Marketers always try to come up with ideas that can resonate with the audience and have the ability to stir emotions (However, you can sell anything with a little dance performance, here, in Pakistan). This happens so they can market their product using both logic and emotions.
Sometimes, these ideas turn into marketing failures. It mostly happens because marketers stop thinking from the audiences’ perspective. It is also essential that marketers try to avoid stereotypes and cultural appropriation in their ideas.
Here are the 4 biggest marketing failures of all times:
4. Broadway: not minding my business
Yes, our very own Broadway also managed to offend people when they used Syra Yousuf and Sadaf Kanwal’s pictures to promote the brand. The brand did so after Syra and Shahroz’s divorce. The caption asked people to stop judging and mind their own business. Ironically, Broadway was doing the exact opposite. People were offended by Broadway using people’s personal lives to promote their brand.
3. Dove: spreading positive self-conscious body image
Dove had worked for female empowerment and positive body image with its “Real Beauty” campaign. It had been one of the most successful campaigns, but then Dove released a limited edition packaging that represented a diverse range of female bodies. It was wrong for two reasons: first, it compared female bodies to objects, and second, it spread self-consciousness among women as they felt compelled to choose a bottle that was similar to their body.
2. Sony: if not for Pepsi, we’d be number one
I think Sony must have asked their marketers to come up with the most racist idea ever for their Playstation Portable. The billboards displayed for Playstation showed a white woman grabbing a black woman’s face. The black woman looks submissive. In the black background of the ad, the black woman is almost invisible. Sony ran this ad in 2006.
1. Pepsi: the most significant marketing failure ft. Kendall Jenner
Who else could have ranked first when we have Pepsi’s insensitive ad? It has been one of the top-ranked marketing failures of all time. Perhaps one of the reasons, it offended so many more people than the rest combined, was because of the circumstances around which the ad was released as well as Pepsi’s colossal brand name.
So, what do you think is the biggest marketing blunder? Let us know in the comments below!
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