There is always a little thrill when reading about another company's branding failures. At least it wasn't you, right?
But I'm not here for the schadenfreude (as good as it may feel). I'm here to point out the valuable lessons in these content mistakes so you don't follow suit.
With that in mind, let's take a look at these travesties – and what we can learn from them.
1. Malaysia Airlines
Back in 2014, Malaysia Airlines was having a tough time, dealing with the tragedies of two flight disasters.
However, that didn't stop the company from running an Australia/NZ content contest – although it really should have.
The contest centered on people sending in their "bucket lists" for free electronic prizes. Bucket lists are, of course, something that you create when you're getting ready to die, and the allusion was unavoidable.
When I've seen this sort of thing in the past, it tends to happen to larger, often multinational corporations with unwieldy marketing organization and a classic inability to see the forest for the trees.
Lesson: Stay organized, pay attention to world events, and be nimble enough to cancel a bad idea before it plays out.
2. Ogilvy India
We all know content marketing usually suffers when it runs against cultural mores and taboos.
But there's misunderstanding the impact on the consumer mind, and then there's being obliviously horrible.
Ogilvy India falls in the latter category with its briefly run Kurl-On mattress ad, a little cartoon which showed renowned activist Malala Yousafza being shot in the head and falling onto a Kurl-On mattress in various iterations, before new iterations bounced back up toward accepting an award.
If that sounds weird, insulting, and totally unsuitable for any type of marketing, you'd be correct.
Lesson: Don't be insensitive.
3. DiGiorno
You'd really, really think that corporations would understand how hashtags and Twitter work after about a decade.
Yet even to this day I get off-the-wall questions and comments that show a lack of understanding about Twitter’s hashtags.
DiGiorno, like so many others, exhibited such ignorance with its entrance into the "#WhyIStayed" hashtag world.
The problem? "#WhyIStayed" was a hashtag being used at the time to explore the nature of domestic violence, abuse, and why victims tend to stay with their abusers.
It was definitely not something to associate with pizza.
Lesson: Do your research before publishing. Just a little bit of research. Please.
4. Carrefour
You may not recognize the name, but Carrefour is a France-based global supermarket chain…at least for now. Carrefour's stock hasn't been doing well lately, but marketing professors have certainly enjoyed poking holes in the company's Asian branches over the past few years as the brand has tanked at high speed.
The culprit here was a lack of content marketing. Carrefour sat stone still on a few traditional billboards and print ads, while competitors like Tesco, Giant, and FairPrice spent the time jumping out adventurously into phone apps, QR code shopping, digital advertising, joint ventures, and more.
As a result, customers essentially forgot that Carrefour was there.
Lesson: Watch your competitors, and never stand still.
5. Levi's
Levi's infamously decided to create a campaign to sell jeans with the tagline " hotness comes in all shapes and sizes" which was laudable except for the printed image that went with it:
The three models demonstrating these shapes and sizes all had indistinguishable, super skinny forms, completely ruining the message.
I see this fumble happen in companies with poor oversight and sloppy marketing workflow, where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing – but really should.
Lesson: Maintain content leadership throughout a project to unify tone and meet original goals.
6. Apple
This created such a stink that you probably still remember it – I certainly remember looking down at my iPhone and wondering how a random and, yes, awkwardly designed U2 album ended up there (to this day there are a couple devices I still haven't scrubbed that album off of).
Apple thought it would be a good idea to beam free music to everyone's devices, regardless of taste or storage space: It was invasive, creepy, and ridiculous – a perfect example of Silicon groupthink. Also, the music wasn't that great.
Lesson: Offer content for specific promotions – but don't force it.
7. Adelaide
In my experience, cities are rarely equipped for branding campaigns. But wow, that sure doesn't stop them from trying.
One of the more recent fiascos was from Adelaide, Australia, which embarked on a branding campaign and full redesign.
There was just one problem: The citizens of Adelaide, to a T, hated the redesign and new logo. Adelaide had apparently brought in a third party to create the design (which I'm not against!) but then forgot to ask anyone if they actually liked it.
As a result of this miscommunication or perhaps lack of interest, they ended up with many angry citizens and a very expensive new design that looked like a "particularly crap origami Pope hat."
Lesson: Acquire buy-in and do market testing…before paying for all your shiny new toys.
8. Nesquik
Sometimes content is smoothly produced and a campaign goes off without a hitch…and then nothing happens.
Nesquik found this out the very hard way after working on a massive, expensive project that included an app to give your photos chocolate bunny ears and a push for a new "National Bunny Ears Day."
Well and good – but no one cared.
The campaign failed to do much of anything as consumers had never heard of National Bunny Ears Day and found themselves completely uninterested in downloading yet another app (and with such a lame premise) or retweeting yet another hashtag.
It was a massive campaign that did nothing to engage or motivate, foolishly assuming that consumers would care because marketers really liked it.
Lesson: Tie your content to the real world, not your fantasy version of it.
Conclusion
Marketing is all about trying and trying again. You are going to make some mistakes.
However, you'll make far fewer mistakes if you follow best practices and avoid common pitfalls like these, Plus, your mistakes will be worthwhile if you learn what you did wrong and take steps to fix it.
Many of the companies I mentioned are currently doing very well and running highly successful marketing campaigns. They may have stumbled, but they also had a valuable experience. Learn from that example – and don't fool yourself twice.
Are you capitalizing on both you and your competitors' mistakes to continually improve your content?
