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There’s a fine line between success and failure when it comes to marketing campaigns, and while most campaigns at least achieve some degree of success, Failed marketing campaigns are not as uncommon as you might think.
If you’ve come to this article looking for good ideas for your next marketing campaign, then you’ve come to the wrong place (really). If you came looking for pointers on what not to do, on the other hand, then this is the place to be. It’s also fine if you’re just looking for a laugh.
We’ve taken a stroll through the history of marketing and looked at some of the less successful marketing campaigns, and the result is this list—10 failed marketing campaigns from the past century.
But before we start, we want to notethat this isn’t an ordered list of the worst ad campaigns we could find, but rather a list of marketing campaigns that missed their mark, and additionally you should note that the campaigns included on this list are presented in random order.
The first on our list of failed marketing campaigns has come to be known as the Kendall Jenner Pepsi Ad, but its proper name was “Live for Now” or “Live for Now Moments Anthem” which was a 2017 take on Pepsi’s own 2012 “Live for Now” campaign, this time starring influencer and celebrity Kendall Jenner.
The intention was to reach millennials with a message of peace, unity, and understanding.
The ad begins with a young cellist on a rooftop. Outside young protesters are carrying signs of peace and a banner that says to “Join the Conversation”. The protesters are smiling and happy. Jenner’s character is modeling at a photoshoot when the young photographer, who’s wearing a hijab, notices the protests outside. The cellist walks past Jenner’s photoshoot and gestures for her to join the crowd. Then we see several white police officers standing in formation. Jenner appears, and approaches the police officers handing one of the officers a Pepsi. The photographer snaps a photo of the scene. The officer takes a sip of Pepsi and the crowd cheers.
All in all a pretty innocent ad, right?
No.
Pepsi pulled the advertisement just one day after its distribution due to criticism and released a statement:
“Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are removing the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologize for putting Kendall Jenner in this position.”
The creators (and Pepsi) were widely criticized for trying to capitalize on the Black Live Matter movement, and Iesha Evan’s iconic photograph “Taking a Stand in Baton Rouge” of a black woman approaching heavily armed police alone during a protest in Baton Rouge in July 2016.
Among the critics of the advertisement’s attempt to position Pepsi as a brand with a political agenda were Bernice King, daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
We can guess that one of the reasons for this failed marketing campaign was Pepsi’s decision to create the full commercial in-house, in an effort to speed up the creation process. But their in-house content creation team was not able to properly assess external perspectives, and ultimately this resulted in a $5 million ad going down the drain.
Every year upwards of 30.000 people run the 42.1 kilometers it takes to finish the Boston Marathon, a historic race that started back in 1897 with just 18 entrants. And the Boston Marathon of 2017 was no different with a total of 16.376 men and 13.698 women entering the race.
As the official sponsor of the Boston Marathon, Adidas wanted to congratulate participants on crossing the finish line, and living through the huge accomplishment is to run any marathon.
They did so by sending out an email with the headline “Congratulations on surviving the Boston Marathon” and that’s exactly why they were included on this list of failed marketing campaigns.
The problem was their choice of words. Four years earlier, at the 2013 Boston Marathon, three people were killed and 260 were injured when two bombs exploded near the finish line.
And to make matters worse, at least two survivors of the 2013 attack were known to have participated in the 2017 marathon as well.
Afterwards the sportswear giant issued an apology stating that they were “incredibly sorry” for the “insensitive” choice of words used in their failed marketing campaign.
In the United States and Canada the month of February is Black History Month, also known as African-American History Month, which is a month-long celebration and commemoration of African diaspora and African-American history.
During this month many companies as well as public institutions take to celebrating the influence the African-American society has had on the country. And 2017 was no different.
That year the US Department of Education tweeted a quote from one of the great African-American authors about the importance of education
While it can be argued whether this was a marketing campaign or more of a communications or PR issue, we’ve included this example on our list of failed marketing campaigns because of the sheer irony.
If the tweet had been made by any other company or any other public institution the mistake would have been rather minimal. But for the Department of Education a simple spelling mistake becomes rather laughable.
Several twitter users including Chelsea Clinton commented on the fact that the US Department of Education misspelled W.E.B. Du Bois.
The department later issued an apology along with an updated version of the tweet where the spelling had been corrected.
As marketers we’re all looking for a way to show that our product is as good as we say it is. And whether we’re talking social proof or advertising stunts many an idea has been thrown around during brainstorming sessions. Some of them are good, and let’s face it, most of them should just stay ideas.
The fourth on our list of failed marketing campaigns is an excellent example of how marketing reaches beyond mere revenue numbers, and when your campaign fails, it can mean more than just lost sales.
In 2006 the CEO of the identity theft protection company LifeLock decided to pull a stunt to exhibit his own confidence in the product. And this resulted in what is possibly one of the worst ad campaigns of all time. At least if you look at the results of this failed marketing campaign—millions of dollars in fines and no less than 13 cases of identity theft.
And how did that happen?
Well, the company decided to include his social security number on a series of banners that were used on their website, posted on billboards and distributed in print.
Unlike the other examples on our list of failed marketing campaigns, where the problem focused around the marketing side of things, the issue in this case stretches far beyond just a drop in public opinion.
To begin with, the company was presented with a $12 million fine from the FTC for deceptive advertising, which at the time was noted to be all the cash the company had on hand.
Then there was the class action case which resulted in LifeLock agreeing to pay out $68 million to settle the allegations that the company failed to keep its promise of continuous security, and as if that wasn’t enough they were also ordered to pay out $32 million to victims from the state Attorney General’s Office cases.
And if you think the problems ended with the company finances, you would be wrong. Because after the stunt, LifeLock’s CEO, Todd Davis, has had his identity stolen no less than 13 times.
The Dove brand is no stranger to failed marketing campaigns, and in 2017 Dove ran a short lived Facebook campaign which featured a black woman who took off her shirt to reveal a white woman standing in her place, the white woman then removed her top to reveal a middle eastern woman. All this supposedly happening after the women used a Dove body lotion.
The idea with the advertisement probably was to inform consumers that Dove’s product line is for everyone no matter the color of their skin, which is very much in keeping with Dove’s brand message of real beauty.
As is probably painfully aware, the video clip can be understood as the body lotion turning the black woman white, and this is also what the ad was called out for, repeatedly, on social media.
After the initial response Dove removed the video clip and issued an apology stating that “The short video was intended to convey that Dove body wash is for every woman and be a celebration of diversity, but we got it wrong. It did not represent the diversity of real beauty which is something Dove is passionate about and is core to our beliefs, and it should not have happened. We have removed the post and have not published any other related content.”
However, as one user was quick to point out, the 2017 ad was not the first time the brand had trouble with their messaging accidentally coming off as racist. In 2011, Dove published a “before-and-after” advert which charted the transition of a woman of color into a white woman after using their body wash.
This was of course also not intended, and Dove released an apology in 2011 saying: “All three women are intended to demonstrate the ‘after’ product benefit. We do not condone any activity or imagery that intentionally insults any audience.”
In another failed marketing campaign from 2017, Audi ran a campaign in mainland China, hoping to increase their sales of used cars in that country. The ad itself pictured a man and a woman, standing in front of a priest, when the mother of the groom raises her hand. She promptly makes her way to the couple, where she starts inspecting the bride.
And the ad’s tagline says: “an important decision must be made carefully”.
As many users were quick to point out, the ad has a sexist vibe to it. Many comments questioned whether Audi’s focus group had been entirely made up of men, with one Weibo user asking “From the inception of this idea to its broadcasting, was there a single woman who worked on this commercial?”
Albeit an old advertisement, Brainiff Airline’s 1987 campaign “Fly in Leather” is a perfect lesson in the importance of reviews and content localization.
You see, in the late 80’s, the airline used the slogan “fly in leather” as a way to remind customers that all their flights had leather seats and so offered a degree of luxury above other airlines. And when they wanted to extend their marketing efforts to the Spanish speaking population of the southern United States, they simply translated that slogan.
The people in charge of translating their slogan, and the ads, to Spanish made the mistake of directly translating the sentence “fly in leather” and that’s how the slogan “Vuela en cuero” was born.
The translation is technically correct. “Vuela” does translate to fly and “en cuero” also translates to “in leather”. But what the translations missed, is that the term “en cuero” in many Spanish speaking areas is slang for “naked”.
So instead of urging their Spanish passengers to “fly in leather” they ended up urging them to “fly naked”.
The airline isn’t the only company to make translation blunders with a humorous result. When the American Dairy Association ran their “Got Milk?” campaign, they translated it to Spanish and got the result “Tienes leche?” Which literally translates to “Are you lactating?”
In April 2017 Burger King used Google Home as a part of their marketing campaign. In a short video, a young man in a Burger King uniform uttered the words “Ok Google, What is in the Whopper Burger?”
Anyone watching this commercial who also had a Google Home assistant or an Android phone with voice search enabled within listening range of their TV then experienced their devices read out a list of ingredients in the whopper burger.
Or least that was the intention, but the reality turned out to be quite another for this failed marketing campaign.
The intention was to have the “OK Google” command trigger devices to read out a description from Wikipedia, which the fast food giant’s marketing team had pre-edited.
The message at the time of launching the campaign read: “The Whopper is a hamburger, consisting of a flame grilled quarter-pound (113.4 g) beef patty, sesame seed bun, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup, and sliced onion. Optional ingredients such as American cheese, bacon, mustard, guacamole or jalapeño peppers may be added upon request.”
The problem was that Wikipedia is maintained by users adding information to their articles, so of course, the internet had a field day. In the hours following the campaign some of the more humorous changes to the product description read:
The joke descriptions added to Wikipedia was one thing, but apparently many users found the ad to be an intrusion, as their devices began answering commands that they themselves had not given.
Just a few hours after the ad first appeared, Google Home devices stopped responding to the prompt from the Burger King ad.
Over the past year AI in marketing has become an extremely central topic. In fact, AI in any line of business has become extremely central.
But before there was ChatGPT and Gemini there was Tay—a Microsoft developed chatbot that was designed to mimic language patterns of a 19-year-old girl and learn from interacting with humans.
In March 2016 Tay was released on Twitter under the name TayTweets with the handle @TayandYou and a description that read “The AI with zero chill”. This was in large part to promote the company’s chatbot to internet users.
In less than 24 hours the chatbot was disabled so the team could make adjustments, but before it came back online Microsoft’s Head of Research released a statement saying that the company was deeply sorry for the unintended and hurtful tweets, and that Tay would be removed from the platform for the foreseeable future.
What had happened was that users had begun interacting with Tay, teaching it inflammatory messaging and politically incorrect phrases. As a result, the AI began releasing racist and sexually charged messages in response to other Twitter users.
Celebrities and influencers launching their own products has become a pretty common occurrence, so it didn’t necessarily raise many eyebrows when in September 2024 YouTube personalities KSI, Logan Paul, and MrBeast announced that they were launching the Lunchly LLC, an alternative to Lunchables which is a similar product produced by Heinz Kraft.
The comparison with Lunchables was a big part of the marketing strategy with videos comparing the products and even a page on the Lunchly website dedicated to the comparison.
While it is a bit early to say if this is indeed a failed marketing campaign, Lunchly and the way they decided to market their product has already seen a lot of criticism, most of it surrounding the central problem with the brand’s marketing choice. They leaned heavily into the Lunchly vs Lunchables story in an effort to position themselves as the better alternative.
However, they didn’t really come out ahead.
Other YouTubers such as the former gamer Asmongold disagreed with the statement that Lunchly was tastier than Lunchables. In fact, Asmongold was sent three boxes of Lunchly to test out and after trying both brands, he stated outright that he could not tell the difference between them.
And the taste wasn’t the only thing to receive criticism.
Doctor and social media presence, Brian Sutterer, and TikTok and Youtube personality (and doctor) Doctor Mike, both questioned the statement that the product was healthier than Lunchables.
And almost like a final nail in the coffin, there has been a mountain of social media users who reported finding mold in their Lunchly packages. It’s become so much of a meme that users even beginning to make jokes about the product’s tendency to be moldy.
The heavy criticism saw both Logan Paul and KSI respond directly and at length to users and other content creators via social media and dedicated youtube videos.
Before we get to what your takeaway from this article could be, one thing you need to remember is that there are different criteria for what constitutes a failed marketing campaign.
Some of the examples on this list are failed marketing campaigns because of small mistakes such as the Department of Education, while others are deemed failures because the entire premise of the campaign (or even the go to market strategy) was flawed.
One thing you should take away from this, is the importance of review rounds when it comes to marketing campaigns, as many of the failed marketing campaigns on this list could have been avoided with a more thorough review process.
In the case of Braintiff’s failed marketing campaign where they mistranslated their key message it could have been resolved simply by including a native speaker in their review process before the campaign was signed off. And while we can’t guarantee that a native Spanish speaker wasn’t part of their review process, we do find it highly unlikely. And what if they didn’t have one internally? They should’ve used an external translator.
Similarly the Kendall Jenner Pepsi Ad or Audi’s Chinese Wedding Commercial could probably have benefited from external reviews and focus groups. Again, we cannot know for sure that these measures weren’t taken, but the circumstances that landed them on our list of failed marketing campaigns leads us to believe that reviews and focus groups were at least underprioritized, if they even took place at all.
While we understand the desire to speed up the content creation process, that probably lies at the heart of most failed marketing campaigns, skimping on reviews or failing to involve external stakeholders should not be taken lightly. Just because review rounds are notorious for slowing down projects, they are necessary for a reason.
So, if you take nothing else from this article, we hope you now understand the importance of a thorough review and approval process. It could end up costing you more than just the money you spent on creating your ad, and it may even land you on a list of failed marketing campaigns.
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