We live in a world that’s filled with corporations constantly trying to catch our attention and keep it with ever-evolving marketing campaigns. Sometimes, the attempts prove to be a phenomenal success, and sometimes, they fall flat, leaving many of us face-palming in disbelief. Here is our list of some of the most tragic failures in marketing.
- The World’s Biggest Popsicle Floods The Streets of New York
How could this possibly have gone wrong?
In an attempt to expand its product line further, Snapple made the decision in 2005 to start developing popsicles, and the only way they could think of to properly market these frozen treats was to create a gigantic version that they could plant straight in the middle of New York. Apparently, they figured nothing could go wrong with the premise of erecting a 17.5-ton ice lolly in a pretty warm location, during the first day of summer, and they loaded the frozen monster onto a gigantic truck to begin its journey. Bizarrely, when the truck was opened up, waves of melted strawberry Snapple came streaming out into Union square, forcing the streets to be closed off as firefighters came to hose the remains into the sewers.
- Gap Introduces a New Logo – For Two Whole Days
To be fair, I prefer the original version, too.
In attempt to be more hip and modern, Gap decided to unleash a brand new logo in 2010, which they assumed would draw in a younger crowd. However, after a massive amount of backlash from the loyal public, who absolutely hate the concept of change, the image was reverted back to normal after two measly days.
- Coke Tries Out A ‘Sweeter’ New Recipe
In the immortal rivalry between Pepsi and Coke, we’ve seen a variety of different marketing campaigns emerge. However, the worst idea for coke has to have been when it decided to unleash a new, sweeter version of the much loved beverage. Evidently attempting to win their customers with sugary goodness, coke were surprised to learn that the public absolutely hated the new flavour, so much so that people began to hoard the older coke version so that they could sell it on the black market for profit. When coke retired ‘new coke’, they decided to rename the original can ‘Coca-Cola classic’ just to make sure consumers were aware they were drinking the traditional beverage they knew and loved.
- Pepsi Causes Half of the Philippines to Riot
Of course, in the Coke/Pepsi war, Coke isn’t the only one to make some pretty spectacular mistakes. In the early 90s, Pepsi tried to make headway in the Southeast Asian market by planning to give away a million pesos. This did actually work, with thousands of people buying more Pepsi by the bucket-load, but the problems started when the number 349 was accidentally selected as a winner. Since this number was printed on about 800,000 bottle caps, hundreds of thousands of elated winners came forwards to claim their prize, only to find Pepsi scrambling to cover their ass by announcing that the caps didn’t come with the right security codes. As a result, rioters started throwing Molotov cocktails and bombs at Pepsi bottling plants, and set fire to delivery trucks.
- Murderous Skittles apparently Destroy People
Poor Guy
Remember the ‘Touch the Rainbow’ campaign in 2008, where skittles decided to take a page out of King Midas’ book by showing an advert with a guy who turns everything he touches to skittles? Apparently, skittles thought it was a good idea to counteract the concept of delicious candy with the idea that some poor individual can’t touch his son for fear of accidentally murdering him.
- Millions of Balloons are Dumped over Cleveland
It looked pretty to start with, at least.
In an attempt to brighten up the nation, and hopefully distract people from the fact that they’re actually in Cleveland, United Way decided to drop 1.5 million balloons over everyone. This might not have been a terrible idea, except for the rain, which shoved the balloons down to ground level, and buried the whole of Cleveland in a helium nightmare. Over the following weeks, a runway at Burke Lakefront airport hat to be shut down and people begun to realize how annoying millions of balloons could actually be.
- American Airlines Come up with A Campaign to Ruin Their Business
In an attempt to make a lot of money out of the rich jetsetters of the world, American Airlines decided to offer unlimited first-class tickets in 1981, for a one-time fee. For $250,000, customers could use the air-pass to access unlimited first-class travel for the rest of their lives. However, the problem was that the ‘great deal’ American Airlines had been advertising turned out to be a much better deal than they had anticipated. One man flew to London sixteen times in a month, and other people used up so much air travel time that AA discovered that pass holders were benefiting from about $1 million worth of free flights every year. After a few years, the company decided to stop issuing tickets, and even hired a fraud investigator to start hassling their customers.
- Jagermeister hosts a Poisoned Pool Party
Everyone loves a pool party, and Jager decided the only way they could make a booze-themed bash better was to have waves of mist coming off the water in music-video style. To achieve this, they decided to dump a bunch of liquid nitrogen into the water, without paying any attention to the fact that chlorine and liquid nitrogen create nitrogen trichloride when combined. This toxic gas caused eight people to be hospitalized, with one individual even ending up in a coma.
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