Every year, companies find new ways to interest consumers in their products. This is done through attractive marketing schemes and advertising events with a large budget.
Some of them, like McDonald's long-running Monopoly advertising campaign, have significantly increased companies' profits and become the basis of consumer culture. But on the other side of the spectrum are the most disastrous advertising campaigns in history. We'll tell you about the most famous of them today.
10. Sunny Co and Pamela swimwear
In the summer of 2017, California-based startup Sunny Co Clothing offered Instagram users a free swimsuit inspired by the iconic one-piece swimsuit worn by Pamela Anderson on the TV show Baywatch, priced at $64.99.
All you had to do to get it was post a promotional photo of a girl in a Sunny Co swimsuit, tag the manufacturer on it, and pay the shipping costs for sending the swimsuit.
The campaign attracted over 330,000 people, and despite a host of technical issues, Sunny Co still partially delivered on its promise by sending customers over 50,000 free swimsuits.
It's not as if this mistake destroyed SunnyCo, as it put the brand in the spotlight. But it came at a high price, literally.
9. Chevy and DIY Advertising
One of the most disastrous advertising campaigns in modern history involved the famous automobile brand Chevy. In 2006, it gave fans the opportunity to create their own advertisement for the Chevy Tahoe via a website.
As expected, brand critics saw the contest as an opportunity to point out perceived flaws in the Tahoe in particular, or Chevy in general. Many of these submissions remained on the contest site for a very long time, as GM (Chevy's parent company) specifically stated that it would not remove "negative" ads, only "offensive" ones.
In the end, it seems like GM definitely underestimated the number of internet trolls, critics, and just generally toxic individuals on the web.
8. Fiat and love letters
In 1994, carmaker Fiat sent 50,000 anonymous love letters to young women in Spain.
The letters, written on pink paper, showered their recipients with compliments and invited them to go on a “little adventure,” since supposedly “yesterday we met again on the street, and I noticed how you looked in my direction with interest.”
But before Fiat could send a second letter revealing the sender's name, it became clear that the promotion had failed miserably. Instead of arousing curiosity, the letters had led to panic and fear that someone was stalking the women.
7. American Airlines and AAirpass
American Airlines has had a rocky history, to say the least, but its lowest point came in the early 1980s, a time when the airline was rapidly losing money and had to come up with something to stay afloat.
The solution was an exclusive membership program called AAirpass. The idea was simple: For just $250,000, you could buy a pass that entitled you to free first-class flights for life.
The problems began in 2007 (again, in the midst of financial troubles), when AA realized that some people were overusing their passes, costing the company millions of dollars. The offenders were removed from the system (citing “fraudulent activity”), but the AAirpass abuse issue was only settled after years of litigation. The disastrous advertising campaign is now mostly remembered as a high-profile example of a colossal business mistake.
6. Hoover and round trip flights
In late 1992, Hoover had too many washing machines and vacuum cleaners. So it launched an advertising campaign offering roundtrip airfare to select U.S. or European airports with every vacuum cleaner purchased.
Although marketers hoped that customers would buy expensive models, they set the minimum purchase price for the appliances at £100, or about £1,166 today.
As soon as people saw the advertisement, they began to actively buy up Hoover products, and the company simply did not have enough vacuum cleaners for everyone who wanted them, and at the same time, there was not enough money to pay for plane tickets, which cost more than the purchase price.
As a result of lengthy legal proceedings in the US and UK, Hoover lost around £50 million.
5. Red Lobster and the Endless Crab
Many companies have misjudged consumer demand when giving away something for free (e.g. Sunny Co Clothing), but none have done it as disastrously as Red Lobster.
The 2003 "Infinite Crab" promotion cost the promoters millions of dollars in a short period of time and led to the resignation of company president Edna Morris.
Red Lobster's tactical error was underestimating how many times customers would request another plate of crab in a single visit. Plus, while customers were enjoying $20 worth of "endless crab," a huge line was forming in the restaurant's lobby, which was not helping the company's image or its profits.
4. Dr. Pepper and the Guns N' Roses album
The Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy began in 1994. Fourteen years later, in 2008, the album was still in production. And it seemed like it would never become a reality. However, in 2008, American soft drink giant Dr. Pepper promised to give a free can of its drink to every American if the album was released by the end of the year.
To everyone's surprise, Guns N' Roses unveiled their new album on November 23, 2008. To fulfill their promise, Dr. Pepper created a one-day coupon that same day that could be redeemed for a free can of the drink. But many people complained that the coupon was unavailable for most of the day.
Ultimately, the promotion of the free can of Dr. Pepper proved inadequate, and it negatively affected the reception of the album. Two days later, on November 25, 2008, Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose filed a lawsuit against the company and demanded an apology.
3. McDonald's and the 1984 Summer Olympics
To keep the patriotic spirit alive during the 1984 Summer Games, McDonald's created an advertising contest called "When the USA Wins, You Win."
Premise: If the US wins a medal, you get a free meal (a Big Mac for gold, French fries for silver, and a Coke for bronze).
But what seemed like a smart way to capitalize on the biggest sporting event of the year turned into a marketing nightmare for McDonald's after the Soviet Union boycotted the Olympics. That led to U.S. athletes winning so many medals that some McDonald's restaurants were even running out of the chain's signature burger.
2. Coca-Cola and MagiCans
The idea behind this failed advertising campaign seemed brilliant at first. Among the millions of cans of Coke distributed across the United States were a certain number of "MagiCans," special cans with a "golden ticket" inside. They contained prizes that were available once the can was opened.
To prevent such prizes from being too easily detected, they were housed inside a compartment that contained a substitute for regular soda - a (non-toxic) mixture of chlorinated water and an unknown dirty liquid, apparently designed to prevent consumption of the contents.
The promotion was cancelled after just a few weeks, following numerous reports of problems with the cans: the liquid ruining the prize, the prize not popping up at all, or - in one tragic case - a child drinking the liquid.
1. Pepsi and the giveaway
In the early 1990s, Pepsi was lagging behind Coca-Cola in overseas markets. So, in an attempt to gain traction in Southeast Asia, Pepsi executives in the Philippines came up with an ingenious marketing plan called “Number Fever.” It promised that one lucky winner who found a winning three-digit code under the cap of a drink would receive 1 million pesos (about US$40,000). And many more winners would receive consolation prizes such as free drinks.
Certain numbers were not supposed to be chosen as the winner. One of those "losers" was 349, which was printed on 800,000 bottle caps. But the consulting firm hired to draw the winning number apparently didn't get the note with the unwanted numbers, and when its computer picked the winning number, it was... 349.
Unwilling to pay billions of pesos, Pepsi told the winners that the caps did not have the correct safety code. And the Pepsi riots began in the Philippines. Molotov cocktails were thrown at the company's bottling plants, trucks carrying Pepsi products were overturned and set on fire, and the courts were inundated with thousands of lawsuits.
Pepsi's $2 million in voluntary awards quickly grew to more than $10 million in restitution and legal fees.
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