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Marketing Disasters and How To Avoid Having One

marketing disaster

Marketing campaigns are part of everyone’s lives. From the massive giants like Apple promoting their latest iPhones to an online entrepreneur asking you for 35 seconds of your time to promote his online investment course, marketing campaigns are omnipresent.

They are vital for the business’s survival regardless of its size. Companies pour millions of dollars every year to devise a strategy that effectively targets their consumer group and stands out from their competitors. 

Creativity is an absolute must, and year on year, businesses try and outdo one another by trying something different. An example of a job well done would be Coca-Cola’s Christmas ad in 2020, a heartwarming and emotional masterpiece that was perfectly executed.

However, this is easier said than done. Even multinational corporations with budgets in the many millions have dropped the ball. Sometimes, ideas that are so sinister and egregious have escaped rigorous testing and been approved to be shown to the public.

Why do marketing campaigns fail?

Frankly, marketers lose track of who they are advertising to. When the goal is purely to be creative or unique rather than target the consumer base, mistakes are made. 

Of course, standing out from the rest is vital in creating a good marketing campaign. However, there is a line in the sand; when being ostentatious is over prioritized, and the target audience is estranged. 

A marketing campaign’s primary goal is to inform potential customers what needs of theirs the company’s service or product can fulfill, why the company can do it better than its competitors, and share its type and brand.

When the campaign forgets about this premise, disasters are bound to happen. 

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the most significant advertisement flops to date and see how to avoid making the same errors in the future.

Beware: Laughably Terrible Advertisement Campaigns Ahead

Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi Debacle

Kendall Jenner's Pepsi Debacle

This is an iconic and infamous advertisement. Pepsi launched a two and half minute advertisement called “Live for Now”. The advert featured 21-year-old supermodel Kendall Jenner leaving a photoshoot and showing up at a protest. 

Tensions were growing between police and protestors until she stepped up to offer an officer a can of Pepsi. This fixed the issue. 

The advertisement was branded as “tone-deaf”, and the backlash overgrew, forcing Pepsi to back down and pull the spot and issue an apology.

Dove’s blatantly racist Facebook Advertisement

dove racist Ad campaign

Dove launched a Facebook ad campaign of the above four images. The four-panel image shows a young African American woman removing her shirt. By the time she has done, she has turned into a young white lady.

The disastrous advertisement shows up on Google as “Dove’s Racist Ad”.

To make matters worse, this was the second terrible advertising campaign launched by Dove in 2017, with them having to issue another apology after receiving intense criticism on social media as well as bad reviews on their product.

Volkswagen lies again?

An ongoing disaster, Volkswagen had decided to play a prank for April Fools this year. Volkswagen America changed its name to “Voltswagen”, implying that it sells electric vehicles.

Not too long ago, Volkswagen was caught in the carbon emission scandal; they lied about how much carbon their diesel cars emitted. 

Now, this publicity stunt seems like they are lying about producing electric vehicles. Moreover, VW lied to reporters in a situation where simply saying “no comment” would have been sufficient. 

Now, talks of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cracking down on them, and it looks like Volkswagen is April’s fool.

Wix Slaps Itself

Wix recently launched an attack ad campaign against its competitor, WordPress. This advert portrayed WordPress in an extremely negative light in the context of a web developer seeking help for a mental health crisis. 

Almost instantly, Wix received backlash for their distasteful and insensitive ad. With so many people around the world suffering from mental health issues, especially due to the ongoing pandemic, it seemed like a very poor decision by Wix to greenlight a campaign like this. 

This ad campaign has received and is continuing to receive a lot of criticism over social media and is sure to be one that Wix regrets.

How to Avoid Marketing Disasters

Let’s find some nuggets of wisdom from the abysmal foolishness above and learn how NOT to make these mistakes.

Don’t ever lose touch

As you can see above, Pepsi lost touch with its audience. They came across as tone-deaf. Remember to consider the implications of the marketing campaign. Even when making jokes, remember that to take into consideration other perspectives and angles.

By sacrificing your brand value for a few jokes, you may risk offending your audience. Insensitivity and tastelessness can quickly alienate the audience and result in a marketing disaster.

Keep current affairs in mind

Marketing campaigns take a long time to plan and execute. They require extensive testing, planning, and, for larger companies, a lot of red tapes. This makes it easy to overlook what is ongoing in the real world. 

A campaign that may have been acceptable a few months ago may no longer be so. If the marketing campaign aims to educate consumers about a situation, it needs to understand the issue and its implications genuinely.

Constantly review the campaign and ensure that it is up to date with current events.

How to create a good marketing campaign

If you are running your own business or part of a giant corporation, you understand the need for marketing. It can be an absolute nightmare to navigate the inner working of creating a successful campaign. What would help alleviate this would be someone who could take this burden off your hands.

MIU offers a range of marketing services that will help your company successfully launch and maintain a marketing campaign. With experience and skills, the disasters mentioned above can be avoided with our help. 

Feel free to contact us for a free digital audit or check out MIU’s website to learn more about how we can help you.

 

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Wix vs WordPress: Wix’s Negative Ads against WordPress

wix vs wordpress

On April 6th, 2021, Wix launched series of ads to promote their services on providing website solutions for business. But unfortunately, it did not end up well on some website developers and search marketing communities. Wix’s ads campaign “You Deserve Better” has seen as negative ads against WordPress, and the WordPress community did not feel happy with it.

Who is Wix?

Wix is an Israeli software company, which provided cloud-based web development services. It allows users to create HTML5 websites through the drag and drop tools that already provided.

Wix’s Ads Campaign Caused Anger

Wix’s latest ads campaign causes controversy among search marketing and the website developer’s community. The ads themselves focused on WordPress negatively, and a web developer was coming to a psychiatrist, seeking help for his mental health issues. This portrayal seems caused anger in the WordPress community.

In the ads titled “The Update Button of Doom”, WordPress portrayed as a grotesque person experiencing some glitching during a conversation, and that becomes of the causes that make the web developer experiencing mental health issues. The video ads below have considered typical attack ads.

Through video ads, the “You Deserve Better” campaign by Wix, along with Bose headphone, shipped to some developers and marketing influencers. Most of them are confused with Wix’s approach because they think Wix only wasted their marketing budget by sending those headphones to those not pleased with the campaign.

 

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On the other video titled “White Screen of Death… Is That You?”, “WordPress” was asked by a psychiatrist for the updates, and suddenly he felt sick and dead. The web developer on the ads mentioned that there could be any problem like plugin issue, hosting problem that caused “WordPress” death.

Maya Grill as the representative of Wix, say, “The campaign shows in a clever way that WordPress users don’t need to be stuck in a bad relationship with their platform, and they should consider the alternative which allows them to focus on their actual work,” Grill said. “Each video in the campaign revolves around user pain points, which also highlight Wix’s strengths.”

But instead of a clever way of a marketing campaign, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, one of the influencers who received Bose headphone, said that the campaign was “All Nuclear Troll-Marketing” and indeed not pleased with that.

Anti-Wix Responses Online

As mentioned before, the new ads campaign by Wix has caused furious and Anti-Wix, not only from website developers but also from the search marketing community. Wix’s ad campaign described as distasteful and bashing.

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Meanwhile, Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress gave his responses on the Wix’s ads campaign as below,

“Wix is a for-profit company… whose business model is getting customers to pay more and more every year and making it difficult to leave or get a refund. (Don’t take my word for it, look at their investor presentations.)

They are so insecure that they are also the only website creator I’m aware of that doesn’t allow you to export your content, so they’re like a roach motel where you can check in but never check out. Once you buy into their proprietary stack you’re locked in, which even their support documentation admits…

So if we’re comparing website builders to abusive relationships, Wix is one that locks you in the basement and doesn’t let you leave. I’m surprised consumer protection agencies haven’t gone after them.”

Wix vs WordPress Tensions

After all negative comment and responses to Wix’s ads campaign “You Deserve Better”, Avishai Abrahami, as Wix’s CEO, given his responses, by mentioning that Matt Mullenweg is angry and not telling the truth and accusing him by being hypocritical for criticizing Wix for negativity by claiming it was Matt that begun the bitter exchanges by being first to go on a damaging attack.

With the open letter by Wix’s CEO, Wix offers a public apology, as long as from the WordPress side, they also clarify regarding the issue mentioned on the Wix’s ads. Avishai Abrahami said in the open letter that they try to make the ads funny, but if the ads ended up offended the WordPress side, he apologized.

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Positive Campaign and Brand Goodwill

Given the example of how Wix marketing their services with their latest ads campaign, we can all agree that the way of Wix advertise it was terrible and it brings negative assumptions about Wix from the audience. Even Wix mentioned the truth about the issues that WordPress has. But by bashing and imposing other brands to make your brand stand out is not a good marketing campaign. Most consumers will choose a brand that gives them positivity and goodwill through their campaigns or their products while not making other brands looks terrible.

Running a good marketing campaign

If you are running your own business or part of a giant corporation, you understand the need for marketing. It can be an absolute nightmare to navigate the inner working of creating a successful campaign. What would help alleviate this would be someone who could take this burden off your hands.

MIU offers a range of marketing services that will help your company successfully launch and maintain a marketing campaign. With experience and skills, the disasters mentioned above can be avoided with our help. 

Feel free to contact us for a free digital audit or check out MIU’s website to learn more about how we can help you.

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Ad Review: NTUC Income

Ad Review: NTUC Income

Some ads are such a masterpiece that they don’t feel like an ad at all.

This film advert by Bartle Bogle Hegarty achieves just that. With a soft rendition of Semoga Bahagia, a well-known Children’s Day song, the ad nestles itself right in the hearts of all parents alike.

Portraying itself from the point of view of a parent, the ad shows a family hanging out together and having fun… all up to the point where the mother suddenly looks sick.

The sudden silence is filled in as the father supports the mother and continues the song where she left off. We then see the father-daughter duo continuing on their familial activities, although without the mother. One such activity was them visiting a piano shop and playing the instrument together, much like they used to before the mother fell ill.

Through this, the ad still holds onto a heartwarming atmosphere, though viewers might harbour a little concern at what would happen to the mother. We find out later that due to the health insurance they bought with NTUC Income, the family was still able to pay for the piano that the girl had an obvious interest in.

Because they were covered, their daughter’s dream and happiness were protected. As parents, your children always come first and this ad nailed that parents’ desire to care for their children. Though languish, it was a clever way to incorporate an ad into such a beautiful storyline.

This ad becomes even more pertinent when you realise that 82% of parents agreed that money is important to their child’s security since they are just starting out and are still financially dependent. However, 73% of the same parents also felt that they had to cut down on expenses due to reasons such as a critical illness or a reduction in income. These studies, conducted by NTUC Income themselves, support the idea put forth in the ad – reminding what parents are able to do to provide their child with financial stability.

Overall, the ad works so well because it understands the concern of parents when it comes to their children. By finding an emotional angle to portray the ad from, BBH Singapore manages to successfully send their message to us – that parents can protect their child with NTUC Income.

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KFC’s Cheese Makes Everything Taste Better

KFC's Cheese Makes Everything Taste Better

KFCheese. That’s the name of KFC’s latest ad campaign, which posits that everything tastes better with cheese. Everything — that is on KFC’s menu.

The alluring ad features KFC’s iconic food including their fried chicken, Zinger, fries and even local dishes as well. Knowing Singaporeans’ adoration with KFC’s cheese, KFC strategically developed their latest campaign around it.

With such a visual reflection of KFC’s cheese being drizzled onto everything, the ad clearly intended to arouse viewers’ cravings of KFC’s cheese sauce, together with various food dishes enjoyed by all Singaporeans.

Indeed, such an invigorating ad manages to demonstrate KFC cheese’s versatility across plenty of food dishes, and showcases its wide-ranging appeal.

Interestingly enough, the idea for this ad came about when one of the staff on The Secret Little Agency (TSLA) accidentally spilled some of the cheese sauce onto the brief. TSLA, who was recently appointed to be KFC’s marketing agency partner this September, was founded in 2007 by Nicholas Ye, who was just a 19 year-old university student at that time. An independent agency, TSLA has worked with the likes of Netflix, Circles Life, and the Singapore government.

Now, 17 years down the road, they are collaborating with KFC to promote the fast food chain’s signature cheese sauce — and have done a wonderful job at it too! In fact, if you looked at the ad close enough, you can see the KFC cheese sauce being poured on products from other fast food chains as well — a cheeky little move to imply that KFC’s cheese sauce just makes everything taste better.