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It can take years for a company to build up a good reputation. And just a few seconds to throw it down the drain. It's one thing for a business to make a really bad move. But the way the team handles the aftermath can make or break them.
Take Boeing, for example. You might remember an incident in 2024 where passengers were left terrified after a piece of the Alaska Airlines plane blew off mid-flight. They were traveling at 16,000 feet in the sky when it happened. It was just one of several major safety issues in recent years. Instead of tackling the crises head-on, the aeronautical company came under fire for their lacklustre responses and avoidance of press conferences. Public relations experts believe there might have been less reputation damage had the corporation dealt with things differently.
It's not unusual for big companies like Boeing to face PR nightmares. Some are so disastrous that they're still mentioned decades later. Someone once asked people to share what they believed were the worst PR disasters of major corporations in history. And there were thousands of responses. Bored Panda has put together a list of the craziest comments. Let us know which ones stand out for you by upvoting them. You'll also find more about Boeing's PR crisis between the screenshots.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
When Nestle gave out formula in poor countries even though many there didn't have access to clean water and would really water down the formula to make it last. They tried to present formula as superior to breast milk but ended up k*****g a fair amount of babies. Rarely does a marketing concept end up with lots of dead babies but Nestle managed to do that.
Roxy222uk 8 months ago
They employed local women, dressed them in nurses' uniforms, told them that formula is modern and scientific and why Westerners are doing so well in the world. This was in the 70s, not the 30s. Once a woman has stopped bf for a couple of weeks it's very difficult to relocate, so then the mothers were stuck with using formula. Not only did the formula cost money and require access to clean water (neither of which is true with bf) it also required plenty of fuel to boil water several times a day, another thing they couldn't always afford. Let's be clear, N****e didn't give a s.h.i.t. then and they don't give a s.h.i.t. now. They will market their formula as being better than bf in any country that lets them (as well other formula companies), promote it is cheaply until mothers are stuck with it, and so on. NB, what mothers do with their own b.r.e.asts is none of my business. They love their babies and are doing the best for them that they are capable of. What I loathe is lying companies
Roxy222uk 8 months ago
manipulating and deceiving women when they are at their most vulnerable.
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tracey sero 8 months ago
I actually read this for the first time in a Business Ethics course in college 20 years ago!
Alex Merelli 8 months ago
Same but it’s not been 20 years!!! … it’s been 17… 😂
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Reset Game 8 months ago
Nestle... Yet another reason they should be banned & forced to file bankruptcy and close
Imagine sitting on a plane, minding your own business, when suddenly you hear a loud bang and feel a rush of cold wind. The temperature plummets. Along with the cabin's air pressure. That's exactly what happened to passengers on board an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland International Airport in Oregon to Ontario, California, on 5 January 2024. To say I'd be terrified is an understatement.
"Er, yeah, we'd like to go down," a calm voice told air traffic control. "Alaska 1282 declaring an emergency… we're descending to 10,000… we're depressurised."
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the door plug for the fuselage of the Boeing 737 Max 9 "blew off" just minutes after takeoff. Those on board were exposed to open air 16,000 feet above the ground. And the harrowing emergency landing that followed.
RELATED:
#2
The one that irritated me the most was when Bank of America had one of their customers arrested for inquiring about a questionable check. The guy had made a transaction with someone on craigslist and was a little suspicious about the check he got, so he took it into his local branch to ask if it was legit. The teller held it for a bit, then said, "yeah, go ahead and sign it." Once he signed it they told him he was guilty of passing a bad check and arrested him.
David 8 months ago
BoA has had so many scummy stories, they are the worst of the banking industry....which says a lot
Hidalgo 8 months ago
Nah. Nowhere near the worst. They’re bad, but in the US Union Bank and Wells Fargo are worse.
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Billo66 8 months ago
That doesn't make sense. The guy who wrote the check passed a bad check, to you. You actually asked about it first. Who wouldn't sign if the teller said yeah it's fine sign it. I hope OP fought this.
Billo66 8 months ago (edited)
On a side note, this is the kind of silly sh1t that used to happen to me and then I had herb in my pocket anyway so through no fault of mine, off I went lol.
Load More Replies... Miriam Insidecor 8 months ago
Most banks in the UK don't even issue cheque books. They haven't been commonplace for 20 years. Are they still really prevalent in the US? I can't imagine anyone under 50 using them.
Emily 8 months ago
Check writing is DEFINITELY dying out, but there's a large segment of population about 60 and up that still prefer checks. I've had people adamantly REFUSE banking cards and swear to never get them.
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pete rosenberg 8 months ago
compare them to Wells Fargo and I know who comes out as the worst. not even close.
One passenger later told the BBC how his phone went flying and his socks and shoes were ripped off by the uncontrolled decompression. Cuong Tran said he "held on for dear life" during the incident and believes his seatbelt saved him from being blown away. Thankfully, he wasn't seriously injured, but he did suffer lacerations.
"The captain said we had passed 10,000 feet. Then the hole blew out on us and I remember my body getting lifted up. Then my whole lower body got sucked down by the howling wind," Tran told the BBC. The passenger added that the decompression lasted around 10 or 20 seconds. But we can just imagine it feeling like the longest few seconds ever. "It was probably the first time in my life I had a feeling of no control over everything. I was in disbelief over the whole situation," he said.
#3
A few years ago the company I work for reached one of our goals: 25% customer penetration. Marketing decided to have - I s**t you not - a *penetration celebration*. Everyone got company branded blankets. Also, on that same day an affiliate of ours was having a promotion and sent us vibrating pens.
So to recap we had a penetration celebration and received blankets and vibrating pens.
Uncle Panda 8 months ago
I inadvertently carried "market penetration" from a marketing context to a sorta religions one. "Saturation, I mean, market saturation!"
Nikole 8 months ago
Well, after penetration there’s usually some saturation
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Sven Horlemann 8 months ago
And for a moment I thought BP is censoring "pen*s" using the innocent "pens"? 😜
April Pickett 8 months ago
You reach your goal, you celebrate, and are given the crappiest award gift possible.
The door plug was later found in a backyard in Oregon, having dropped down thousands of feet from the sky. It emerged that Boeing engineers had failed to bolt the door panel back on properly after it had been removed during repairs. Definitely not a tiny mistake.
A number of angry passengers went to court to sue both Boeing and Alaska Airlines. They claimed damages for injuries and "intense fear, distress, anxiety, trauma [and] physical pain," according to legal documents. "The lawsuit alleges that Boeing delivered a plane with a faulty door plug and that Alaska management had deemed the aircraft unsafe to fly over the ocean but continued to fly it over land, according to the complaint," reported ABC News at the time.
#4
When the CEO of BP (Tony Hayward) said, "There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back" during the oil spill.
Geoffrey Scott 8 months ago
In other words.."yes, this environmental disaster and loss of life are terrible, and it's making my life SO inconvenient"
Regina Holt 8 months ago
Yeah, did he not realize there would be actual lives lost? How much marine life was destroyed by that?
#5
The Sun newspaper in the UK. After the Hillsborough stadium disaster, they ran a cover story blaming the victims for causing the problem and making the authorities' jobs harder...when two decades of official inquiries proved exactly the opposite. To this day, many residents of the Liverpool area (the team whose fans were killed) refuse to buy the Sun.
Gavin Johnson 8 months ago
They accused fans of stealing from the dead and dying who were on the pitch, they blamed the fans for the deaths, they took the view that the Police couldn’t be at fault. The S*n shall never be forgiven.
Jenni Howard 8 months ago
You iterally CAN'T buy The Sun in Liverpool/Merseyside. No newsagent will carry it
Dragons Exist 8 months ago
I've heard a lot of bad things about the Sun, even though I'm American, which definitely says something about how bad it is
Beak Hookage 8 months ago
As an Australian, I sincerely apologise for my country having inflicted M******r I mean Murdoch on the world.
Krd 8 months ago (edited)
Can't wait for his de*th, the world will be so much better off! Especially if his (liberal) son gets a good chunk of his money, which he can use to reverse the damage his father brought on the world.
Load More Replies... KatSaidWhat 8 months ago
It took literal decades for justice to be served. Also a lot of places have stopped even stocking the Scum outside of Liverpool too.
#6
After Asiana Airlines flight 214 crashed in San Francisco, KTVU released the "names" of the crew. Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee F*k, and Bang Ding Ow. I'm guessing someone got fired after that incident.
Uncle Panda 8 months ago (edited)
It's a joke from Ye Olden Jocularity Manufactory.
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Johnnynatfan 8 months ago
Oh my god I remember this. It was so bad and so d**n funny. I absolutely love when news people get pranked.
L H 8 months ago
In the UK a radio presenter was reading comments about Jimmy Saville - someone sent this in and it was read out on air "I wish everyone would stop criticising Jimmy Savile. He was a nice man. When I was eight, he fixed it for me to milk a cow blindfolded"
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Uncle Schmickle 8 months ago
A funny prank that a TV station didn't recognise, and read these names aloud.
Geoffrey Scott 8 months ago (edited)
The classic( terrible incident and NOT funny) Stephen Colbert running the tape of the news anchor reading this list of names "Ho Lee.(pause)..F**k?"
In a January 2024 statement, the attorney representing four of the plaintiffs said it was too soon to know for sure what exactly went wrong. "We do know Boeing is ultimately responsible for the safety of their planes and Alaska Airlines is ultimately responsible for the safety of their passengers," Mark Lindquist added.
Alaska Airlines said it could not comment on pending litigation. While Boeing remained tight-lipped. Months later, in March, was when the companies finally decided to publicly address the mounting lawsuits. But instead of taking accountability, Boeing blamed Alaska Airlines. And Alaska Airlines threw Boeing under the proverbial bus.
“Alaska Airlines cannot be liable for design or manufacturing defects,” the airline's attorneys wrote. Boeing also asked the court to drop the claims against it.
#7
In 1984, McDonalds did a promotion where for every event the USA won in the Olympics, customers could get free food. They knew that the Soviet Union would win a lot, so they wouldn't have to give away too much. This was the year that Russia chose to boycott the Olympics. America dominated, winning 174 gold medals, and McDonalds lost a deal of money.
Joseph Miller 8 months ago
I remember winning a lot and eating a lot of McDonalds that summer.
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
I could have kissed them, I was a single mother with a serious budget at the time.
John Dilligaf 8 months ago
Not really a PR disaster. They paid out even though it cost them a bunch of money. A PR disaster would have been if they'd made some lame excuse for refusing to honor the deal.
#8
Pretty sure The Spice Girls PR team made a poll for what city 'the girls' should visit next on their World Tour.
Baghdad won by a mile.
This was during peak Iraq war.
Michael Largey 8 months ago
The Spice Girls had the poll commissioned so their fans could tell the group what they want, what they really, really want
Beak Hookage 8 months ago
Turns out they really wanted to zigazig-ah. Whatever that means.
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#9
Not a major corporation but OJ Simpson publishing "If I Did It" after the m****r of his wife.
Cronecast AtTheRisingMoon 8 months ago
Because he tends to be the forgotten victim, RIP to Ron Goldman as well as Nicole Brown. Poor both of them but Ron Goldman died because he tried to return sunglasses to a friend who left them at the restaurant where he worked.
LauraDragonWench 8 months ago
Thank you. Nicole Simpson gets the lion's share of publicity, causing poor Ron Goldman to be a footnote or, even worse, forgotten. Thank goodness his family have been active and vocal to make sure justice was done for all.
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Carl Nixon 8 months ago
From memory, Nicole Brown Simpson's family took the rights to the book in a court battle to recoup damages. To get the money from it, they had to keep selling it, so they republished it with the "IF" part of the title made as small and hidden as possible.
Chicken Nugget 8 months ago
And even worse, putting the "IF" in criminally small print compared to the "I DID IT", it was like he was taunting the world for getting off
Bailey 8 months ago (edited)
It wasn't actually OJ who did that. The original cover was planned to have the text all the time size, but after a bankruptcy court awarded the book rights to the Goldman family, they had it redesigned the minimise the "if"
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Wang Zhuang 8 months ago
I still can't understand how the hell OJ was talked into doing this book
In April, an article published in CEO magazine criticized Boeing’s response to the crisis. "[It] has been unilaterally negative, with some even going as far as calling it incompetent," reads the site. "The company’s only response thus far has been to say that they will cooperate with any investigations and be '100% transparent' about the situation."
And in July, Boeing was in trouble again. This time, "for sharing non-public investigative information with media on [the] 737 Max 9 door plug investigation." The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced that it had sanctioned Boeing.
"During a media briefing Tuesday about quality improvements at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, a Boeing executive provided investigative information and gave an analysis of factual information previously released. Both of these actions are prohibited by the party agreement that Boeing signed when it was offered party status by the NTSB at the start of the investigation. As a party to many NTSB investigations over the past decades, few entities know the rules better than Boeing," read the NTSB statement.
"Because of Boeing’s recent actions, Boeing will retain its party status, but no longer have access to the investigative information the NTSB produces as it develops the factual record of the accident."
#10
Merck knew about concerns that the medication Vioxx could lead to cardiac events . The medication was eventually linked to roughly 28,000 heart attacks. Merck eventually settled for $80 million.
Geoffrey Scott 8 months ago
Well their lawyers had to scrape their third off the top.. fees, gas money, etc..
Load More Replies... Hidalgo 8 months ago
The present US government and its HHS have eliminated checks on pharmaceutical companies in the interest of speeding things up.
Sue User 8 months ago
Just bracing for another Thalidamide level disaster.
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#11
My favourite will always be the time Apple decided to inflict U2 on everyone without warning.
Equally awful was U2's embarrassing video (half) apology, where they all sit back to back in a circle and Bono does all the talking whilst sounding utterly pretentious.
Chewie Baron 8 months ago
Extremely. What’s the difference between God and Bono? God doesn’t walk around Dublin thinking he’s Bono.
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David Beaulieu 8 months ago
U2 started off as this do-it-yourself Irish working class band. Got WAY too famous, WAY too quick, and for too long. Same with Sting. No connection to the real world.
#12
Said this in another thread but the one that stands out to me is the Pepsi campaign from the 90's in the Philippines. They offended a large cash prize to the person who got a certain number on their Pepsi, but they accidentally put it on 800,000 pepsis. Pepsi employees were assaulted, there were violent riots and thousands of people sued.
Cyndielouwhoo 8 months ago
But I bet they were offended when Pepsi didn't want to pay them!
Load More Replies...It was downhill for Boeing throughout 2024. Among the turbulence, there were the sudden deaths of two Boeing whistleblowers and a massive strike that cost the company more than $5.5 billion. 30,000 workers took part in the walkout, demanding better wages. That action began in September and lasted for seven weeks. It halted the production of the 737 Max, the 777 and the 767 freighter. All while Boeing was still trying to recover from the other crises of the year.
#13
A few years ago Chevron had an accident on one of their Marcellus shale well sites in Pennsylvania that resulted in a young man being k****d and a giant gas well fire/blowout that took days to extinguish.
Chevron's response? Free pizza vouchers for the local community.
Sergy Yeltsen 8 months ago
Hey, BP's censorship bot must be malfunctioning - it left the word "killed" in there.
Nimitz 8 months ago (edited)
I worked for an oil company in Canada for over 3 years as a traveling IT guy. I went to all the remote sites, and the main offices in the big cities. The safety officers were my main point of contact because they were the people with the maps to all the tiny little shacks in the countryside that have an oil pump or two. During my time there, I learned from them that on average 2-4 people died each year in the company, usually due to incompetence. But because the incidents were spread across multiple provinces, they managed to avoid fines and investigations. One time guy died because he was pulling a truck out of a ditch by hooking onto the ball hitch with a tow rope. Ball snapped off, went through the back window, hit him, killed him on the spot. Another time a guy wanted to make up hours so he came in on the weekend to a site 1 hr from town in a deep forest with no cell service. He went out on an atv, rolled it, broke his radio, died slowly over the course of the weekend. No one in the central offices ever realized that people were dying.
#14
The Ford Pinto. It could have been a great smaller car that didn't cost an arm and a leg. I had one for years and it was actually fun to work on. It could have been like the VW Beetle. But the design called for a rubber or plastic liner for the fuel tank as a safety feature in case the car was rear ended. The bean counters nixed that because they figured out that in the long run they would probably save money by eliminating it. They calculated that they would have to pay out in some wrongful death lawsuits but in the long run it would be a winner to the bottom line. It would have added about $25 to the price of the car.
Oerff On Tour 8 months ago
And now Boeing is experiencing the same problem. Beancounters nixing quality control, and their planes crashing or falling apart mid air
Donna Peluda 8 months ago
Many companies are doing this now. CEOs don't have a grip on the base technology being used in their products and most of them are to arrogant to learn or listen. I was trying to explain what a check sum is and why it is important on signed software for verification and security. Literally got a talk to the hand.
Load More Replies... Lady Eowyn 8 months ago
My first car was a Ford Pinto. I loved it. I actually got hit in the gas tank area once and it didn't explode. I had it for 12 years when it was totaled in an accident that should have killed me. I wasn't even hurt. It was the other person's fault, I was stopped at a red light.
1LittleGranny64 1 month ago (edited)
The General Motors (GM) faulty ignition switch defect, which affected Saturn Ion vehicles among others, was linked to 124 deaths and 275 injuries, according to the final count by the compensation fund established for the victims according to Google. So apparently some bean counters are pretty bad at keeping people alive.
geezeronthehill 8 months ago
I drove a pinto wagon for years. Great car; it had a different fuel tank arrangement, so it would have been as safe as any vehicle in a collision. Wish I'd salvaged that tough little german engine when the car rusted away on me.
Lady Eowyn 8 months ago
My Pinto had very few mechanical issues and was overall quite reliable.
Load More Replies... #15
I remember watching "The H*locaust" TV mini-series back in the late 70s. Baltimore/DC market if that matters. The commercial directly following the scene where the cremations took place and their aftereffects was for 'Snoopy Sniffer and Easy-Off oven cleaner' product.
My family's jaws dropped and nothing was said for what seemed to be an eternity. It was one very long and silent cringe. We talked about the next morning over breakfast. Odd stuff. I think it made the papers.
Wang Zhuang 8 months ago
Please stop censoring the name of a tragic, yet historical event in world history...but on the subject, I agree, the oven-cleaner ad was in poor taste
Mark Alexander 8 months ago
"Never again" because we'll censor it out of history.
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UpupaEpops 8 months ago
We used to see UNICEF adds followed by Rolex advertisements... Even as a kid I thought it was jarring.
Chewie Baron 8 months ago (edited)
ITV in the UK broadcast a brilliant series called “The World At War” about WWII and narrated by Lawrence Olivier. It’s a brilliant series, well researched and brilliant viewing, although Olivier’s pronunciation of Ukraine was odd. When they came to the Hőlocust, it was on at a later time, past the watershed, and although ITV is a commercial broadcaster, not a single advert was shown during its initial broadcast.
While some experts believe too much damage has been done, others say Boeing might "miraculously" recover from the disasters that have plagued it. Mr Dunlop thinks a change in mindset will be fundamental to Boeing's future.
"The fastest way to turn around a company is to have a complete change in attitude on how you treat your employees, how you treat your customers, and most importantly in how you treat your suppliers," says Mike Dunlop, an aerospace industry veteran and author of a book about turning around failing businesses.
#16
What about AYDS.
When AIDS (the disease) started making the news in the early 80s, the company that made AYDS (the diet pill) refused to change the name.
They were like Michael Bolton in office space: "No way! Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.".
Corvus 8 months ago (edited)
Remember when Corona (the beer) was advised in 2020 to "change their name to something more friendly, like maybe Ebola" :D
John O'Donnell 8 months ago
They actually increased their sales in the UK during the pandemic.
Load More Replies... Richard Pennington 1 month ago
As a student, I had a colleague whose names was Steven Ades. He said it was bad enough sounding like a slimming food, but then he sounded like a s******y-transmitted disease.
#17
The Tylenol deaths that happened in the 80s.
In 1982, seven people died after taking Tylenol. Johnson & Johnson immediately halted all production and issued a nation-wide recall costing them upwards of $100 million. It was eventually determined that someone had tampered with the bottles and laced pills with cyanide, which led to Johnson & Johnson developing tamper-proof packaging.
Even though it wasn't the company's fault, this sort of thing tends to destroy brands. Amazingly, primarily due to the company's strong and decisive actions, they were able to rebuild trust in the brand and overcome what happened.
John O'Donnell 8 months ago
Johnson & Johnson did everything right, and it surprised a lot of analysts on how their sales bounced back so quickly. Their response is taught in business classes on how to keep your customers trust. It’s a shame more companies didn’t pay attention.
Bartlet for world domination 8 months ago
Sadly they abandoned the practice when their baby powder caused cancer.
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T'Mar of Vulcan 8 months ago
Which one? The capsules laced with cyanide were found in different shops in Chicago.
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Verfin22 8 months ago
Wasn't it so a woman could off her husband and not be caught? I think that's the story I heard.
LauraDragonWench 8 months ago
Different tampering. The woman, Stella Nickell, used the Tylenol incident as inspiration, adulterating a couple of bottles of Excedrin with cyanide in order to kíll her husband. She also kílled someone else, a woman. They discovered Stella due to the fungicide flakes in the cyanide, from the tablets she crushed to use in her aquarium - she used the same surface to dose the pills.
Load More Replies... #18
There was a really big and successful chevy dealership near me that got caught changing people's paperwork after the sale and using carbon paper to forge signatures. People would get a great interest rate, leave and the dealership was changing the rate to exorbitant rates(like going from 0.9% to 12.5%) they got caught, a lot of people went to jail including the owner and the dealership was shut down overnight.
Billo66 8 months ago
If I put half down I would still get maybe 30%. You know that low mysrerious hum that some folks hear in various places? It's just my credit score scraping along, sorry for all the ruckus.
Tom De Paul 7 months ago
I tried to buy a Suzuki Samarai in the mid-90s. The dealer still had a dot-matrix printer. 30 minutes and half a ream of paper later my credit report was printed and I was offered a 4 year loan at 24%! No deal.
Load More Replies... Geoffrey Scott 8 months ago
The LAST time I ever took the dealers' word for something. Just bought a vehicle whose financing, the dealer assured me, was the best I could get, Chrysler Credit @13%(early 90's). A couple months after the deal was complete I checked with my bank on the rate during that time..9% and the branch Mgr assured me we would have qualified. I assume they got a kickback for financing through CC.
El Cucuy 8 months ago
You could have refinanced through your bank, though, if you had checked right after purchasing it.
Load More Replies... Lady Eowyn 8 months ago
I've paid cash for all my cars so this wasn't something I had to worry about.
According to CEO magazine, Boeing’s biggest mistake in its crisis response last year was not learning from previous mistakes. "After controversy in 2018 and 2019, when two of the company’s planes crashed due to defects, Boeing promised change and improved safety measures," reads the site, adding that the January incident could have had a fatal outcome.
"Had someone been sitting closer to the portion of the plane that was exposed, if someone had not been using their seatbelt or if the incident occurred at a higher altitude, things could have turned out much worse, all of which only serves to make the public trust Boeing even less."
#19
Jack in the Box E. Coli was pretty big. Four kids died from this, 178 sickened.
Dav Smith 8 months ago
And here all I can think is “a sourdough jack combo, no tomatoes, curly fry,and a sprite large size, please”
Tom De Paul 7 months ago
I really liked the taste of their food, especially the specialty burgers. But I've never had worse heartburn. Every single time!
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Brandon Sheumaker 7 months ago
I had JitB food twice as a small child, and got food poisoning each time, and that is why, to this very day, I will not, shall not, CANNOT eat anything from that place. I have a visceral nauseous reaction just approaching their parking lot.
#20
When Sony's CDs installed a rootkit on your computer to enforce their copy protection.
#21
I can't remember the clothing store but they had a sweatshirt with "Kent University" on it. The thing is that it had red splatters on it that looked like blood. It got pulled quickly.
Michael Largey 8 months ago
Here's worse. Kent State University prevented any commemorations at the spot the killing happened by erecting a sports facility covering the entire site.
Nikole 8 months ago
I feel like we’ll have a new Kent State occurrence soon enough
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Jay Cee 1 month ago
Buddy of mine told me how the local cops were walking around holding up 4 fingers and whispering "The score . . . is four!". He moved up to Canada soon afterwards and never went back to the US.
Load More Replies... #22
I'm surprised I haven't seen anybody mention the unlimited crab legs that nearly sunk Red Lobster back in the early 2000's.
Powerful Katrinka 8 months ago
That wasn’t what caused their “demise.” The company was bought by a private equity firm which sold off RL’s assets. Boom! Bankruptcy.
nottheactualphoto 8 months ago
That's pretty much what private equity firms do.
Load More Replies... Wang Zhuang 8 months ago (edited)
Even worse was the all-you-can eat shrimp option that was made a permanent fixture on the restaurant's menu that ultimately led to its demise. Great for customers, very bad for business. Edit: Ok, I shouldn't say it caused its demise directly, but it was certainly a contributor
Janine Randall 7 months ago
I've been seeing an ad the last few days with the "new" CEO (who looks like he's about 30), talking about all the new, great stuff at Red Lobster. Guess they're trying for a comeback.
#23
I would say that Bud Light campaign to remove 'no' from your vocabulary. Which I guess to them sounded good in their heads, but ended up just sounding really, really r*pey.
Billo66 8 months ago (edited)
They were trying to hopelessly add1ct you to the product and when you become a blackout drunk and become unwantedly amorous. Which achieves the same goal. (Hows that censors? I can say it nicely but it's still the same thing.) Phuktards.
Dragons Exist 8 months ago
Why were they trying to do that? Was it to make people not say no to drinking a beer or something?
#24
After last friday terrorist attack in central Stockholm, the store in which the truck crashed into, Åhlens, decided to send out an e- mail (saturday evening) to their members saying that they would open the store on sunday and that all damaged merchandise would be 50% off.
The CEO later apologized and they kept the store closed. Way to try to make money out of a tragedy.
Charles McChristy 8 months ago
Sounds more like they were trying to break even or make the damaged foods not a total loss.
#25
This guy, Gerald Ratner single-handily sunk his company when he said his products are "total c**p" in an interview.
Beak Hookage 8 months ago
He also insulted the customers and basically said they were being intentionally ripped off. What a donkey.
Moving Enigma 8 months ago
His PR company then tried desperately (but without success) to spin it the next day, saying that it stood for Cheap Reliable Affordable Products (whereas they really were bits of tatty c**p lol).
#26
Adult Swim, a block of programming on Cartoon Network, hired two guys in Boston as part of a sort of guerrilla marketing thing for their movie based on their Aqua Teen Hunger Force show. These two guys would put up these light up-LED boards in various places in the city, and they had the characters on it (at the least, it had the mooninites flipping the bird).
They put them in places like near a bridge and whatnot. This was in 2007 so people were still on edge, and people eventually would see these hastily assembled boxes with wires and LEDs near places like bridges.You can imagine how that went.
Things didn't go well. Though authorities would later be ridiculed for over reacting, there was still a backlash against Adult Swim and Cartoon Network. The resulting backlash caused an executive vice president to resign. This resignation caused a shuffling of executives at Cartoon Network, and the man who replaced him was one Stuart Snyder.
Under Snyder, Cartoon Network increased its amount of live action shows. It should be noted that the man he replaced, Samples, did introduce some live action stuff, but it increased greatly under Snyder. The beloved Toonami block was axed. General quality started going down as they pushed more live action stuff (such as "Dude, What Would Happen", which was essentially a dumb, kid-version of Mythbusters). Again, this is *Cartoon* Network.
Eventually the ship righted itself, better quality shows began to come in (Adventure Time, Regular Show), and Toonami was revived on the Adult Swim block, so things worked out in the end. But it still went through a rather chaotic period.
All because of some idiot who decided that having two artists put wired light up boxes in areas in Boston was a good idea (alternatively, the two artists were idiots. Or both).
Ace 8 months ago (edited)
All of that text while completely failing to explain what the problem was. "This was in 2007 so people were still on edge". . . from what? 6 years after Sep 11, so I don't see any connection with that, can't see why people would be overly suspicious of "these hastily assembled boxes with wires and LEDs near places like bridges". . . . . Clearly I'm missing something, but why couldn't they just tell us what it was?
N.C. O'Brien 8 months ago
Boston held a running race. Guy set up bombs. Bombs went boom. People either killed or seriously injured. Also with all your text when all you had to do was look it up. Online - what happened in Boston 2007
Load More Replies... #27
Malaysia Airlines has to be up there; it launched the "My Ultimate Bucket List" campaign, asking its customers what they want to do before they die, not long after the MH370 and MH17 tragedies.
Richard Pennington 1 month ago
it is well established that MH17 was shot down by Russian-backed separatists in the Donestk area of Ukraine. MH370 is still "missing: cause and position unknown".
#28
Samsung - their phones blow up, their washing machines blow up, and apparently their tvs listen to you in your home.
Susie Elle 8 months ago
At least their washingmachines play a happy little tune when it's done lmao
Ace 8 months ago
This one, like several others, is actually a great example of PR managing to weather the storm. Yes, there were some failures, any of them getting quite a lot of press attention, but it was by no means a 'disaster' for the company.
Hidalgo 8 months ago
Samsung products are certainly more reliable than most US made ones.
Load More Replies...
Eugenia 🇮🇹🤌 8 months ago
I've had many Samsung phones and tvs, all working fine. My sister bought a Samsung fridge almost 30 years ago, still going great. My Samsung fridge is very good, too
Janine Randall 7 months ago
New devices to install in the home of your enemy. You've just won a new Samsung washer!! BOOM!!
#29
Personal favorite was the Avenger game controller. It was a controller designed to be used by the disabled. When they had issues shipping on time the head of their marketing team/contractor took to personally harassing people complaining about the delays.
Happened in 2011. Fun read if you are interested.
LauraDragonWench 8 months ago
Welcome to the land of *sweeps hand out to the side* Feeling Your Age! 😂
Load More Replies... #30
New Coke.
Elwood Schwartz (it/that) 8 months ago
New coke was a ruse. It was so they could take original coke (made with real sugar) off the market, only to bring it back (made with high fructose corn syrup) as coke classic a few months later and not have anybody notice the switch. Incredibly effective and incredibly devious.
CF 8 months ago
It felt like a lot longer than a few months.. granted, I was a kid. But if I had to make a guess I'd have said "original coke" was gone for a year.
Load More Replies... #31
Mountain Dew held a contest where anyone could submit a name for the new flavour - anonymously on the internet - then vote for which name they wanted to succeed. The top ten were posted on their website.
IIRC 9/10 of the top submissions were variations of "Gushin Granny", with the number one being "H*tler did nothing wrong".
Corwin 02 8 months ago
You ask the public to name something and you end up with Boaty McBoatface or in this instance probably Dewy McDewface
JB 8 months ago
We’re still kind of impressed that they went with Boaty McBoatface. Way to own your mistake. I’m a little disappointed that they didn’t open naming the QE2. I really wanted to suggest “Lilibet’s Love Boat”.
Load More Replies... Scott Rackley 8 months ago (edited)
That would be 4chan's doing. Among other things, like a poll sending Taylor Swift to play at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf; and sending Pitbull to Alaska. They also had a poll about where to start a prophylactics delivery service, kinda like doordash for rubbers, which they sent to Batman, Turkey, as one does. Pitbull actually did go to Alaska, though.
#32
Susan Boyle's Album party when it was promoted with a hashtag
#Sus**an**bumparty**.
Hippopotamuses 8 months ago (edited)
I can't believe no one connected to this project noticed the problem earlier. I visualise a group of teenage boys giggling at the background at the office.
#33
Kool-Aid failing in the aftermath of the Jim Jones incident. They failed to make people realize that it wasn't Kool-Aid, it was Flavor-Aid.
SouthernGal 8 months ago
The Jonestown tragedy coined the phrase “drink the Kool-Aid”, which is still commonly used.
AsylumWalker 8 months ago
Which is wils, because a majority (like 2 thirds) didnt even drink it
Load More Replies... Lily bloom 8 months ago
Kool-aid is available to this day. How did they fail? Sales might have gone wonky for a while but i wouldnt say they failed
Billo66 8 months ago
Bah! Semantics. Why would it matter? Could have been Guiness, what they added was the problem. People are just dense sometimes. Man. By the way, since Covid there has been a shortage of kool-aid flavors. Where is my sour green apple and mountain berry punch. Ya got cherry, orange, grape, and black cherry. wtf.
#34
* The major financial institutions implicated in the 2008 Financial crisis
* Ford's Pinto recalls due to the unsafe fuel system. I was born well after this fiasco, but I still heard many references to it growing up and even today
* Volkswagen Emissions scandal. IIRC, the expected cost for VW to rectify/comply with the fines, buybacks, repairs, etc is approaching 20 billion.
Geoffrey Scott 8 months ago
And oh, BTW, VW isn't the only car mfg with 'cheat codes' for emissions testing. Unpopular opinion here I'm sure, but Jettas DO get 40mpg, so yes they are a bit dirtier but FAR more fuel efficient.
#35
Not really "PR", but just not understanding what the problem was: Wii U. Advertisements never made it clear what it was exactly (an addition to the Wii or a new system?).
#36
When that one company tried to fool their Japanese investors by making a "tiny town" to look like a large development had already been built.
White Sauce Hot Sauce 8 months ago
The company was funded through light treason and money in a banana stand.
#37
Don Mattrick promoting the Xbox One. When the system was first introduced, Microsoft intended it to implement a number of draconian new policies:
- Having to check in on Xbox Live every 24 hours
- No more used games. Games would be locked to your account and console.
- In order to borrow a game from a friend, they would have to authorize you to play. I think you only had 48 hours to try it out.
- It would have been mandatory to have the Kinect plugged in at all times
All this, coupled with Mattrick saying there was already a product for people without online connectivity (Xbox 360), resulted in Microsoft scrapping these plans.
Here's the video of Mattrick telling users to stick with the 360: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VMcsQdXogY.
#38
It's probably forgotten now, but the McAfrika burger from McDonalds. An entire continent of starving people (well not quite), with a lot of countries suffering from famine at the time, and they just named this new burger after the entire place. They also refused to pull the burger and let it do the entire campaign in 2002.
And they brought it back in 2008.
#39
Blizzard decided that the best way to combat the toxic nature of their online community in World of Warcraft was to introduce the RealID system, which effectively doxxed the entire WoW community to each other by having their account associated with their real name. The backlash was so severe and Blizzard probably realized they can't even legally dox parts of their own community because of their age, so they ended up pulling it.
Flatly, Battle.net 2.0.
That time EA paid PR people to host faux protests for Dante's Inferno, which turned out to be a fairly unremarkable game.
That other time EA paid grandmas and old people to play Dead Space and recoil at it on-camera so that people who, in principal, should not have been able to buy an M rated game because they're too young would know their parents don't like the game.
UBIsoft's general treatment of PC gamers as thieves and criminals, and retaliating by selling them defective products that don't work.
Phil Phish.
#41
Not the worst, but certainly ranks up there:
Ford Australia makes (or made, as they are tragically shutting up shop) a sedan and ute version of the Ford Falcon.
The cars are almost the same from the front doors forward, but have minor detail changes that are sometimes required because the back of the ute is updated less frequently than the front of the sedan.
At a product launch/press release for the new range many years ago, one of the Motoring Journalists was comparing the promotional handouts for the sedan with the promotional handouts for the ute. They had the same format and said the same things in the same place, with obvious exceptions like "big carrying capacity" for the ute and "lots of rear legroom" for the sedan.
Strangely, the sedan handout listed 'Side Intrusion Bars' under Safety Features, whereas the ute handout did not. The journalist asked an engineer why this was so. Surely both models would have Side Intrusion Bars since they essentially used the same doors?
The engineer openly admitted that Side Intrusion Bars had been omitted from the ute design as they needed to save $6.
Once again, the guy he was telling this to was a Motoring Journalist. Oops.
#42
Aaron Barr, CEO of intelligence contractor HBGary (back when it was called HB Gary Federal), said in an interview that he would take down Anonymous through manipulating social media after doing "Research" on potential criminals he believed to be in the group and also saying he'd publish the names of suspected members of the group. In fact, most of the people on the dox file were innocent bystanders who had shown an interest in the group on forums, Facebook...
When Anonymous found out, they were furious with Barr and his company. Barr believed he was safe from some "Petty Criminals". To quote [Stephen Colbert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oMYYP1LnMA);
> Now, to put that in hacker terms, Anonymous is a hornets' nest, and Barr said, 'I'm going to stick my p***s in that thing'. Because, faster than you could say, 'Get these hornets off my p***s!' Anonymous took down Barr's website, stole his emails, deleted the company's backup data, trashed his twitter account, and remotely wiped his iPad.
The fact Anonymous took the company's systems down so quickly and so thoroughly basically destroyed its credibility overnight. The CEO of HBGary, the parent company of HBG Fed., entered a private chatroom with Anonymous to denounce its subsidiary and to ask for them to avoid attacking the parent company.
Clients of the company dropped their services as quickly as possible due to how poisonous they had become. Bank Of America hired HBG Fed. to investigate a WikiLeaks dossier as well as to attack the site via malware as well as fake "Exposés" so they could sue WikiLeaks for libel, which also implicated two defense contractors, a law firm and US Chamber of Commerce. There was a congressional hearing over their alleged crimes, only for the Chamber to denounce their involvement and investigate whether the group of companies broke federal law.
With no support, HBG Fed. was sold to ManTech International.
Uncle Schmickle 8 months ago
I see it's mentioned below, but I'll also add the Bhopal Disaster. Union Carbide ( as it was then ) has never properly compensated the victims. Shocking !
#43
Malaysia airlines - It wasn't just because the plane was lost and couldn't be found, although many people were upset about that.
Their PR response was terrible, marginalising or ignoring the families involved while generally refusing to talk to the press or take any real responsibility.
#44
Heh. Did my undergraduate economics dissertation on how PR disasters affect a company's stock price in the short term. From the paper:
Stock (Firm) Name and Ticker
Short description of event
Amazon (AMZN: NASDAQ)
Amazon comes under public fire after it was discovered that they were selling a how-to guide for pedophiles through their 3rd party marketplaces.
American Apparel (APP: AMEX)
American Apparel releases an ill-advised marketing campaign focused on purchasing new clothes after the events of Hurricane Sandy
Bank of America (BAC: NYSE)
Bank of America releases a new set of fees for debit cards. Consumer backlash was swift and palpable.
Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL: NYSE)
Carnival’s ship Triumph experiences an engine fire, trapping cruise-goers on board for five days, in unsanitary conditions.
Domino’s Pizza (DPZ: NYSE)
Two cooks from Domino’s are caught on video defacing food. The video goes “viral”, causing public outrage.
JetBlue (JBLU: NASDAQ)
Travelers are caught on New York runways for hours on Jet Blue planes, with little to no access to food, water, or restrooms
Nestle (NESN: VX)
Public backlash and calls for boycotts after company is discovered using environmentally harmful ingredients.
Netflix (NFLX: NASDAQ)
Netflix announces their DVD rental business is spinning off into a new company called Qwixter. Consumers pan the idea.
Nike (NKE: NYSE)
Nike refuses to recognize winner of SFO women’s marathon. Social media outrage follows, as company remains obstinate.
Papa John’s (PZZA: NASDAQ)
CEO announces hours of employees may be cut when B. Obama is elected, as ACA comes into effect.
Pepsi (PEP: NYSE)
Pepsi responds poorly to dead mouse found in consumer’s Mountain Dew, says soda would have “jellified” the remains.
Pernod Ricard (RI: PA)
Subsidiary company, Absolut Vodka, releases marketing campaign showing Western U.S. owned by Mexico
Progressive Insurance (PGR: NASDAQ)
Progressive endures public shaming after dispatching lawyers to assist the defense of a case involving one of their clients as a plaintiff.
United Air Lines (UAL: NYSE)
A YouTube video entitled “United Breaks Guitars” goes viral, decrying how United Airlines baggage handlers damaged musical equipment.
YUM! Brands (YUM: NYSE)
Subsidiary company, Kentucky Fried Chicken, unable to meet coupon commitment released in new advertising campaign tied to Oprah Winfrey show.
Chicken Nugget 8 months ago
IIRC the dead mouse Pepsi thing turned out to be a scam after Pepsi literally dissolved a dead mouse in Mountain Dew to prove it wrong
Wang Zhuang 8 months ago (edited)
The Papa John's CEO is a supreme a****t who was rightfully removed from his position
#45
A Vietnamese customer found a fly inside his energy drink (Number One) from soft drink company in Vietnam (Tan Hiep Phat). He tried to ask for compensation from a company (approx. $50k) or he will go public about it. After a few talk, they both reached an agreement that would lower the compensation to $25k, and the company agreed to pay, however they contacted the police and sued him for blackmailing them. After trial, the customer got 7 years in prison. The company won the law suit however they got s**t on by the community for doing that (lost approx. $50m)
Well there is 1 interesting case going on with Mazda Vietnam. If u guys want to hear, just let me know lol
/sorry for bad english. Not my native language though.
#46
I distinctly remember a period not too long ago where a beer company, that was known for high quality beer, tried to cut costs by using sub-par ingredients. Initially, no one really noticed so they took it a step farther... then they did it again. Eventually, there consumers caught on and were royally upset.
The company tried to back off and return to form but they never recovered. I think they went out of business, or some such.
I wish I could remember the company. Maybe I can find it. This might have been a case study from college now that I think about it.
#48
Lately Nivea
Nivea and that recent campaign. White is purity: keep it clean, keep it bright don't let anything ruin it. With a young white lady sitting in a bathrobe on a bed.
Pissed different people of for different reasons or both
And that recivilize yourself campaign. Look like you give a d**n: with a well dressed black man holding the severed head of an angry black man with an Afro and beard ready to throw it.
#49
This year is Canada's 150th birthday. VIA Rail, the only real rail company up here, put out a promotion for youth aged 18-28 to buy tickets across Canada for $150 CAD. That's a f*****g fantastic deal. The problem is that they claimed to be selling an unlimited number of these.
Clearly, they grossly underestimated how many people would take the opportunity to see our country without going broke. Two million youth attempted to buy tickets, and within 48 hours VIA backpedaled on it and stated that only 1867 (year of Confederation) were sold, and that sales were now closed.
People are rightfully pissed about being led on like that, and they've now lost business from an entire generation. GG, fucktards.
#50
The failure of the Apple Newton tablet was so well-known that it was featured on The Simpsons among many other places.
Donna Peluda 8 months ago
I remember reading about how Jobs presented the Newton, it was secretly connected to a back end system because it did work.. several of the developers committed s*****e because of the way he berated them
#51
Lebron James' "The Decision" was widely regarded as a terrible PR move. People often overlook that much of the money raised by its publicity went to the Boys and Girls Club, so it was technically a success from that standpoint, but it really damaged his reputation.
Wang Zhuang 8 months ago
It was overhyped, true, but I still see nothing wrong with what he did. He raised money for charities by simply announcing what team he was going to play for.
#52
Starbucks forcing the baristas to talk about race with customers after those Ferguson protests.
Zaach 8 months ago
They are not waiters. They are baristas - where you from
Load More Replies... #53
When they promoted that one Call of Duty game by sending a fake tweet saying there's been a terrorist attack in Singapore.
#54
Richmond International Raceway hosted a race that was sponsored by Federated Auto Parts, called the Federated Auto Parts 400.
The hashtag to promote it:
#FAP400.
#55
Let me regale you fine folk with a tale of a company by the name of Sega, their ill fated Saturn and their fall from grace as a console manufacture.
The year is 1995, the month is May, the setting, E3. Sega was a dominant force in the market in the 80s and early 90s but lately hasn't been doing as well. Several failed genesis add ons and experiments put them on their back foot. Worse yet, not only did they have to compete with their long time rivals Nintendo, a new challenger has appeared in the form of Sony and their PlayStation.
Sony had just made a bombshell of an announcement across the hall during their presentation. Not only would the Ps1 be releasing in North America that year in September, it would be releasing at a full $100 cheaper than anyone anticipated (Side note: Funny enough, Sony is responsible for both the most famous AND most infamous pricing announcements of E3. The PS1 being $100 cheaper than expected is the most famous, whereas the PS3 being $599 for the base model was the most infamous. That's a tale for another day though.)
This rattled Sega, they knew they had their Saturn system coming out that year but there was no way they could compete with the price of the PlayStation. Worse yet, Sega's original plan had them releasing around the same time as the PlayStation. They knew they couldn't compete with the price. So in a desperate gambit, during their own press conference, they announced that the Saturn wouldn't be coming out late summer/early fall like planned. They said it was out now. On store shelves immediately.
Now, this could have been a boon for Sega... had they bothered to warn anyone. This move caught everyone, from retailers to consumers to game developers by surprise. Retailers weren't prepared for the sudden release of the system, which pissed them off since they suddenly had to make space for the console and change their flyers to advertise it. Game developers were pissed because none of their games were ready for the early release as they were still anticipating a fall date. Consumers were blindsided and those that were saving for the console were pissed as they thought they had more time.
The only games available at launch were a scant few first party titles, and the system was still more expensive than the PS1. The early release meant almost nothing as most games wouldn't be ready until the original release date anyway. This destroyed not only consumer faith in Sega, but retail and publisher faith as well. Many people point to the Dreamcast as the death of Sega's console division but that was just the final nail in the coffin. The demise truly began during the Saturn and Sega's poorly planned launch of the system.
And that, ladies and gents, is the tale of the release of the Sega Saturn.
edit: I just remembered something I forgot to mention. The other big reason for this being a massive fuckup is that Sega had already announced September 9th, a Saturday they dubbed "Saturn Day" as the original release date of the Saturn. The early release also destroyed all fanfare they had about that specific day.
Elwood Schwartz (it/that) 8 months ago
I don't know about the Saturn, but the Dreamcast was an excellent system. Too bad it only had about 30 games. I have one it's still fun to get out every once in awhile.
Billo66 8 months ago
We had the Sega channel. You just hook your Genesis up to cable with an adapter, tune to a certain channel and play the entire library. I think it was 6 US a month.
#56
Carl's Jr. had gotten a lot of flack in the past for coming off as sexist because of their ads. Recently they've re-branded themselves to ditch that style and coming off as "American burgers". I think they're just trying to jump on the nationalism bandwagon without being politically isolating their more open customers.
#57
This will be buried, but Smith & Wesson had a pretty bad run during the Clinton Administration.
Basically, for several decades, S&W was the gold standard for police service revolvers. Then Glock came onto the market and started eating their lunch, because a reliable polymer 9mm with 17 rounds on tap allows more flexibility than a six-shooter. Add that gun sales were not going so well, and that the 1994 A*****t Weapons Ban was curbing a decent amount of civilian gun sales, and most gun companies needed government contracts to stay solvent.
Enter the Clinton administration. In exchange for a way out of their fiscal issues, and some easier access to government contracts, they were asked to compromise on a few things, including putting a safety lock on their revolvers that could be activated with a key.
Turns out, there were a few problems with this. One was that, in addition to being aesthetically poor, sometimes they would turn themselves on, locking the gun up, sometimes to the point of being inoperable (Non-gun people: imagine if your car's air bag had a small chance of randomly deploying). The bigger issue is that there was a massive boycott of the company, led in part by the NRA. Most gun people didn't like the AWB or being told what they could buy, and S&W was seen as being in bed with the people the gun owners disliked the most.
The result was that Tomkins PLC, who owned S&W, sold the company for $15m, after having paid $112m to acquire the company a few years back. The purchasing company, Saf-T-Hammer, who made the locks in the first place, also acquired $30m to $45m in debt when they bought S&W.
So yeah, that was a pretty big PR disaster. Them and Cheaper Than Dirt after Sandy Hook.
Billo66 8 months ago
I want a really nice 357 Magnum. No ammo or anything. Just to shine it up real nice and keep it in a display case. Hopefully one day I can tell my kids, "See, these are the things they used to just let any moron carry around in public."
#58
Posted this in another thread recently but Lime Crime (which is not exactly a major corporation but is one of the bigger names in the indie beauty game) is just an all around PR disaster and always has been. The biggest scandals associated with it are the fact that they had a major data leak on their website that was probably caused by a lack of security (though the company denies that one and say that they just got hacked), which caused people to lose hundreds and even thousands of dollars after their credit cards were stolen. They also fairly recently got a warning from the FDA about some potentially toxic compounds in some of their products (they're safe to use externally i.e. on the cheeks and eyes, but can be toxic if ingested so they're not lip-safe). In both of these cases, the company made no mention to customers until a big enough stink was raised about it. The more minor issues ("minor" in big quotes here) are that they have a bad tendency to threaten legal action against critics and delete negative reviews or harass people for posting them. And the negative press is totally warranted, and was even in its early days - they were very quickly accused of repotting (aka taking another, cheaper product, putting it into your own packaging, and selling it for a markup), and there was also some health and safety concern (the founder posted a video of her 'process' when it came to mixing products, as proof that she wasn't repotting, and she wasn't wearing any safety equipment in the video). The founder also once dressed as Hitler for Halloween, just as like, the weird icing on the s**t cake.
And in addition to all of this: the products really aren't that great. I bought some (I'll admit, very early on, so things might have improved since then) and they were terrible. The lipsticks dried my lips out to an unfortunate degree and made me look terrible (the only use I ever got out of this was for a zombie costume a few years ago), the eyeshadows weren't true to the swatches on the website (which is a huge no-no for beauty companies - another strike) and I was just generally not super happy with anything that I received.
#59
Digiorno #WhyIStayed.
PattonPawter 8 months ago
For those who don't know: Basically, a hashtag called "Why I stayed" was going around twitter, as a way for people to explain why they stayed with a*****e partners. Digiorno misinterpreted it, and tweeted: "#whyistayed: He had pizza."
#60
The Pepsi ad that came out like 8 years ago had quite a bit of backlash.
Oerff On Tour 8 months ago
Here in the late 80's. Pepsi went all out with stands in centres "Do the Pepsi test!" Blind testing theirs and competing cola. It was supposed to last a whole month. But after 2 weeks they quit, because 75-80% chose the competitors (Coca) Cola .
nottheactualphoto 8 months ago
Decades ago, they called it the "Pepsi Challenge."
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#61
Cracker Barrel firing Brads wife.
Michael Largey 8 months ago (edited)
Here's the story. It's from some obscure little site (called "Bored Panda" if you can believe that). https://www.boredpanda.com/brads-wife-fired-cracker-barrel/.
Load More Replies...
Jay Cee 1 month ago
Nanette Byrd's husband. She got fired . . . on his birthday!
Load More Replies... What do you think ?
howdylee 8 months ago
They're not done with the shenanigans yet, so the report is still writing itself ;)
Load More Replies... Wang Zhuang 8 months ago
On a somewhat smaller, comical scale, I remember when Bill Cosby's PR team, in an effort to restore his tarnished image, came up with an idea to post pictures of him Twitter asking people to use them for memes. It hilariously backfired
Oerff On Tour 8 months ago
Not a massive corporate blunder, but something still cringe worthy. Today is the 25th anniversary of the biggest fireworks disaster in (at least) Europe. 23 people died, over a thousand injured, a complete subdivision of Enschede (Netherlands)destroyed. After the evening news (that of course ran longer than normal, eventhough it was continuously reported on all afternoon), the first commercial was for Disney Paris. To promote their new,bigger/better fireworks show...
Hippopotamuses 8 months ago
I'm surprised that Hoover UK's flight promotion didn't make the list, and I don't even live in the UK. It is famous, and is still studied, as an example of not thinking things through. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_free_flights_promotion
mhoulden 8 months ago
In 1892 a company started selling a product called a "Carbolic Smoke Ball". This was supposed to cure colds, flu and other diseases. Their adverts even said "We will pay you £100 if you catch flu while using it". Someone bought one, got flu and asked for her £100. They refused to pay. She sued them. They lost so badly that the court case of Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co is now a major part of case law relating to advertising and special offers.
James016 8 months ago
My dad is a solicitor and he has a picture of the advert in his office hallway.
Load More Replies... James016 8 months ago
Way back there was a company called Phorm which was going to install equipment at internet service providers to look at your traffic and serve you adverts whether you wanted them or not. The backlash was immense as they were effectively spying on you and to make matters worse, it was an opt-out thing which was ruled illegal by the European Commission. BT was running secret trials on its customers with the software and got found out. The company eventually folded due to the backlash and the increasing legal issues. Before that the company was called 121Media and they made programs which were classified as spyware.
Lauren Caswell 8 months ago
GlaxoSmithKline almost had to cancel Ribena thanks to two high school girls from my country. I like that. https://thespinoff.co.nz/kai/18-11-2023/remembering-when-two-teenagers-nearly-brought-down-ribena
howdylee 8 months ago
They're not done with the shenanigans yet, so the report is still writing itself ;)
Load More Replies... Wang Zhuang 8 months ago
On a somewhat smaller, comical scale, I remember when Bill Cosby's PR team, in an effort to restore his tarnished image, came up with an idea to post pictures of him Twitter asking people to use them for memes. It hilariously backfired
Oerff On Tour 8 months ago
Not a massive corporate blunder, but something still cringe worthy. Today is the 25th anniversary of the biggest fireworks disaster in (at least) Europe. 23 people died, over a thousand injured, a complete subdivision of Enschede (Netherlands)destroyed. After the evening news (that of course ran longer than normal, eventhough it was continuously reported on all afternoon), the first commercial was for Disney Paris. To promote their new,bigger/better fireworks show...
Hippopotamuses 8 months ago
I'm surprised that Hoover UK's flight promotion didn't make the list, and I don't even live in the UK. It is famous, and is still studied, as an example of not thinking things through. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_free_flights_promotion
mhoulden 8 months ago
In 1892 a company started selling a product called a "Carbolic Smoke Ball". This was supposed to cure colds, flu and other diseases. Their adverts even said "We will pay you £100 if you catch flu while using it". Someone bought one, got flu and asked for her £100. They refused to pay. She sued them. They lost so badly that the court case of Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co is now a major part of case law relating to advertising and special offers.
James016 8 months ago
My dad is a solicitor and he has a picture of the advert in his office hallway.
Load More Replies... James016 8 months ago
Way back there was a company called Phorm which was going to install equipment at internet service providers to look at your traffic and serve you adverts whether you wanted them or not. The backlash was immense as they were effectively spying on you and to make matters worse, it was an opt-out thing which was ruled illegal by the European Commission. BT was running secret trials on its customers with the software and got found out. The company eventually folded due to the backlash and the increasing legal issues. Before that the company was called 121Media and they made programs which were classified as spyware.
Lauren Caswell 8 months ago
GlaxoSmithKline almost had to cancel Ribena thanks to two high school girls from my country. I like that. https://thespinoff.co.nz/kai/18-11-2023/remembering-when-two-teenagers-nearly-brought-down-ribena
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