{"id":20018,"date":"2010-02-18T09:55:39","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T15:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/?p=20018"},"modified":"2015-12-23T12:28:16","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T18:28:16","slug":"9-poorly-conceived-marketing-campaigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/9-poorly-conceived-marketing-campaigns\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Poorly Conceived Marketing Campaigns"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world of marketing is a tricky thing. Most companies need to get the word out about their new product or service, but finding the best way to do it is often easier said than done when you want to be memorable, informative and entertaining all at the same time. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Lose so very badly.<\/p>\n

Here are nine examples of poorly conceived marketing campaigns that left the companies behind them with pie on their face.<\/p>\n

The Campaign: Panasonic Woody<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Panasonic<\/p>\n

The Plan:<\/strong> Market a new touch screen PC with Woody Woodpecker as a spokesman<\/p>\n

The Story:<\/strong> Back in the 90\u2019s, Panasonic was all about making the Japanese home PC the awesomest thing it could be. User friendly, cool and down with the modern age. So naturally they got Woody Woodpecker to be the spokesman because 200 year old American cartoons really speak to Japanese consumers. With their Civil War era cartoon tie-in secured, the marketing team took the next logical step by naming the computer \u201cThe Woody.\u201d The Woody, as you might expect, was superior to other computers because of its touch screen capabilities, which were naturally called \u201cTouch Woody.\u201d When an American finally explained why this made so many foreigners laugh like children, Panasonic managed to drop the \u201cTouch Woody\u201d name and shift focus to some of the PC\u2019s other features including its support system, the much more maturely named \u201cInternet Pecker.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Campaign: Wang Computers <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Wang<\/p>\n

The Plan:<\/strong> Think up a clever, memorable slogan to advertise Wang Computers<\/p>\n

The Story: <\/strong>Wang was founded by someone named A. Wang and thus never really had a chance of not being the butt of numerous jokes from the minds of 12 year olds, or just people who think like 12 year olds. Not putting much effort into bettering its image or thinking too hard on how to make the word Wang not sound like a joke, they released the slogan \u201cWang Cares\u201d on a snickering United Kingdom. While it\u2019s nice to imagine yourself as a having some manner of corporate accountability, Wang Cares sounds a hell of a lot like wankers which just means masturbators and isn\u2019t really the most effective way to sell a computer.<\/p>\n

The Campaign: Renault 14 <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Renault<\/p>\n

The Plan:<\/strong> Market the Renault by drawing on its similarities to pears, since they\u2019re kind of the same shape<\/p>\n

The Story: <\/strong>Deciding that likening an ugly car to an ugly fruit was a good idea, French automaker Renault tried to launch a campaign that compared the Renault 14 to a pear. The fact that \u201cpoire,\u201d in French, can mean both pear and gullible was apparently lost completely on the manufacturers, as was the fact that no one really wants a car that looks like a pear, basically meaning it\u2019s a short, fat ass automobile and is the vehicular equivalent of taking a ride on that little psychic lady from the Poltergeist movies. On top of this, the car had an issue with body corrosion, leading people to start calling it \u201cthe rotten pear,\u201d as \u201cworthless crap\u201d was not entirely media friendly and didn\u2019t really include a pun.<\/p>\n

The Campaign: Calvin Klein Scary Porno Ads <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Calvin<\/p>\n

The Plan:<\/strong> Since sex sells, make some gritty, realistic commercials featuring young people in various states of undress<\/p>\n

The Story:<\/strong> In the mid 1990\u2019s, Calvin Klein, already pretty damn successful at what they did, decided it might be fun to make every human on earth who is not required by law to tell people when they move into the neighborhood uncomfortable by launching a series of ads featuring teenagers in a basement. Oh, and also they were mostly naked and being filmed by an unseen lecherous cameraman who asked inappropriate questions and told teenage boys they looked like they worked out. The campaign managed to get the FBI to investigate to see if anything illegal had occurred and Calvin Klein pulled the ads and issued an apology, because who knew insinuations of pedophilic porno wouldn\u2019t capture the hearts of America?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\nThe Campaign: Sony PSP <\/span>\n

\"Sony<\/p>\n

The Plan:<\/strong> Tap into the online youth market by trying to create a viral, amateur-feel campaign<\/p>\n

The Story:<\/strong> Sony, generally considered by many to be pretty reliable and cutting edge when it comes to cool home electronics, decided to put the marketing of their PSP system in the hands of complete and total assholes. Treading into the dangerous waters of viral marketing, the ad agency Zipatoni made a terrible, terrible video of some dude rapping about how he wanted a PSP for Christmas and posted it on Youtube along with links to a website. That alone might not have killed Sony, but they added fake comments on Youtube and other sites, including hip slang filled conversations like this one put them over the edge:<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the deal \u2014 I have a psp but my friend jeremy does not. but he wants one this year for xmas. So we started clowning with sum not-so-subtle hints to j\u2019s parents that a psp would be the perfect gift. we created this site to spread the luv to those like j who want a psp!<\/p>\n

Wow, look at all that bad grammar, this must be legit and awesome. Let\u2019s all get PSPs. Never once was it mentioned that Sony was behind this at all and everything was presented as being strictly fan made. The campaign was torn apart viciously and exposed over at Somethingawful.com, and managed to create near unheard of hatred amongst Sony\u2019s target audience. Sony responded with what may be an apology but mostly comes off as the sad attempt of a clueless parent to speak the language of the kids with gems like this \u201cAs many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn’t a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony\u201d in it. The videos were taken down and the site now redirects to Haagen-Dazs.com.<\/p>\n

The Campaign: Anti-Drug Campaign<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Anti-Drug<\/p>\n

The Plan:<\/strong> Alert the public to some of the unknown dangers associated with illegal drugs in an effort to further curb drug use<\/p>\n

The Story:<\/strong> It\u2019s not just corporate America that can screw up royally when it comes to trying to sell a line of garbage to the general public. The Office of National Drug Control Policy managed to spend nearly one billion dollars on an anti-drug campaign, including $10 million on commercials that suggested if you use drugs you support terrorism. A five year evaluation of the campaign showed absolutely nothing. No evidence whatsoever that drug use was being curbed in the slightest as a result of the commercials and advertising, which is stunning considering how those \u201cthis is your brain\u201d egg commercials from the 80\u2019s managed to completely eliminate heroin and crack.<\/p>\n

Making things worse for the anti-drug campaign was some emerging studies that showed children were more inclined to be curious about trying illegal drugs after see anti-drug ads than if they had seen no ads at all, meaning the government had been spending about $1 billion to make kids wonder if horse tranquilizers were a delicious alternative to pixie stix.<\/p>\n

The Campaign: McDonald\u2019s \u201cI\u2019d Hit it\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Plan: <\/strong> Appeal to the hip, younger crowd by using slang terms they\u2019re familiar with in advertisements<\/p>\n

The Story:<\/strong> Realistically McDonald\u2019s probably doesn\u2019t even need to advertise anymore. They\u2019re located on pretty much every other block in every town on the face of the Earth. If you don\u2019t know about McDonald\u2019s at this point, odds are you will never know and likely don\u2019t want to know.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, McDonald\u2019s strives to continually think up new slogans and campaigns on a regular basis to keep themselves at the forefront of Mcminds all around the world. And back in 2005, they figured they\u2019d be hip and trendy if they co-opted some of that hip slang the kids love so much. Unfortunately, no one on staff in McDonalds marketing has apparently ever spoken to anyone under the age of 30 in person and thus had no idea what they were talking about. The result was the \u201cI\u2019d hit it\u201d campaign for their dollar menu, featuring the image of a young man staring longingly at a burger with the words \u201cI\u2019d Hit It\u201d separating the two of them. This would have been fine if we live din a world where no one has a problem with someone basically saying they want to have sex with a hamburger, but we don\u2019t. And that\u2019s what \u201cI\u2019d hit it\u201d means.<\/p>\n

We can only guess at what marketing execs assumed it meant, but you know what happens when you make assumptions.<\/p>\n

The Campaign: Molson Hunts for College Drunks <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Molson<\/p>\n

The Plan: <\/strong> Use social media to run a contest in an effort to gain cheap, easy publicity and extend the brand to target markets<\/p>\n

The Story: <\/strong>Molson, one of the biggest brewers in Canada, has a pretty firm market share in the beer drinking world. But lord knows you never want to slip when it comes to advertising booze as your customer base is made up entirely of people prone to black out and forget things, so you need to keep your name on their slurry lips at all times.<\/p>\n

Because 19-24 year olds are such a key demographic for selling just about everything, Molson launched a campaign to target university students. While legal drinking age in the US may be 21, in many Canadian provinces it\u2019s or 19. The campaign, launched on Facebook, asked students to send in their craziest party pics in an effort to track down the top party school in the country with the winner getting a trip to Cancun where presumably they would drink tea and learn about Mexican culture. This translates into \u201chow drunk can you get on camera?\u201d The problem, of course, is the number of 17 and 18 year old university students as well as most schools\u2019 desire not to be known nationally as \u201cthat drunk school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Universities immediately called out Molson for promoting irresponsible drinking and many parents took the time to register complaints as apparently mom and dad don\u2019t like the idea of paying for their child\u2019s education then having that same child\u2019s drunken shenanigans at school used in beer promotions. Who knew? Molson ended the promotion early claiming they had only been interested in promoting school spirit and not excessive drinking, which seems like a plausible motivation for the country\u2019s 3rd largest brewery.<\/p>\n

The Campaign: GM Can\u2019t Do Viral Marketing <\/span><\/p>\n

\"GM<\/p>\n

The Plan:<\/strong> Use viral marketing tactics and the element of user interactivity to allow people to create their own ads<\/p>\n

The Story:<\/strong> General Motors had the brilliant idea of letting the public tinker with interactive software to make their very own ads online. Anyone who\u2019s ever seen what happens to an unlocked marquee outside of a business should know right away why this is a bad idea, as letting anyone have carte blanche to say whatever they want about your product is not a good idea. In fact, it\u2019s hard to imagine why GM thought this would turn out any better than it did.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, GM rolled out their campaign which let users pick video clips, soundtracks their own text-based messages to overlay on the finished product. Predictably, negative ads were produced by the boatload. People accused GM of contributing to global warming, of making poor quality vehicles or protested the war in Iraq. And those were the \u201cgood\u201d ones. Other people chose the more \u201cinternet prankster\u201d tack of simply lacing their commercials with obscenities.<\/p>\n

GM\u2019s bizarre response was to point out how the campaign was technically a success as they\u2019d received millions of hits and most of the responses were in fact positive, while blindly ignoring the fact they\u2019d received so many hits due to the sharing of the negative ads and no one was watching any of the so-called positive ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world of marketing is a tricky thing. Most companies need to get the word out about their new product or service, but finding the best way to do it is often easier said than done when you want to be memorable, informative and entertaining all at the same time. Sometimes you win, sometimes you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[5305],"class_list":{"0":"post-20018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-toparticles"},"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}