marketing mishaps

Oh Noes! The Mad Men tweets, where most of the Sterling Cooper possy where going about their day in public tweets was not created by AMC, in fact the AMC sent Twitter a DMCA complaint about the accounts, and several are already pulled including @don_draper & @peggyolson. Philmang has the scoop which he found via venturebeat. Phil rightly reckons that this is an "epic FAIL on the part of AMC", meanwhile I wonder what I'll do all day now that I can't hit on Salvator Romano and befriend fellow redhead Joan Holloway. I was having lots of fun with the characters over at twitter, and their tweets showed me the Playboy spread which I would have never found otherwise, since we all know I don't read that for the articles. I guess I'll just get back to work now. *sigh*

Dagens Media reports that Puma made a marketing mishap last Thursday when they projected a commercial onto the Stockholm city library. (An utterly gorgeous building designed by Gunnar Asplund, by the way.) Seems that the agency AdCity Media forgot to sort everything out before using the famous building as Johanna Hansson, the Director of the library, says to Dagens Media: "We have not given permission for this, and do not want to be used as advertising space. We are a library, and as such should be impartial and free."
Even the client wasn't informed, as Puma's marketing director, Rickard Kull said: "I'm not totally up to speed on the media plan. It is Adcity Media who has done the advertising."

Unlike the previous Puma mishap - oh yes you remember the sperm-splash Puma pitch-ads that did a tour around the world after showing up here at Adland 2003 - this mistake was given the green light by Puma. Somehow.


Other ads projected on walls in Adland:
WWF - Burning Panda Beamvertising - (2008) :60 (Denmark)
Bos creates interacting billboards for Fido / 2007
Light Graffiti in Atlanta / 2005

Carlberg had an idea that they'd give away free beer through vouchers printed in The Sun, which were to be exchanged for a free pint in 13,000 pubs over the bank holiday weekend. Free beer! What could possibly go wrong?
I know: Choosing the Sun as the paper to carry the vouches. Carlsberg has scrapped the promotion that was to run in The Sun newspaper after a furious backlash from Liverpool fans and Liverpudlians at large.

Liverpool has not forgiven the paper for their coverage of the Hillsborough Disaster - see The Sun Newspaper controversy. The Sun ran a cover reading: "The Truth: "Some fans picked pockets of victims"; "Some fans urinated on the brave cops"; "Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life"." which was nothing but a classic smear and not the truth at all. The people of Liverpool have not forgotten this, and the Liverpool Echo even reports that this gaffe may impact Carlsberg's sales: Liverpool fans' fury Carlsberg forces u-turn

Liverpool fans bombarded beer trade website The Publican with reaction to the Carlsberg deal, many describing it as “insensitive”.
Ben wrote: “Lost for words. There’s no way on God’s earth I’ll ever buy that stuff again.”
Leopold wrote: “Disgusting! LFC should sever all connections with Carlsberg after this, utter disrespect for the 96 and the loyal fans who actively campaign against that rag mag!”

The importance of local knowledge when worldwide brands get together could not have been better illustrated.

As of Sunday, 8/17/08, Spain is ranked # 13 in the overall Olympic medal count. However, when it comes to their Olympic advertising, they rank dead last. Here's a pic of Spain's Basketball and Tennis teams. Even the Germans shuddered at this marketing faux pas!

The agency who does Svenska Spels Trisslotto outdoor campaign has bet on using irregular types of posters to get attention. That doesn't always work though - last one I saw was a plastic one, shaped as if it was "swelling" placed on the outside of regular backlit busposters. However, there was an old poster underneath it so when it lit up at night you could not read it. I missed photographing that one, but I found this one yesterday. Looks like it's ten minutes away from blowing off and causing havoc as it flip-flopped in Malmö's notorious winds. Moral of the story, when doing something unusual, make sure it works. (closeup inside)

Bad puns for Swedes: sen kan man ju klaga på att själva kampanjen är jättetrist också, hehe.

The last time I ate Burger King, I suffered with a stomach flu type bug and spent the entire night driving the porcelain bus. No matter how good their advertising is, nothing can make me return after that. Hmm...wonder if it was brought on by BK employees using the kitchen sink as a bathtub, like in this story: Video shows Burger King employee bathing in sink. BK will have fun cleaning up this PR mess.

The video began making its rounds on the Internet Monday morning. One of the recipients was Greene County Health Commissioner, Mark McDonnell.

"My first thought was oh my God," said McDonnell.

McDonnell immediately sent staff to restaurant to investigate the numerous health code violations.

In their most tasteless effort yet to squeeze themselves the news on the tails of real tragedy PETA compares bus decapitation to animal slaughters. "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals submitted an ad for publication in the Portage Daily Graphic this week that compared the murder of Tim McLean, 22, to the "needless killing" of chickens, cows and pigs in "factory farms."" Yeah, because when a dude on a greyhound bus decapitates and cannibalizes another rider, I think of chickens.

The copy of the ad reads:

Manitoba . . . an innocent young victim's throat is cut . . . His struggles and cries are ignored . . . The man with the knife shows no emotion . . . The victim is slaughtered and his head is cut off . . . His flesh is eaten . . . It's still going on!

And even though the ad hasn't run as the Portage Daily Graphic refused it, PETA admits they got quite a lot of hate mail for it.

Other ad stories related to the horrific murder on the greyhound bus: When a simple line goes horribly wrong adfreak tells the story that Greyhound pulled their "nobody has ever heard of Bus Rage" campaign, now that everyone has heard of bus decapitation.

Another fine example of human vultures who like to ride on news for their cause - the Westboro Baptist Church were stopped at border of Canada, after announcing that they picket Mr. McLean's funeral to let Canadians know that his decapitation was God's response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and adultery.

People are really messed up.

These boots are made for killing. Nike Air Stab trainer withdrawn after spate of knife murders reports the Telegraph. The - at this time - badly named "Air Stab" has had that name since 1988, but in the current knife-happy climate in the UK it takes on a far more sinister meaning.

"While it may be an unfortunate coincidence timing-wise, given current problems regarding knife crime, we completely reject the idea that we are in any way condoning or encouraging the issue of knife usage," said a Nike spokesman.

Yeah, knife usage. They don't really do guns (as much) over in the UK. But they can kill you anyway. Or, in the rants of Bill Hicks -

....last year in England, they had fourteen thousand deaths per every soccer game, okay. I'm not saying every system is flawless, I'm just saying, if you're in England, don't go to a goddamn soccer game, and you're coming home. It's weird-they don't have guns in England, but they have a very high crime rate, which tells you how polite the fucking English are. (English voices) Give me your wallet! All right. At least no one was hurt. How do you have a crime rate and no weapons, man? Does a guy walk into a bank: (English voices) Give me all your money! I've got a soccer ball! Shit, Ian, that's a Spalding, he's serious! Hand over the pounds!

Many Swedish apple-fans have been saying that Apple made their worst choice ever when they decided to pair up with Telia when shilling their iPhones in Scandinavia. (They obviously don't remember Lisa)

Talk about beauty and the beast. Now in the Telia/iPhone advertising universe we found this prime example of FAIL spotted by copywriter Ulrika Good. The headline: We've got it. while the copy below reads "right now we have long delivery times." Talked about mixed messages, have you got it or not Telia? Meh, I didn't want one anyway. No seriously, I don't want one. Quit throwing apples at me.

Get a REAL WRITER already!

This Epic FAIL brought to you by Dear Jane Sample via Adfreak