# A Shameful Roundup if the Year's Most Humiliating Marketing Blunders
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 21, 2012, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701 "2012-12-21T03:50:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/1 "2012-12-21T03:50:44Z")
See them [here](http://www.adweek.com/news-gallery/advertising-branding/20-biggest-brand-fails-2012-146137#harvey-nichols-20).
Sorry about having to view them only one at a time, but there are some real doozies here.
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### Author:  [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/2 "2012-12-21T04:28:31Z")
How could they not include this one?
> **[Clothing retailer's insensitive #Aurora tweet enrages Internet](https://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/clothing-retailers-insensitive-aurora-tweet-enrages-internet-899485)**
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### Author:  [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/3 "2012-12-21T11:33:31Z")
**W.T.F, Harvey Nichols?!!**
_“Try to contain your excitement,” said these ads for British fashion brand Harvey Nichols, which showed the models peeing themselves. Some people took offense, but the company said it was merely making “a visual representation of a well-known phrase.”_
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### Author:  [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/4 "2012-12-21T11:50:45Z")
I’m not sure the ones involving employees tweeting to the company account by accident should really count, but they are pretty funny.
The one with the woman in the neck brace is horrible and I don’t know how that got green-lighted.
But I absolutely _love_ how AMC responded to Oreo. 😃
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### Author:  [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/5 "2012-12-21T12:56:51Z")
“Don’t name your store ‘Hilter.’” - Wow.
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### Author:  [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/6 "2012-12-21T13:02:46Z")
Why would OP’s link start at the end, and make me click back one slide at a time to the beginning?
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/7 "2012-12-21T13:07:30Z")
> [@hrhomer](#):
>
> Why would OP’s link start at the end, and make me click back one slide at a time to the beginning?
I think it’s a marketing thing, to make you notice the brand.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/8 "2012-12-21T13:13:19Z")
> [@hrhomer](#):
>
> Why would OP’s link start at the end, and make me click back one slide at a time to the beginning?
Think of it as a Bonus Marketing Blunder
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### Author:  [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/9 "2012-12-21T13:49:34Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#):
>
> I think it’s a marketing thing, to make you notice the brand.
It worked. I just tried to think of what site it was, and I correctly remembered it was from Adweek.
INCEPTION
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/10 "2012-12-21T15:37:16Z")
#15 Bic For Her
> [@](#):
>
> Wrote one reviewer: “I tried these on a whim, and I have to say I wasn’t very impressed. The applicator mechanism is far too fiddly, and the plastic tampon inside far too thin … They also stained my knickers blue for some reason. I really wanted to like these, but it’s back to pads for me.”
😃
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### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/11 "2012-12-21T15:53:41Z")
Windows 8.0 “Here it is…now buy it”:rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/12 "2012-12-21T15:53:59Z")
I remember some of these when they happened. The Bic For Her reviews on Amazon were funny as hell. They used one of the less funny ones for this piece.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/13 "2012-12-21T16:06:22Z")
I didn’t understand the Oreo tweet. A lot of people bring snacks to the theater. I often have a baggie with cookies or candy in my pocket. I’m not paying the prices they charge at the concession stand.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/14 "2012-12-21T16:17:08Z")
I guess not knowing about Pedo bear is a good thing? I had never heard of it. Why would anyone outside that illegal community know about it? I started to google it and thought, “no I don’t want that in my google history”.
Still, it was a weird coincidence that companys mascot looked so much like the bad bear. 😉
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### Author:  [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/15 "2012-12-21T16:27:07Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> I didn’t understand the Oreo tweet. A lot of people bring snacks to the theater. I often have a baggie with cookies or candy in my pocket. I’m not paying the prices they charge at the concession stand.
Well, it \*\*is \*\*explicitly against the rules to bring outside food to any theater I’ve been to. Just because people do it doesn’t make it right. Oreo was basically encouraging people to break the rules, and AMC called them on it.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/16 "2012-12-21T16:27:15Z")
You understand, though, that the movie theater itself has no reason to accept that practice, right?
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/17 "2012-12-21T17:03:01Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> I guess not knowing about Pedo bear is a good thing? I had never heard of it. Why would anyone outside that illegal community know about it? I started to google it and thought, “no I don’t want that in my google history”.
>
> Still, it was a weird coincidence that companys mascot looked so much like the bad bear. 😉
I sincerely doubt that “pedobear” is accepted among paedophiles. I have seen it used exclusively as a joke (a very bad joke usually) on Demotivators and similar Interwebby-things.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/18 "2012-12-21T17:06:31Z")
> [@Skara\_Brae](#):
>
> “Don’t name your store ‘Hilter.’” - Wow.
There was actually [a thread on that one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=663844&highlight=hitler+india).
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### Author:  [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/19 "2012-12-21T17:23:01Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> I didn’t understand the Oreo tweet. A lot of people bring snacks to the theater. I often have a baggie with cookies or candy in my pocket. I’m not paying the prices they charge at the concession stand.
Neither me. I can understand why AMC wouldn’t like it, but how is a tiff between Oreo and AMC a “blunder”? I can’t see any way it would have damaged Oreo’s brand.
Agree that the accidental tweets sholdn’t really count.
I rather want a bag from Hitler. Does this make me a bad person? 🙂
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### Author:  [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-shameful-roundup-if-the-years-most-humiliating-marketing-blunders/644701/20 "2012-12-21T17:24:20Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> I guess not knowing about Pedo bear is a good thing? I had never heard of it. Why would anyone outside that illegal community know about it? I started to google it and thought, “no I don’t want that in my google history”.
>
> Still, it was a weird coincidence that companys mascot looked so much like the bad bear. 😉
Pedo bear is just a joke. That said, I have a hard time believing that no one involved in the Nestle’s shoot had ever heard of him.
Submitted for your consideration: [Anti-abortion coathangers.](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/11/pro-life-coat-hangers-springdale-cleaners_n_2277562.html)
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