You Okay?
These used to look like the picture. The whole box is like this.
#31
They Knew What They Were Doing. It Was Perfectly Placed In The Box
#32
So It's Neither Of These?
#33
This Cashew Packaging. I Was Wondering Why My Hand Instantly Hit The Bottom When I Opened It
#34
Plenty Of Filling If You Like Disappointment
#35
Does This Count Or Are They Just Lying?
#36
The Chocolate Wafers I Bought A Week Ago vs. The Ones I Bought Today. Same Price Ofc
#37
Chocolate Filled Hostess Twinkies
#38
Cranberry Chocolate
Grace Sssssss 3 months ago
Wouldn't the chocolate cost more than the cranberries? OK, well, I guess, I live in New Jersey and cranberries are kind of local, so maybe they're cheaper here...
#39
Quaker Oatmeal Advertises 35% Less Sugar, But In Reality They're Just Selling 35% Smaller Portions - But For The Same Price
#40
How Can They Even Call This "Non-Dairy?"
#41
String Cheese I Get Every Week, Left Is Old And Right Is New
WFH Forever 3 months ago
I have had that happen and contacted the manufacturer. Apparently there are really mis-sized ones that make it through packaging and they use them whenever a bag of cheese sticks doesn't pass the weight test because that day's production run was cutting them a little small. So my '12 pack' had 12 slightly smallish ones and 1 which was about 1/2 size. The total weight matched the package requirement (12 oz).
#42
Shrinkflation Used By Cadbury To Literally Cut Corners. The Bottom Chocolate Bar Is More Than 8 Percent Smaller
StumblingThroughLife 3 months ago
I haven't eaten Cadbury's stuff since they sold it to an American company that uses Palm oil and less Cacao.
#43
Bought A 12 Pack Of Dove Soap, They All Came Out Like This
#44
I Measured A 8 Inch Tortilla… Guess What I Found?
#45
My Quart Of Milk Only Had 3 Cups Of Milk In It
Rahb in Oz 3 months ago
40 REAL fluid ounces (1 Imperial quart) = 1.136 litres. You were definitely robbed.
#46
Packaging That Tricks You
#47
So Thankful For My Singular Candy Topping
Laszlo Larthlanc 3 months ago
Just bought a box of these at Dollar Tree. Mine looked like the image on the package.
#48
Bag Of Lies
Bought a bag of chips and got a bag of dreams. 98% ambition, 2% snack. Capitalism’s finest illusion.
It was up to the green line by the way.
#49
Chocolate Cake At The Local Cafe
#50
I Understand The Size Difference But Can’t Forgive The Color
#51
Pasta Sauce Getting 8% Smaller And Water Is Now First Ingredient vs. Tomatoes
#52
Beauty Brands Need To Stop Lying About Shades
Gucci skin tint in shade 43 “medium deep”…. Medium deep where??? I got this for free to try out so can’t even get the right shade, which looking at how this is so wrong, might be the darkest shade. Let me go find some olive skinned woman to give this to cuz obviously this was not made for a brown skinned black woman (doing my Golloria side eye).
Apocalyptic Excavator 3 months ago (edited)
Yeah, and when influencers pointed this out some brands released straight up black face paint as their "foundation for people of color".
#53
Both Weigh 500g But The Green One Is In A 30% "Bigger Bag More To Share"
#54
This Ad For Vitamin Water That Claims It Works Better Than Flu Shots
#55
Artificial Or Not
#56
This Greyed-Out "Er" To Trick You Into Thinking It Just Says "Low Carb". And The Asterisk On The Back Says "Than Regular Chocolate Bars"
#57
You Sit On A Throne Of Lies
BrunoVI 3 months ago
Apparently, Hershey got busted for this, but the remedied packaging is no better. It now says "with Calcium." It has a trace amount. You can see "Tricalcium phosphate" on the ingredient list, but they have to round anything less than 4% down to 0%, according to Google. (Which I'm not sure about, because I'm quite certain I've seen 2% on listings many times.
#58
Same Size
#59
I Guess There's Technically 2 Flavors In The Package
#60
The $20 Toilet Paper My Auntie Bought (On The Right) On Amazon Compared To A Normal Roll (On The Left)
#61
Good One, China
#62
How Is This Not Illegal?
#64
This Used To Be A Premium Ice Cream
#65
Powerade Is Using Shrinkflation By Replacing Their 32oz Drinks With 28oz And Stores Are Charging The Same Amount
#66
This Is Theft If You Ask Me
Laszlo Larthlanc 3 months ago
Looks like what happened to "Famous Amos" cookies after Wally Amos lost control of the brand in 1988. Lots of people stopped buying them and folks started referring to the brand as "Famous Anus".
#67
Not Only Did My Box Of "90" Treats Have Only 75 Candies, But Also Only 1 Sour Patch Kids
#68
Dominos Australian Large
#69
An Entire Row Of Fake Brands
#70
New Hershey's Bottle Just Dropped
#71
With A Sprinkling Of Oregano
#72
Anything To Save A Buck I Guess
#73
This Box Of Mostly Sticks With Some Matches In It
#74
The Size Of The Packaging vs. What You Actually Get. I Swear It's Getting Worse
#75
Don’t Let Them Win!
These companies use clever marketing to trick you into buying their products. They link their brands to things you know and love, and feature trustworthy people to make it seem safe.
Add New Image
What do you think ?
Panda McPandaface 3 months ago (edited)
The people commenting "contact the manufacturer" - do you not understand that none of the manufacturers give a flying fck, they wouldn't pull sh!t like this if they did.
gvizzle_ 74 3 months ago
"Tell that people who did this to you that they did this to you"
Load More Replies...
Michael Largey 3 months ago
I don't see how any of these fit the title "75 Marketing Tricks That Backfired Spectacularly". In fact, they all worked as intended - making the manufacturer more money.
Bunny Wood 3 months ago
Opened a pack of flower seeds last week. Packet says average 100 seeds. I counted 23.
PenguinEmp 3 months ago
Well 100 is an average. So technically anything under or above would be acceptable according to the market.
Load More Replies...
Panda McPandaface 3 months ago (edited)
The people commenting "contact the manufacturer" - do you not understand that none of the manufacturers give a flying fck, they wouldn't pull sh!t like this if they did.
gvizzle_ 74 3 months ago
"Tell that people who did this to you that they did this to you"
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 3 months ago
I don't see how any of these fit the title "75 Marketing Tricks That Backfired Spectacularly". In fact, they all worked as intended - making the manufacturer more money.
Bunny Wood 3 months ago
Opened a pack of flower seeds last week. Packet says average 100 seeds. I counted 23.
PenguinEmp 3 months ago
Well 100 is an average. So technically anything under or above would be acceptable according to the market.
Load More Replies...
Related on Bored Panda
