Dumb Marketing Moves: Tell me about Zoos

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Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

f#a# posted:

Back when Pepsi came out with their new logo, the agency that designed it released a branding document detailing their approach.

It was the laughing stock of the marketing world for a good few months. Some highlights:

Is this the secret to understanding Time Cube?

# ¿ Dec 5, 2014 21:03

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 00:10

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Oh man, tell me someone took them up on this.

Game ads in the 90's were some of the weirdest poo poo. Sega had a deal with Howard Johnson to give away game tips for their lovely rear end games. How this benefitted either party, I'm not entirely sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnLxnG67VNc

# ¿ Dec 5, 2014 22:20

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Bertrand Hustle posted:

I don't know why everyone is leaving out the best part of Tom Morello's response to Paul Ryan saying he likes Rage Against the Machine: "gently caress you, you are the machine."

Oh poo poo, I forgot about that one. How do you misinterpret a band's message so badly?

# ¿ Dec 6, 2014 19:17

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

...of SCIENCE! posted:

I think my favorite 90s gaming marketing was Johnny Turbo, in which the TurboGrafx-16 was embodied as a fat neckbearded programmer in an ambiguous relationship with his roommate Tony and shouted marketing slogans at evil alien drones representing Sega.

The slapfight that was the awkward transition into next gen after the SNES and Genesis was amazing. So many stupid gimmicks, so many bald-faced lies, so many idiots who had no idea what the gently caress they were doing. And Sega followed them all until they were bled dry by the time they had a real console to offer. What a stupid, stupid company.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbYkgDWAYAE

The uselessness of the 32X is beaten only by its ads.

Here, have another slightly less bad one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4I8zIJrg1U

Arsonist Daria has a new favorite as of 00:49 on Dec 7, 2014

# ¿ Dec 7, 2014 00:37

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

I love that keynote so much. All it proved to me is that Qualcomm doesn't know how to run a loving company at all. I don't know how you get people in PR that bad and don't clean them out immediately.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2014 22:49

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

hyperhazard posted:

PC Mag had an interesting article after that Qualcomm thing. Basically, their argument was that it looked stupid as gently caress to Western audiences because it wasn't aimed at them.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414112,00.asp

Not sure I buy it, but it would explain the "throw in everything from pop culture" approach.

That is a total bullshit attempt to spin the ad as anything but a complete failure.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2014 23:31

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

gnarlyhotep posted:

I think Crazy Bruce had a few nips of that liquor.

In that case, I'd consider it a marketing success.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2014 04:21

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Eagleman is a treasure and I won't have him disparaged.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2014 18:49

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Mr. Flunchy posted:

Here is an exhaustive run-down of that campaign:

http://veethemonsoon.wordpress.com/2004/07/02/nestle-uks-yorkie-is-not-for-girls/

hmmmmmm

This is almost as crazy as those pepsi graphs, but instead of harmless gibberish it's misogyny.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2014 13:50

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

VendaGoat posted:

son-of-a-bitch. I want a Guinness now, just loving because.

Me too and I think Guinness tastes like a beer that some jerk dumped milk in as a joke.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2014 03:04

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Maggie Fletcher posted:

I just saw one of their commercials yesterday. They're no longer doing "it's not for women!" anymore, now it's just some weird lumberjack looking guy in a canoe in the Rockies or some poo poo.

I remember people getting pretty fired up over that slogan, so maybe that's why they toned it down.

Yeah, they resisted for a bit but it didn't take them long to realize how disastrous the campaign was. Really, I never think it was about cutting out the female demographic as much as it was for them to produce a diet soda that guys would be more drawn toward. They just did it in a really, really dumb way.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2014 06:07

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

cyberbug posted:

This thing was a failure even with the ring.

The N-Gage was such a colossal failure. I love it so much. Let's look at an ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqumbLhqAWs

Check out how desperate they are to not give you a good look at the thing until they give you a list of features. Then they finally show you a couple seconds of it playing some games and that's all you need to laugh it out of your mind.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2014 15:16

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Halloween Jack posted:

Well, yes, actually. People questioned whether or not the Jaguar is truly a 64-bit system, something you probably don't want to encourage in customers who never scrutinized console hardware before.

I actually meant the Turok thing, I don't know how I hosed that up.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2014 16:29

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

WickedHate posted:

It's the little tuft of hair over the right side of kettle Hitler's forehead that makes it almost too good to be true, and yet it's a real product.

Christ, I thought the kettle just kind of looked like a butt. This is way better.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2015 08:41

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Irish Joe posted:

In the "who the gently caress are you kidding?" department.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zSgr37DOZQ

I always assumed hot pockets began in a particularly dirty back-alley in a particularly seedy Chinatown. Probably from some guy selling meat out of his coat.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2015 18:10

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Discount Dracula posted:

There have been a few examples of failed marketing via internet participation. I think there is no greater example of this than when the internet sent Pitbull to Alaska. It's beautiful.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pitbull-heading-north-walmart-kodiak-alaska-232922477.html

How often do corporations attempt some blatant viral marketing and not have it blow up in their stupid faces?

# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 07:38

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

WickedHate posted:

Not exactly a corporation, but let's ask Bill Cosby's PR team.

Well since he's a better corporate icon than a human being, I think it counts.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 07:53

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Lobsters are also not kosher which hurts their reputation. They're also bottom dwellers that just kind of eat like whatever. They're basically the dump trucks of the ocean.

Delicious, delicious dump trucks.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 08:52

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Rahonavis posted:

And my all-time "favorite". Think of how many marketing meetings this horrifying lolipop would have had to pass through without even one person saying, "No."

Hey kids, want to make out with the most irritating comic relief character in history?

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 20:33

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

I wonder how people calculate the worth of social media presence. It can be vital to local businesses in areas with a ton of millennials, but how much is a "Like" worth to Wal-Mart or McDonald's? They could spend millions on a social marketing campaign and barely budge their sales numbers.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 00:06

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Jastiger posted:

I remember in a marketing class I took that I believe it was Crest that is the #1 toothpaste in sales in the world. No one gives a poo poo, no one really bases their toothpaste sales on the latest add campaign, no one really puts that much thought into it.

So they stopped advertising since they were cruisin'.

As soon as they stopped their sales tanked and Colgate overtook them (I think it was Colgate). Same with Pepsi and Coke.

Its weird but the data shows it works, even when with every fiber of my being I don't use their marketing an iota when I decide which one I pick up.

Interesting. Reminds me of how, after the federal government restricted how tobacco companies could advertise, the companies had better profits. People still want to smoke, and now they don't have to pay for expensive TV ads or product placement.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 00:47

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Jastiger posted:

I agree. I agree is the same for me. A new movie? Cool. A big sale? Alright. The rest of the time "yes, I kmow McDonald's exists. I know Pepsi exists. I don't care about that"

But yeah it somehow works.

For example I'd consider every single ad on the Internet with the exception of a few banner ads to be dumb. 10 secrets THEY don't want you to know!!!1

I never thought anyone clicked them.until I started my job at an insurance place. I get 5 to 10 calls a week from people that click them expecting 15$ insurance or believe the ad in a literal sense. They even ask the ten things they should know to save.

So I have to think that for every person that ignores 90% of advertising there are two that eat it up.

This is true, but marketing definitely gets into our heads whether we like it or not. If Coke stopped doing ads tomorrow, we wouldn't forget it overnight, but Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, etc., are still being pumped into our heads every day so one day maybe an avid Coke drinker tries something else and likes it better.

Moxie used to be the go-to soft drink for the entire US. It was so famous that the drink Moxie brought the word "moxie" into existence. Then one year they decide stockpiling cane sugar is more important than advertising, because hell, they invented a word. Coke decided to double-down on marketing and now Moxie is only sold in the Northeast.

Tiggum posted:

In that case it worked out well for them because their competitors couldn't advertise either. In the toothpaste example only one company stopped advertising.

Oh, I understand, I just got reminded of it. Figured the thread might enjoy the anecdote.

Arsonist Daria has a new favorite as of 05:17 on Jan 5, 2015

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 05:11

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Genetic fungineering will be the end of the human race.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 06:57

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Endymion FRS MK1 posted:

Everything is bullshit because I live in the midwest and the one time I visited Maine I tried Moxie and fell in love and have to go to a specialty grocery store 2 hours away from me if I ever want some. Or fly to Maine.

Can't you just buy some on Amazon?

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 07:11

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

joats posted:

How about this video for little baby's ice cream that makes me want to stay the hell away from Philadelphia.

Not for queasy stomachs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erh2ngRZxs0

These are the creepiest loving commercials and I would never eat that brand. I'm kind of unsure on eating in general.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 08:31

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Oxyclean posted:

I have to believe/assume this is the case for all sorts of terrible pop up ads and bullshit email adverts. It costs next to nothing (compared to print ads) to run them and just hope for hits.

I think the Happy Meal Character is pretty weird, and slightly superfluous, but not exactly a bad idea. Happy Meals/The happy meal box are pretty iconic - I know as a kid my fast food place of choice was McD's - half because of the happy meal, half because they had better fries then anyone else. Burger King was just lame by comparison. I think they had something like a kids meal, but it sure as hell wasn't anywhere as memorable. Doesn't help I've never like their food either.

Uh buddy, McDonald's never had the BK Kids Club.

Calling the kid stuck in a wheelchair "Wheels" gets me every goddamn time.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 19:33

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

WickedHate posted:

They must have retired the whole gang by the time I was born, because as a small kid I only remember Kid Vid, and my taped shows from the 90s back me up that I'm not just forgetting them. Looks like the same people behind Doozy Bots. There the disabled kid turned into a tank while everyone else got legs as a robot.

Kid Vid definitely became the main thrust of their advertising, because look at how loving 90's that dude is. I know they were still around, though. Hell, as late as 2000, they added an Asian girl who was in band named "Jazz".

Then they had these loving things for a year.

Eventually they joined some group of businesses that voluntarily changed their marketing to children to be less pandering and cartoony. I think it's more that they had no idea what they were doing and this seemed like a good out.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 19:55

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Vargo posted:

Was Lingo's thing that he was really good at languages? Like he spoke a lot of different ones? Then what about Jaws? What was Jaws' thing? Did he just talk a lot, but only in English? Was he a street-wise, smart-mouthed teen with an attitude?

Why would any of these people make me want a cheeseburger?

Lingo was a Hispanic kid who could also speak Spanish.

Jaws ate a lot.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 21:55

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

bewilderment posted:

Funny fact: Burger King also exists in Australia in under the name 'Hungry Jack's' (kind of. weird franchising things and lawsuits happened between 1997 and 2003 when both existed). Just like in the USA, Hungry Jack's had the Kid's Club.
Except Lingo, the Hispanic character, was nowhere to be found. This is the first time I've ever seen the character.

Man, I'd like to see the minutes of that meeting.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 23:11

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

WickedHate posted:

If Lingo's gimmick was that he spoke English and Spanish, it might kind of make sense, because I assume there isn't as many Hispanic kids for corporations to appeal to with multilingual stuff. It's still weird they felt it absolutely necessary to go through the trouble of taking him out, though.

He only looks vaguely Hispanic, you could probably just switch out his ethnicity with a more relevant one to Aussies and not turn too many heads.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 00:33

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Not My Leg posted:

I also read somewhere that the reason Geico has so many different advertising campaigns at once is because auto-insurance is a broad market. Everybody needs auto-insurance, no matter age, race, or gender, so the company needs to target every demographic. That's why you have the Geico Gecko, Maxwell the Pig, the banjo playing guys (which spawned the hump day camel), the "Everybody knows" ads, and the "it's what you do" ads all running at the same time.

Fake E: I found it. It was a Slate article from 2005. At the time Geico had the Gecko, the Cavemen, a series of ads with the tag-line "I've got great news - I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance," and a series of one offs like the fake reality show "Tiny House."

The broad, seemingly unfocused campaigns have apparently worked too, since Geico has gone from a market share of 5.6 percent in 2005 (when the article was written) to surpassing Allstate as the second largest auto-insurer in the US.

drat, I knew Geico had grown a lot since I first started seeing their ads, but I didn't know they'd grown that much. They still deserve some scorn for this, though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhFIijFD9kg

# ¿ Jan 7, 2015 01:21

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Your Sledgehammer posted:

Bill Hicks was right.

He usually is, unless it's about Kennedy.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2015 10:34

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

JacquelineDempsey posted:

That reminded me of this Shark Tank pitch for Beatbox Wine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxiMPJS79xg

They claim it speaks to their generation. Who uses beatboxes anymore except 40 year old farts like me who still play their old cassettes? Don't all the young'uns download everything onto their phones? Not to mention the fact that walking around with a huge beatbox was sorta more the provenance of black hiphop culture, so when that white chick hoists it up on her shoulder, I cringed. I guess it's "ironic"? Retro-hip?

Dang I feel old now. My lawn, etc.

You act like all sorts of Millennials don't love retro poo poo they've probably never actually used but once in their lives.

Ya'll are fuckin' old.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2015 22:08

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

JacquelineDempsey posted:

Hey, I admitted as much that I'm , and I did acknowledge the retro appeal. I think they've got a great product, selling fruity wine that doesn't taste like wine, in a box; I know I'd eat that poo poo up when I was in college. And as was mentioned about the flavored vodkas, it's the perfect drink for young women with no palette who wanna get drunk on fruity poo poo, and bars to make custom cocktails. I just thought it was an odd strategy to reference 30 year old technology in a beverage product when marketing to people who have never even seen a boombox.

Well, I'm sure they've seen them before, probably while ironically watching old ~80's movies. I was more talking about everyone on this page who don't get why people would market childish things to my entire generation of child-adults.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2015 22:28

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

JacquelineDempsey posted:

Gotcha. On reflection, I think my sticking point was both the announcer and the pitch saying that it "speaks to this generation". That'd be like someone saying that 8-track spoke to my generation. Yeah, we knew of them --- hell my bf in the 90's had a player in his '79 Caddy ---, and there was definitely a market for a certain sense of nostalgia for stuff we saw in our childhood ( eg "That 70's Show"), but I wouldn't say it "spoke to" my demographic. If they, say, made alcohol flasks shaped like iPhones or some poo poo, that would "speak to" this generation. Does that make any sense? Sorry, guess I'm either misunderstanding that term, or nitpicking. (And not on you, Lumberjack!)

Also, brb, gonna invent a flask shaped like a smartphone to pitch to Shark Tank (I'm sure it's been done).

Well I'd totally buy a phone flask so I think I get you more than actually intended.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2015 23:08

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Huntersoninski posted:

What?

"Yes but, America did [X["

# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 00:27

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

misguided rage posted:

Oh wow. Up until the end I thought this was an anti-environmentalist parody.

Seriously, it's impressive a good collection of people thought that was a great idea.

The comments are hilarious though, bunch of nutjobs who think this is the actual plan of... somebody. Gonna guess The Liberals.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 01:22

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Away all Goats posted:

(context: Mortdecai is Johnny Depp`s latest movie which bombed hard at the theaters)
I`m gonna chalk this up partially to bad marketing cause I never even heard of the movie until MSJ posted this in the funny pictures thread.

Lionsgate actually thought it'd be the next Pink Panther, because it was Johnny Depp with a silly moustache and people made fun of his moustache and hahahaha.

Apparently it was not totally appalling or anything, but it's very much a generic latter day Johnny Depp movie and also it's January so who cares about what's in theaters.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 02:37

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

Sleeveless posted:

I wonder if right now in Japan there are shut-ins writing up angry posts about Time Squad doing an episode about Sitting Bull or Peabody and Sherman making jokes about the French Revolution.

While I don't think these examples are all that analogous with Hetalia, probably yeah.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 03:17

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 00:10

Arsonist Daria: Feb 27, 2011; ^{Requiescat in pace.}

BlackIronHeart posted:

So... Wait, there's a ball gag so the tongue has it's own mouth?

Advertising to the very limited Chosen One market.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 09:43

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