Not a “blooper”, but to me a blunder: the new Shatner/Priceline ads, specifically the “Naughty” one:
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It (he) is just creepy…really creepy. And I’m a guy.
That falcon should’ve ripped the rug off his head.
Come on, they put the word “Dodge” on every car. It’s a warning to pedestrians, lamp posts, and other cars on the road.
About a year or so ago, GM ran a viral marketing campaign to promote the Chevy Tahoe. It was a contest where people would go onto their website and assemble their own commercials from video clips and sountracks there, and supply their own text. Well, they failed to anticipate anti-SUV backlash. Soon, hundreds of ads were created with taglines like “Global warming isn’t a pretty SUV ad, it’s a frightening reality” and “Small penis, big car”. The marketing people still claimed it as a success because it got the Tahoe name out there and brought traffic to the website. They figure there’s no such thing as bad publicity, I guess.
Damn!:smack: I can’t think of the name of the product. But it was one of those things (frozen I believe) that contained meat and vegetables all in one bag and all you have to do it cook it up. It’s a woman about mid-40’s who cooks it up (all alone. No hubby in the ad) and describes it as she cooks. Then cut to her eating a fork full of it and says:
“MMMM. Tender and moist”
Not only was the way she said it strangly sexual, but at that time there was also a cat food being advertised as being tender and moist.
What about the Nestle tollhouse chocolate ad where the woman is sitting in the backyard with her kids, enjoying a big plate of cookies or bars or something she made. While she’s talking about the product a big wet dog walks close and shakes itself getting dog water all over the goodies. Blech!
Yeah, but that’s for one million pennies. How many millions did Reader’s Digest stock away for their promotion?
It’s also important to consider that the pennies likely were concentrated in a small area, creating stress in that spot instead of distributing the weight throughout the building.
The coffee adverts starring Gareth Hunt. If you’re British of a certain age, you’ll know what I mean.
Care to explain for the non-Brits among us?
I don’t think that was a marketing disaster. It was for Nescafe and he advertised the stuff for ten years. OK the adverts look a bit naff now, but it was a product of its time.
Isn’t there a new Visa check card commercial that has all of the customers at a shop paying with Visa debit in a creepily-choreographed routine set to the theme song from Brazil? Everytime this commercial comes on I get the crawling shivers.
Yup, here it is.
Og save us all.
How about the new American Express commercial, with “Gimme Some Money” by the Thamesmen in the background?
I have no idea. But I’d like to see a legitimate news source about this collapse and its cause to believe it.
I like “Powerhouse,” but I hated the message of that commercial: cash is bad.
Cash is bad because they don’t get a cut of it, and that’s all.
A lot of these aren’t so much marketing bloopers or marketing disasters, as they were ad campaigns that people thought were bad campaigns. They may or may not have actually succeeded as marketing efforts, though.
For example, the Pepto-Bismol “diahrrea dance” ads are apparently considered to be quite successful by the company. They’re widely considered to have been a really bad idea by most viewers – but if they’re selling more product, Pepto-Bismol is happy despite the snickering and gasps of horror when viewers watch their spots.
In short, just because you think a bad marketing campaign should have reduced sales, does not mean that it did.
Several years ago, there was a sports drink called “Texas Sweat”.
Because nothing’s more refreshing than a tall, cool glass of sweat.
There’s one ad currently running that gives me a head scratching moment every time it comes on. It’s the one for Emerald Nuts featuring Robert Goulet, who comes around in the afternoon when you’re drowsy and messes up the stuff in your office.
I’ve never understood why Robert Goulet would even lend his name to such a promotion, let alone appear in it. I guess money talks, but who thinks up this stuff?
They were just trying to cash in on the Pocari Sweat mania!