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9 Epic Marketing Fails That Destroyed Brand Trust
There are many reasons why an advertising campaign might fail. Maybe there wasn’t enough of a budget dedicated to spreading the word. Or, the ideas weren’t creative enough to make the product stand out from competitors.
Marketers also note that to have a successful campaign, one has to have a single clear goal. You shouldn’t try to cover all the bases with one campaign. So, if you’re aiming for more social media subscribers, don’t also expect to get more website traffic or sales. Go one step at a time.
But, sometimes, the goals are clear, the marketers have plenty of money, and the ad does stand out but it’s still a failure. That’s because it stands out for all the wrong reasons. It is so out of the box that it goes a bit overboard.
Over the years, there have been plenty of such examples. Today, we want to present to you the ones that were kindly collected by Oxford College of Marketing and put on their highly entertaining and informative TikTok page. Scroll down to cringe at these magnificent lapses of judgment.
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The noughties culture was wild. Misogyny was rampant everywhere, being gay was lame, and fat people were the b**t of every other joke. And while many of us might have laughed at the fat Monica jokes, it’s not quite as funny seeing them now. Arguably, they are the cringiest part of watching Friends reruns.
But just as Jennifer Aniston pointed out in her interview, the sensitivities have changed over time. Even at the end of the 2000s, PETA’s fatphobic “Save the Whales, Lose the Blubber: Go Vegetarian” ad was met with a strong negative reaction. The ad was taken down a month after being installed in Jacksonville, Florida.
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However, PETA is, of course, not the apologetic type. Instead of trying to maintain the company’s decorum, a move we’re so used to seeing these days, they doubled down on their statements.
“America's obesity epidemic calls for tough love à la Dr. Phil and America's Biggest Loser,” said president and founder of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, in a response to Huffington Post. “Not more coddling and mock shock over a billboard pointing out that the majority of fat people need to have some discipline and remember that being fat means being a bad role model to our children, many of whom are now so fat themselves that "teeter-totter" has come to describe their wobbly gait.”
Quite a statement for an organization who has never been concerned for people’s wellbeing and advocates for animal, not human, rights.
A commercial that might have benefitted from a little standing up for themselves, is the infamous Dove Facebook ad which they deeply apologized for. At least, that’s according to Lola, the woman who acted in it.
“If Dove have defended their creative vision and defended their choice to use me as a dark-skinned woman, defended the reasoning for using me first, [they] could have put a different type of narrative into play.”
The ad famously showed a dark-skinned woman, played by Lola, changing her shirt and turning into a light-skinned woman. Many considered the video racist by implying that one can wash away the color of their skin.
“To have the opportunity to show that I do feel beautiful and I am valued in media was extremely exciting for me. So, for it to come out and be taken out of context and then kind of spiral into a global controversy was really overwhelming and quite upsetting as well,” Lola commented on the situation.
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