Marketing plays a monumental part in any business and is key to its survival. Here’s a look at recent Branding Fails that Made History.
Without advertising and publicising, a business could disappear into irrelevance and be completely forgotten—worse, however, is the damage that can be caused by poor marketing choices.
At best, these choices can be a simple mistake—cause for a quick laugh—which is then swiftly swept under the rug and forgiven. At worst, they are heralded as tone-deaf and leaves one wondering, ‘why did they think this would work?’ and ‘how on earth did this get approved?’
One of the worst in recent years is Pepsi’s advertisement featuring Kendall Jenner of the Kardashian family.
Amid rampant protests featured in the ad, Kendall Jenner appears to triumphantly and heroically put everything to a standstill—with a can of Pepsi.
The ad shows a blatant misunderstanding of protests amid the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, and exploiting a serious real-life issue to promote a brand was met with widespread criticism, to the point that an SNL sketch parodied it.
An apology was issued by PepsiCo, and the ad was removed.
Adweek reported that Edward Boches, Professor of advertising at Boston University and CCO at Mullen Lowe, said: “Ridiculous ad … Shows no awareness of the protesters’ mindset or environment. Feels completely dishonest and contrived.
Was clearly done by people who have not attended a protest or spent time on the streets and have no understanding of the pent-up anger.” According to Brad Jakeman, former President of PepsiCo, the ad “was the most gut-wrenching experience of [his] career.”
The ad went on to be widely regarded as the biggest marketing disaster of 2017.
As Brandwatch reports, there was a 21000%+ increase in mentions, with more than 427,000 mentions of Pepsi on various social media platforms on April 4th alone, and April 5th gaining an additional 1.25 million mentions.
What these and many failed marketing campaigns have in common is their focus on social issues and politics, as well as untimeliness.
While these topics can be handled well, a misstep can cause unintentional backlash and do a company far more harm than good.
When making branding decisions, its best to ask if it’s worth the risk—or if it’ll benefit from a bit of extra research into the topic it attempts to handle.
Only got 6 seconds for your ad? Then take some tips from Alfred Hitchcock.
Can you even be bothered to read this first sentence?
It has become a bit of a cliché to say we’re bombarded with information and messaging constantly these days.
And as such, this plethora of choice and noise has eroded audiences’ attention span to less than eight seconds – which, if true, gives little space for creatives to play in now.
Nevertheless, given the almost infinite number of ways to amuse themselves online, it’s a fact that today’s audience is much less tolerant of boredom
With this in mind, our work now must work that much harder in a much more confined space of time – hence the rise of the six-second format on YouTube.
Creating bad work is a choice: a choice that too many marketing teams make all the time by focusing on fashionable marketing buzzwords and ignoring the basics.
‘How did Facebook, which prides itself on being able to process billions of data-points…somehow not make the connection that electoral ads paid for in roubles were coming from Russia. Those are two data-points. You put billions of data-points together – you can’t put together roubles with a political ad.’
[Sen. Al Franken to Facebook’s General Counsel at the Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing 31.10.17]
Most Marketing is Bad Because it Ignores the Most Basic Data
Only a minority of brands make highly creative and highly effective marketing communications.
Work that’s distinctive, well-branded, emotional, fame-driving, maybe even award-winning.
Work that will drive sales today, sales for years in the future, and deliver returns far beyond what the CFO would get if she kept the money in the bank.