When brands attempt bold marketing, they sometimes get it very wrong. Marketing campaign disasters often leave companies scrambling through confusion, loss, and outrage. In this article, I walk you through sixteen famous launches that went spectacularly off track.
BrandManagement
1. Hoover’s Free Flight Promotion
In the 1990s, Hoover in the UK ran a vacuum cleaner promotion that seemed too good to be true. Customers could buy a vacuum for one hundred pounds and receive two free round-trip tickets to Europe or the United States. The logic was simple on paper. But airline tickets were worth far more than one hundred pounds. Over two hundred thousand people snapped up the deal after realizing they could get cheap flights by buying a vacuum.
Advertising& Marketing
Shoppers poured roughly thirty million pounds into vacuums, many of which they did not even want, just to claim the free flights. But travel costs soared beyond fifty million pounds. Legal fees piled up on top of that. Hoover had to manage a massive demand for a product that was not in high demand in the first place. The British marketing leaders were let go, and Hoover’s UK branch was eventually sold off to an Italian firm, Candy.2. Sunny Co Clothing’s ‘Pamela’ Swimsuit Giveaway
https://www.instagram.com/p/BTpWfzyFoDs/embed/?cr=1&v=14&wp=810&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fviralstrange.com&rp=%2F16-marketing-campaign-disasters%2F%3Futm_source%3Dfacebook%26utm_medium%3Dfb_feed%26utm_campaign%3Dviralslot%26fbclid%3DIwY2xjawTIwM5leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFqekFKVUk0dDJ1Z29pcXQwc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgA#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A12905.899999976158%2C%22ls%22%3A11393.600000023842%2C%22le%22%3A11797.100000023842%7D
Sunny Co Clothing launched an Instagram giveaway that turned chaotic fast. They offered a red Baywatch-style swimsuit called the Pamela for free in exchange for a repost and tagging the company. Customers paid only for shipping. The swimsuit usually sells for about sixty-five dollars.
CustomerRelationship Management (CRM)