The Worst Corporate Blunders and PR Nightmares of All-Time
Corporations do all sorts of things to advertise their products, or try out different marketing ploys to get people to keep consuming their products, but they don't always go as planned.
Published 2 years ago in Facepalm
Corporations do all sorts of things to advertise their products, or try out different marketing ploys to get people to keep consuming their products, but they don't always go as planned. Over at r/AskReddit people shared what they thought were the worst corporate blunders in history. Sometimes they recover but sometimes they completely destroy their image.
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JC Penney tried to eliminate the tons of sales and never-ending discounts on their products by just pricing them at what they would normally be, aiming for a “fair and square” price model. Instead of marking a shirt up to $10 and then having it basically always 40% off, they just priced it at $6, for example. They also ended their prices in solid dollars instead of $0.99 intervals to make it easier to calculate. No coupons, no sales, but the same price. People always complain about how stuff gets marked up just to get put on sale and how cheap of a gimmick it is, right? Well turns out people actually love feeling like they’re getting a deal even if they objectively know it’s just set dressing, and JCP lost millions from the strategy and their sales dropped by around a third. u/soulreaverdan
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I still remember when Dr. Pepper thought they could a) market a specifically 10 calorie soda and b) do so with the slogan "It's Not For Women" I mean this was 2011, the idea of feminism and antisexism was by no means obscure or fringe. The whole marketing campaign was so bizarre I wonder how on earth a large marketing team looked at blatant, unapologetic sexism and went "yeah sounds great this will sell us lots of soda for sure" u/Donteventrytomakeme
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Wizards of the Coast and the open gaming license earlier this year. Worst handling ive seen. Literally caused dozens if not hundreds of companies to pull away from creating content for the company to making new games that will directly compete with them while alienating their fans at the same time. u/Konocti
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Back in the 90s Hormel Foods went on a Cease & Desist spree against anyone who was making jokes about Spam because they felt the brand had been damaged and needed to be rebuilt. The last straw was when they threatened to sue Jim Henson Studios over the character Spa'am in Muppet Treasure Island. That turned people against them pretty quick. It turns out if you want to rebuild your brand in the public eye, suing one of the most beloved entertainment franchise of two generations was a bad way to go about it. Eventually the dropped all the C&D stuff and changed their marketing strategy, instead deciding to lean into it and proclaiming that there are always going to be jokes about Spam so they might as well be in on them. u/weirdoldhobo1978
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