Fails. Faux pas. Commercial screw-ups. Many of us love it when they happen, especially in adverts and marketing campaigns. Others just facepalm at the sight of a questionable ad, and call out brands for putting it out there. And sometimes, brands release ads so wide of the mark, they really piss off their customer base!
Anyway, what’s up devilish mender-uppers! Today, we present a collection of fails and faux pas in marketing campaigns. Some so epic, they ruin the reputations of the brands we all know and love – or hate! We mainly focus on marketing campaigns from the world of technology here – after all, we repair computers and laptops here. Duh! But we also have an ‘extended cut’, where we cover various marketing fails and faux pas across other industries. So let’s share the “highshites” of marketing – a “greatest shits” collection, if you will!
The Sony “Fail-station” Portable ad
Sony launched a marketing campaign for its PlayStation Portable games console in 2006. Particularly, this advert promotes a white colourway version of the device. Now, we can see exactly what’s wrong with this advert.
In this advert, it depicts a woman with pale skin, white hair and white clothing grabbing a black woman by her face. The white woman displays an angry demeanour, while the black woman appears worried and submissive. Accompanying the advert is the slogan, “White is coming”. Now, we completely understand why people are up in arms about this ad. In this case, there are clearly racist undertones in the way it portrays the two models. Sony released a statement, which tried to justify the advert by saying – and we quote;
“The images that were used in the campaign were intended solely to highlight the contrast between the different colors available for the PSP.”
Statement from a Sony spokesperson
Oh, come off it! We are just a bunch of volunteers in a small, humble repair cafe. By comparison, Sony is a multinational business, and so it should know better than to release adverts like this. Certainly, we can think of much better ways to highlight contrasts between different colours. Of course, all without pushing all fucking kinds of antiquated racist stereotypes!
When tablets get (too) peachy
Now here’s one of the fairly recent fails (or faux pas) which caught the eyes of ‘yours truly’. Basically, Samsung released the Galaxy Tab A9 and A9+ tablets as successors to the Galaxy Tab A8. Of course, out of curiosity, I looked at the marketing materials which accompany the new devices. Specifically, there was one picture which caught my attention.
To illustrate, this picture shows a woman in a one-piece outfit with short sleeves, trainers and a hat. She happily does a leaping jump in a grassy field, appearing to pop out of the tablet’s screen. Indeed, this aesthetic is a common sight as a way to really sell a device. In fact, it looks perfectly clean and innocent. Right? But, what’s this I spy with my little eye…?
Uh-oh! It’s every lady’s worst nightmare. The most embarrassing thing to pop up at inopportune moments – the dreaded cameltoe! (Or, ‘blessed’ if you identify as part of a cohort of people who actually ‘love’ this kind of stuff – in which case, you dirty bastard!) Evidently, this ‘reyt’ peach somehow slipped through into Samsung’s marketing materials for these tablets! Imagine getting dirty looks from your mates by explaining why you bought the tablet in the first place. Awkward!
The (many) fails of Microsoft
As many of us techies know, Microsoft has more than its fair share of fails, faux pas and shit-shows over the years. Remember Windows Vista? Or Millennium Edition? Even Internet Explorer? If not, either they came out before your time, or you spent so much time under a rock, you forgot what the sun looks like!
And by the way, Microsoft made a huge hoo-har when its over-zealous drive to push users to upgrade to Windows 10 caused all sorts of shenanigans. Particularly, in one story which went viral, the Windows 10 upgrade notice interrupted a live weather forecast on KCCI 8 in Iowa, United States.
Here’s a protip, Microsoft; if you want to encourage people to try out your flashy new operating system, don’t try to force it upon them. And especially don’t do it in ways which involve interrupting bloody important services! Oh, and by the way, who can forget this classic fail? Here, then CEO Bill Gates and Chris Capossela demonstrated a prototype build of Windows 98 at a conference. The latter attempted to demonstrate plug-and-play functionality by connecting a scanner to the PC, only for the operating system to crash with a blue screen. And the audience applauded when this happened!
Advertising phones…through other brands!
Want an example of a surefire way to undermine the promotion of your products? Taking photos of your product and sharing them on social media using your competitors’ offerings! And this is exactly what Blackberry did in 2015, when it shared a picture of its Blackberry Classic on its official Twitter account – using an iPhone.
Needless to say, instead of shoring up smartphone sales, Blackberry made itself the butt of jokes and trollish antics on social media. Definitely one of the big marketing fails, indeed!
One of Apple’s recent fails!
And of course, Apple, a multi-trillion dollar tech behemoth, also puts out its own fair share of fails over the years! In this recent advert for the iPad Pro, we see a large hydraulic press crush all kinds of various objects. There’s various musical instruments, an arcade machine and a lot of arts and crafts stuff. Oh, and some stress relief toys, too. When the hydraulic press lifts back up, we see the iPad Pro on the surface, and person just off camera lifts up the tablet, displaying its thinness.
Basically, we don’t know why Apple would release an advert like this. Does the company insinuate all these everyday items we use to bring out our inner creativity, are so last century? In any case, Apple received a lot of backlash all over the internet. People perceived the advert as illustrative of the threats technology and, particularly generative AI, pose to human creativity. Meanwhile, Samsung responded with a reaction advert of its own. Its advert for its own tablets, portrays a woman entering the same room, in the aftermath of the Apple advert. Shes picks up a damaged guitar, and plays a song as she reads the music notes from a Galaxy S9 tablet.
And now, the extended cut of fails!
Racist billboards. Camel toes in marketing materials. Aggressive pushes to get people to upgrade to the latest shiny new operating systems. These are just some of the fails and faux-pas we covered so far. Well, if you reached this far into the hall of shame, we welcome you to the start of our extended cut, featuring various fails and faux pas across other industries! Clearly, there are many more marketing fails to choose from here, some of which we know are in exceptionally bad taste!
So here, we selectively picked out the best examples of marketing we find on the Internet. Otherwise, we’ll stray too far from the tech focus and be here all bloody day. Nevertheless, we guarantee you some of them will make you laugh as we did, while others will make you go “what the fuck?” Again, as we did. Oh, and we also included one (dis)honourable mention at the end, which we will explain why we included. So, let’s show you what we found!
Hitler ice-cream
Whoever decided naming an ice cream brand after the infamous Nazi dictator needs their heads screwing back on – and I mean tightly!
Republica Parrillera Pilsen billboard
This Costa Rican brewer certainly made a bold attempt at pushing the consumption of beer with sausages. They mounted a caricature of a giant two-pronged fork and a sausage onto a large billboard. It looks fantastic when you look at it from the front! But the problem is, when you look at it from the back, the sausage looks like a giant erect cock emerging from the edge of the billboard!
Funeral Services poster in the subway
Remember folks, definitely don’t try this when you wait for the train or tram in a subway. Especially the London Underground.
And the (dis)honourable mention goes to…
There is one more fail/faux pas to point out – and this serves as the (dis)honourable mention in our collection. Because this advert is actually a variant of the typical Go Compare ads, specifically for the Comedy Gala on Channel 4! This is one of many adverts from brands which allowed the broadcaster to feature comedians Jimmy Carr and Alan Carr interacting with their ads.
This Go Compare ad plays out as you expect from early Go Compare adverts. Here, it shows their mascot Gio Compario (Welsh opera singer Wynne Evans portrays the character), emerge from the closet in the middle of a womens’ group session. He sings the Go Compare jingle, and (most of) the ladies join in the singing. When the tenor reaches the climax of the jingle, Jimmy Carr appears and literally grabs his bollocks! Consequently, Gio Compario winces and then collapses in pain after Carr quips about comparing the size of their respective “manhoods”!
Now, we would expect nutshots in adverts as one of the fails and faux pas we may find all kinds of adverts and marketing. But the many people who consider the early Gio Compario an annoying twat who pops up everywhere, would genuinely consider this a win!
Wrapping thing up…
And, this concludes our latest deep dive into the naughty corner of our repair cafes! There are many adverts we encounter on television, radio, billboards and everywhere else. Most strike a chord with the audience, while some others completely miss the mark. Do you agree with the examples we shared here? Are there fails and faux pas you come across in adverts and marketing campaigns? Please feel free to share them with us! After all, who knows what else we find in our burgeoning Seedy Scrap Bin to share with you next time!