Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
No fees, cancel anytime 
then open in external browser
and click "Open in External Browser" 
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.
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.
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.
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 1 month ago
In other words.."yes, this environmental disaster and loss of life are terrible, and it's making my life SO inconvenient"
#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.
#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.
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.
#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 1 month ago
The Spice Girls had the poll commissioned so their fans could tell the group what they want, what they really, really want
#9
Not a major corporation but OJ Simpson publishing "If I Did It" after the m****r of his wife.
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.
#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.
#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.
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.
#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 1 month ago
And now Boeing is experiencing the same problem. Beancounters nixing quality control, and their planes crashing or falling apart mid air
#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 1 month 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
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.".
#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 1 month 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.
#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.
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.
#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.
#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 1 month 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.
#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.
#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.
#25
This guy, Gerald Ratner single-handily sunk his company when he said his products are "total c**p" in an interview.
#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 1 month 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?
#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.
#28
Samsung - their phones blow up, their washing machines blow up, and apparently their tvs listen to you in your home.
Susie Elle 1 month ago
At least their washingmachines play a happy little tune when it's done lmao
#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.
#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".
#32
Susan Boyle's Album party when it was promoted with a hashtag
#Sus**an**bumparty**.
#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 1 month ago
The Jonestown tragedy coined the phrase “drink the Kool-Aid”, which is still commonly used.
#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 1 month 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.
#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.
#40
Target's credit card data hacks.
Continue reading with Bored Panda Premium
Unlimited content Ad-free browsing Dark mode 
What do you think ?
howdylee 1 month ago
They're not done with the shenanigans yet, so the report is still writing itself ;)
Load More Replies...
Wang Zhuang 1 month 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
howdylee 1 month ago
They're not done with the shenanigans yet, so the report is still writing itself ;)
Load More Replies... Wang Zhuang 1 month 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
You May Like Worker Gets Told To Start A New Project Despite Being Fired, They Agree, Knowing They Won’t Do It 46 Ridiculously Overpriced Items That People Just Refuse To Buy Anymore Management Enforces Toxic Policy, Engineer Obeys Too Well, Company Watches Itself Collapse
Rugile Baltrunaite
Mindaugas Balčiauskas
Rugilė Žemaitytė
Related on Bored Panda
