13 advertising campaigns that tarnished companies’ reputations and emptied their wallets

It is believed that publicity is always compensated by results. At least that’s what advertisers say when discussing a campaign budget with a client. Unfortunately, in the history of marketing, there are many examples of ideas that seemed like genius, but turned out to be a complete failure.

O awesome.club pays attention to both good and bad publicity, so we found out which companies had to explain to their customers after advertising campaigns that didn’t go as expected.

One of the most successful fast-food chains in the United States, A&W, tried to compete with McDonald’s. The meat in a Big Mac weighs a quarter of a pound (113.4 grams), but A&W thought it could use a third of a pound (151 grams) of meat without much loss, meaning a hamburger with more meat would cost the same. what a Big Mac.

In 1980, a major advertising campaign was launched that completely failed. No one was buying hamburgers from A&W and management couldn’t understand why. It turned out that most consumers struggled with fractions. The hamburger that weighs a quarter of a pound seemed more profitable because “well, 4 is bigger than 3, right?”

“Imagine you run a Canadian ice cream company called Little Baby’s Ice Cream. What’s the best way to promote your brand and ice cream? Of course, with a cool ad! For example, with happy people eating ice cream on the beach or something like that.

It would be nice if it were really like that… I saw the ad for the first time when I was 13 and had nightmares for several weeks. A guy who eats with a spoon! After the advertising campaign, sales of the ice cream plummeted. I wonder why?” © Ciaran Love / Quora

Fiat sent love letters on pink paper to women in Spain to attract attention. In the end, the advertising campaign became the cause of mass hysteria. The Spanish women thought they were being pursued by a maniac. The letters had phrases like “I noticed the way you look at me”, “I wanted to be with you for a few minutes”, “Let’s take a trip together”.

The sender’s identity was revealed in the next letter, which arrived in 4 to 6 days, but by then the women were already so scared that they avoided leaving the house unaccompanied and even notified the police. Several complaints led Fiat to interrupt the campaign.

For years, consumers associated the Tropicana brand with an orange with a straw sticking out of it. In 2009, the company decided to redesign its packaging to give it a more “modern” look, and spent over $35 million on rebranding and advertising.

It was a disaster. Customers would simply pass by the new packaging and ignore it, thinking their favorite juice was out of stock. The company’s profits dropped by 20%, and a month later, Tropicana was forced to revert to its original packaging design. The experiment cost the company about 50 million dollars and allowed the competitors to increase their sales.

To attract more customers, KFC in the United States decided to launch free coupons for the purchase of the famous fried chicken. The company announced the campaign during Oprah’s program, one of the most popular in the country.

Consumers have downloaded more than 10 million coupons from the website. The company lost $42 million and was embarrassed because some of the customers ended up not getting their free lunches, and KFC had to apologize both to them and to Oprah Winfrey.

Battery company Energizer used a pink rabbit in its advertising. The video was successful, but the company’s sales were cut in half. On the other hand, the profit of its competitor Duracell doubled.

It turns out that, a few years earlier, the company Duracell used a pink rabbit as its talisman, and the company Energizer ended up advertising for its competitor. The public thought the ad was for Duracell.

In 2008, Indian businessman Ratan Tata announced the launch of a “people’s car”. The little Tata Nano car cost just $2,500, and at first glance it was a great deal for low-income India. However, in practice, sales of the “people’s car” frustrated expectations.

Despite being a really good car, Ratan Tata failed to take into account that in India the car represents a certain status, and buyers of the Tata Nano would be admitting their own financial inadequacy to their community. Therefore, Indians preferred to buy an expensive motorcycle instead of a cheap car.

Russian pizza chain Domino’s promised unlimited pizza to anyone who got the company’s logo tattooed on any part of their body. The promotion was supposed to run for two months, but was stopped after five days: many network fans thought it was too good an offer to ignore.

The company had to issue an urgent message saying that only the top 350 would receive free pizza coupons, and that other interested parties should cancel their visit to the tattoo parlor. After all, who doesn’t like pizza?

Pepsi’s promotion in the Philippines was going very well thanks to a marketing effort that included a cash prize draw. Prize codes were stamped on the lids, and rewards ranged from $4,000 to $40,000. By the time they realized something was wrong, 17 grand prizes had already been drawn.

One day the company announced that the main prize code was 349. However, due to a technical error, more than 800,000 bottles were sold with that code. If the company paid all the winners the amount due, it would have lost about 32 billion dollars. Pepsi had to announce that all owners of caps numbered 349 would receive consolation prizes, and even then, it still cost organizers almost $9 million, despite the initial campaign budget being around $2 million. The damage to the company’s reputation was terrible, and many people who counted on the top prize took the case to court.

In the early 1990s, Coca-Cola invented special cans with a mechanism called the MagiCan. The company wanted to delight its customers with prizes, but ended up losing 100 million dollars, as many thought that the company wanted to poison them. Inside the cans with MagiCan, instead of the drink was a spring-loaded device that released a rolled-up note when the can was opened. So that the cans were not differentiated by weight, chlorinated water was placed in those with MagiCan. As a precaution, in case the mechanism didn’t work and the buyer decided to take a drink, they also added a chemical that smelled like rotten eggs.

But consumers were not told about the prizes. As a result, the company received numerous complaints about the stinky drink and spoiled prizes, and some customers even ended up in the hospital. The campaign cost $100 million and ended in three weeks.

The Dove company is known for promoting the idea of ​​“real beauty”. One day, following this concept, a liquid soap was launched in packages of different formats, to show that there is no ideal and that every body is beautiful.

The campaign ended up failing, because women, unconsciously, were looking for a bottle that represented their body, and who likes to stay at the checkout with a low and wide soap container? As a result, women were ashamed of their bodies, that is, the effect of the campaign was exactly the opposite of what was planned.

When Prince Harry and his wife Meghan decided to step down as “senior members” of the royal family and move to Canada, local coffee chain Tim Hortons saw a great opportunity for publicity. On its official Twitter, the company posted: “Meghan and Harry, not to pressure you, but if you decide to stay in Canada, coffee will be free for the rest of your lives. Think about it”.

It was supposed to be funny, but instead, the company received numerous negative comments on social media regarding the network’s policy. “You are offering free coffee to people who can buy your entire company, when your own employees don’t always have enough to pay rent. Do they not see the contradiction?”

The unpredictable nature of social media has affected many large corporations that have tried to reach out to consumers. For example, McDonald’s once launched a hashtag #McDStories on Twitter, hoping to get moving and heartwarming stories about Happy Meals.

The advertising campaign had to be stopped after two hours, because instead of the expected inspiring stories, users started to share everything they didn’t like about the restaurant. And the icing on the cake were the stories of former McDonald’s employees who revealed the chain’s secrets.

Tell us, which advertising campaigns went wrong in your opinion?