We all hear when a firm succeeds in building the right expectations in the minds of the public. But what about when branding a product goes wrong?
Well, it can really hammer the public’s faith in a company and lead to months of wasted work and a lot of damage control.
With that in mind, a new list, published by Adweek, goes over the branding efforts that failed miserably in 2012. From accidental messages to just tone-deaf marketing, let’s take a look at the top five brand blunders for 2012:
- La Redoute: The french clothing firm featured an image in ads with four playing children with a nude man in the background.
- Belvedere: The vodka maker used an image for a Facebook ad that appeared as if a woman was being attacked. The president of the firm, Charles Gibb, had to apologize.
- KitchenAid: An employee tweeted about the President’s dead grandmother using the company twitter account instead of his own.
- Hitler Store: A store in India launched as “HITLER”, including a swastika, before public outcry made the firm change it.
- Popchips: An Indian ad featured star Ashton Kutcher in brownface using a bad indian accent.
The rest of the list is available here.
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