Top Marketing Fails

Marketing is not an exact science. For every inspired campaign, you find a lot of initiatives or projects that failed to ignite the imagination. Let’s learn our lessons from these mistakes and bounce back to create more engaging creatives.

Gap: and the crowd said no

Here is a story truly impressive: a few days ago GAP presented its new logo which was rather surprisingly missed and seemed to be the result of a session of PowerPoint 30 minutes. In short, GAP announces its new logo with all that stuff around but not everything goes as planned because users (who must be GAP customers) expressed their rejection of the latter.

Some have hijacked the logo by creating generators logos in the style of the new GAP and others have launched a competition to create a level of contribution worthy of the finest competition crowdsourcing. Everyone was awaiting the response from the brand that has finally used his Facebook page to say they liked their new logo, but they were watching carefully the proposals of each.

And yesterday’s change of position GAP abandoned their new logo to return to the old with the release of a press release entitled: “GAP LISTEN TO CUSTOMERS AND WILL KEEP CLASSIC BLUE BOX LOGO”.

Bebo

In 2005 Bebo was one of the most talked-about social networks, ranking alongisde Myspace in terms of populatrity. The network had worked a niche for itself, targeting teens and pre-teens. They also pioneered some of the first mainstream web series, and even producing their own. The website counted 40 million users worldwide and nothing could have predicted that a little more than a year later, Bebo would see its profits fall by 143%.

But that’s exactly what happened. Bebo was first bouth by AOL in 2008. Instead of building on the company’s assets, AOL virtually buried the social network, which was finally re-sold to Criterion Capital Partners in May 2009.

New Coke: The Most Notorious Marketing Fail

Coca Cola, the most famous brand in the world is also responsible for the biggest marketing blunder. Introduced in 1985, “new Coke” failed to impress and was subsequently axed less than 3 months after its launch.

The “regular” Coke was subsequently re-launched as “Coca Cola” classic, with sales of the drink increasing in the process.

Read the excellent Wikipedia article on the subject