Who doesn’t love a good laugh at other people’s expense? With that in mind let’s have a quick run-down of the 5 worst video marketing fails.
5. Ragu – What’s it like when dad cooks dinner?
It seems crazy that when Ragu started this campaign in 2011 they didn’t see the potential pitfalls of insulting half of their target market. The pasta sauce company started out by creating a video featuring mummy bloggers spewing the usual gender stereotypes of men being rubbish or lazy in the kitchen with lines such as “For Dad, breakfast is what’s for dinner”.
But, on its own this offensive video probably wouldn’t have had much exposure, and would have been forgotten along with hordes of other offensive videos on the internet.
What made this worse was that Ragu spammed daddy bloggers on twitter with links to their video. Whose idea was it to spam people to let them know that you’ve offended them? This led outraged fathers to spawn posts with titles like Ragu Hates Dads.
4. Chevy Tahoe – Create your own commercial.
This is a famous one from way back in 2006. Chevrolet decided to jump on the consumer generated content bandwagon with their create your own ad campaign. Anyone who wanted could use a range of video clips and overlay text on top to create their own advert for the Chevy Tahoe.
Of course this ended up as a way for people to vent frustrations at Chevrolet, or just to have some fun at their expense with some pretty humorous results, like the one below. (It’s from way back in 2006 so you can forgive the video quality)
3. Paddy Power – Ladies day
The betting firm Paddy Power released a TV ad in 2012 asking viewers to spot transgendered women from the crowd at Cheltenham; or as they put it “spot the stallions from the mares”. To Paddy Power’s credit they cleared this advert with the Beaumont Society, a society run by and for the transgender and crossdressing community. On top of this they also cleared the advert with Clearcast, an agency which vets adverts before broadcast.
However, once the advert went live the Advertising Standards Agency were bombarded with complaints against the advert and Paddy Power were forced to take it down.
2. Sony – All I want for Xmas is a PSP
This video was part of a wider campaign set up to advertise the PSP.
A marketing firm hired by Sony set up a fake blog called ‘All I want for Xmas is a PSP’ (no longer running) which was supposedly written by two tweenagers who wanted a PSP for christmas.
The blog was full of cringe inducing language and shameless viral promotion. The worst of it is the following video performed by “cousin Pete”. Be warned, it’s not for the faint of heart.
1. Hyundai – Pipe Job
The number one prize for “what could they possibly have been thinking” goes to Hyundai for not only making light of suicide but trying to use it to sell cars.
The car manufacturer has since apologised multiple times for the advert and won’t be making the same mistake any time soon.
For those who want to see that advert you can view it here.
So what did you think to these, can you think of any we’ve missed? If so then let us know in the comments section and we might include it next time we have a similar round up.
