Bad Marketing Ideas - What Are The Worst?

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alarson

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Mar 15, 2006
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vzSv5ax.jpg
 

sweetiecy

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Sep 24, 2009
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The stupid "Out here we call it the Yield Bump" commercials. Come to think of it, about 50% of all ads for ag products are condescending. One a few years ago had a farmer saying something along the lines of: "My office is the tailgate of my pickup truck"....meanwhile my husband was running a $400,000 combine full of monitors, laptops, GPS mapping, etc.
 

jdoggivjc

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Sep 27, 2006
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I think people are confusing "bad" marketing ideas with "annoying" marketing ideas. They are not the same thing. Just because a marketing campaign is annoying (I.e. Crunchamuncha) doesn't make it a bad marketing campaign. Actually, it's quite the opposite. Most people bagging on the crunchamuncha are people that won't eat at Subway regardless.

"Bad" marketing flies in the face of "not all publicity is good publicity", because it's not true, as someone mentioned earlier. When people are remembering you for a negative reason, like "D+", Chevy selling "Novas" in Spanish-speaking countries, and Dyson using the campaign "It Sucks" here in America, those are bad marketing campaigns because they failed to understand their target audience so badly they come up with a campaign that's an abject failure. That's usually when they whip out the line "all publicity is good publicity" because it's the only thing they have to comfort themselves.
 

dmclone

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[video=youtube;t7wNaxfBjE4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7wNaxfBjE4[/video]


It's funny that you mention this one because I actually like it. I think when I was young this was a local company in the Chicago area because they would just say "588-2300 empire". Not that I liek the commercial itself but the little jingle brings back memories and tells me that they've been around for a long time.
 

Cyclonin

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Feb 18, 2012
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Talk about overrated. 5 guys definitely fits the bill.

Found the dummy of the group!

Haha, in all honesty, some people don't like it, which is fine. But I'll be damned if you can find a better fast food burger. Smashburger is similar IMO, but 5 guys owns. Enjoy your Whoopers!
 

klamath632

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Nov 19, 2011
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Don't like the burgers at all. But the fries are like... wow. Great fries at 5 guys.
 

Cyclonin

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Feb 18, 2012
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I'm against picketing. But I don't know how to show it.

I walked by a dry cleaner at 3am, the sign said “Sorry we’re closed.â€￾ You don’t have to be sorry; it’s 3am and you’re a dry cleaner. It would be ridiculous for me to expect you to be open. I’m not gonna walk in at 10am and say “Hey, I walked by at 3, you guys were closed. Somebody owes me an apology.â€￾
 

HFCS

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Aug 13, 2010
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It's funny that you mention this one because I actually like it. I think when I was young this was a local company in the Chicago area because they would just say "588-2300 empire". Not that I liek the commercial itself but the little jingle brings back memories and tells me that they've been around for a long time.

This commercial jingle was CONSTANTLY on WGN during cartoons like Superfriends in the 80s.
 

arganbright2

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Aug 6, 2006
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In the 1980's, Gerber baby food sold its products in Africa and nearly bankrupt the company. 70% of the people in Africa couldn't read at that time and picked out their food by what was on the label (ie picture of green beans means green beans). Well, if you are familiar with the Gerber logo, its a baby so the people literally thought it was ground up baby. I wish this was a joke but it was one of the biggest marketing disasters of all time.
 

HFCS

Well-Known Member
Aug 13, 2010
67,178
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LA LA Land
In the 1980's, Gerber baby food sold its products in Africa and nearly bankrupt the company. 70% of the people in Africa couldn't read at that time and picked out their food by what was on the label (ie picture of green beans means green beans). Well, if you are familiar with the Gerber logo, its a baby so the people literally thought it was ground up baby. I wish this was a joke but it was one of the biggest marketing disasters of all time.

A friend of mine got a cease and desist order from Gerber last year because she was selling hand made "onesies" on eBay and Etsy. They say they own the term but I doubt most people associate them with it, it's not like Kleenex or Rollerblade where it's the name of the company. I'm sure they're wasting a ton of $ on that effort.
 

ThurgoodMarshal

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Jul 18, 2011
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FarmersOnly.com should be a case study on what not to do in marketing for every entry level course.

I had no clue what this was so I just decided to google it at work. Probably wasn't the wisest decision I've ever made. Here's the first image that came up..

Landlord.png


Made me laugh at least.
 

capitalcityguy

Well-Known Member
Jun 14, 2007
8,332
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Des Moines
Honestly, the current Lowe's commercials that show the DIY projects failing (e.g....bathroom tiles falling off the shower wall as soon as guy puts last one in place).

While entertaining, they reinforce every fear and reason that those of us forgo buying stuff at Lowes (or Home Depot, etc) and doing a project ourselves and instead hire a professional to do it.
 

CapnCy

Well-Known Member
Jul 6, 2010
5,642
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I think people are confusing "bad" marketing ideas with "annoying" marketing ideas. They are not the same thing. Just because a marketing campaign is annoying (I.e. Crunchamuncha) doesn't make it a bad marketing campaign. Actually, it's quite the opposite. Most people bagging on the crunchamuncha are people that won't eat at Subway regardless.

"Bad" marketing flies in the face of "not all publicity is good publicity", because it's not true, as someone mentioned earlier. When people are remembering you for a negative reason, like "D+", Chevy selling "Novas" in Spanish-speaking countries, and Dyson using the campaign "It Sucks" here in America, those are bad marketing campaigns because they failed to understand their target audience so badly they come up with a campaign that's an abject failure. That's usually when they whip out the line "all publicity is good publicity" because it's the only thing they have to comfort themselves.

True. And some marketing that is annoying or "sticks" may be bad because you can sing the jingle, but have no clue what it is for.
 

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