Brand Reputation in a Pandemic

Marketing for Growth: Where to Start? A blog post by McLuckie Marketing that outlines three initial steps you can take to help plan out marketing that will grow your business.

It happened again last week. I was browsing through Twitter , checking out what was happening in the world of marketing, when I found a lot of different tweets about a recent #MarketingFail by Kmart – a US-based department store chain (who really should’ve known better). You can read the details here , but, in essence, what was supposed to be a clever play on the yoga term “Namaste” for a Mothers’ Day campaign, turned into something quite different. Moral of the marketing story: at the very least, Google the word you think you’ve come up with – it may already exist in another language. And it may not have the most wholesome of meanings. Throughout my marketing career, I’ve enjoyed the dual emotion activity of reading about various marketing fails. Dual because there is always an inherent fear that something like that could happen to you (enhancing my already borderline psychotic attention to detail), but also, basically, because marketing fails are generally amusing or car-crash horrific – and that makes some compelling reading. The Kmart incident last week made me recall other marketing clangers from over the years. Here are my top five blunders from the world of marketing: 1. Walkers Crisps with the #WalkersWave social media campaign Ah, what a lovely idea from the Walkers marketing team. To get the chance to win a ticket to the UEFA Champions League final, tweet a selfie with the hashtag #WalkersWave. And your selfie will appear in a video with Gary Lineker, too. Always, ALWAYS consider ways in which a social media campaign can be trolled. In what now seems quite an obvious turn of events, photographs of serial killers, murderers, sex offenders and the like were tweeted and the automatic video rendering popped their well-known faces onto the photo frame and left nice-guy Gary Lineker up close and personal with some of the worst criminals in UK history. 2. Protein World: Are you beach body ready? Well, this was a beezer. And it may not actually be a marketing fail at all (from the company’s perspective). The ad was for a slimming product and featured a svelte, bikini-clad female with the question wrapped around her honed physique. Rightly, there was a huge outcry on the basis of the implication that only slim, toned individuals were ready for the beach. And the brand responded on social media in a pretty shocking way – no apologising, sarcasm, body shaming and a complete disregard for genuine points of concern on how their marketing might affect mental health in some individuals. For many, Protein World was now a brand to be avoided. However, the press coverage and social media buzz and company response around the ad kept people talking about the brand and, reportedly , brought in revenue of £1 million in the four days after the campaign launched. And some may call that a marketing success. For me though, the negative associations of body shaming, bullying and sarcasm are not qualities I would ever want to be associated with my brand, so this example stays firmly on my list of marketing fails. 3. Nothing Sucks Like An Electrolux Ah, the great divide of the Atlantic ocean. This campaign slogan by Electrolux in the 1960s worked like a charm in Blighty, but when launched in the USA it caused confusion. Was it talking about the powerful suction of the product, or was it a competitor literally saying the Electrolux vacuum cleaner sucked? It was the former, and they took a punt that the slogan would still resonate in the US, even though they were aware of the American vernacular. Do some testing, make sure your message is clear for your target audience. Ambiguity favours nobody. 4. Dove Campaign for Real Beauty: Body Type Bottles Unilever were playing an absolute blinder for many years with the Dove “campaign for real beauty”, which avoided the use of traditional models and photography treatments to show more diverse body types in marketing campaigns. Then, a misstep. An opportunity to buy limited edition bottles of body wash shaped to emulate six different body types. It backfired somewhat. While the intention was to celebrate the diversity of women’s bodies, the brand was on the receiving end of much ridicule online and was in danger of cancelling out the goodwill accrued over the preceding years. Really, a storm in a teacup. But an excellent showcase of how what seems like a sweet little gimmick that echoes your overall message can be perceived as overstepping (invisible) boundaries and kick-off an internet backlash that impacts your brand. 5. Boaty McBoatface OK, not so much a fail, more a fantastic example of what can happen when you run a public poll to create engagement with your brand. In 2016, the National Environment Research Council (NERC) decided to run a poll to name it’s new polar research ship and, after a tongue in cheek suggestion from radio presenter James Hand, social media took over and the name RSS Boaty McBoatface scored an overwhelming victory. This presented a conundrum for NERC Chief Executive Duncan Whigham, who had to choose between honouring public opinion and protecting the credibility of NERC. A compromise was reached with the polar research ship named RSS David Attenborough and one of the National Oceanography Centre’s Autosub Long Range autonomous vehicles proudly bearing the name of Boaty McBoatface. So, while you can’t prevent every misunderstanding, mis-translation or misstep in your marketing efforts, what you can do is apply attention to detail, fact-check, pay for proper translation and think of any possible ways that internet trolls might turn your wholesome campaign into something else entirely. Lois McLuckie is the principal consultant at McLuckie Marketing and is in absolutely no way claiming that she has never endured marketing fails of her own. But any mistakes she has made, she sure has learned from 😊.