Bulo Remembers 2009-An Epic Year For Marketing Blunders
From an inspired wiseass at Collateral Damage, a humorous look at the “Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” backfires of the year.
Except, (and this is what makes them funny), none of them seemed like good ideas at the time, and people who make more money in a week than you ever will in your lifetime executed these ideas when, in fact, they should have executed themselves.
Don’t believe me? Raise your hands if you thought that having Jay Leno on at 10 p.m. every single weeknight was a good idea. Don’t see no hands. This is not 20-20 hindsight, this is WTF (more on WTF later…) are they thinking? Who’s gonna watch? And the guy who made that decision is still employed.
As to Tiger Woods, this is sadly shaping up to be the biggest PR self-destruct of all-time. Seriously, bigger than OJ. Just like with The Juice and Michael Jordan (perhaps the two other most successfully-created PR images), it appears that we really knew nothing about the guy except that was a great golfer. He has surrounded himself with the best PR people and image-crafters, and he and they did a great job. Tiger parsed out just enough to reinforce the glowing PR, he was and remains the finest athlete on the planet, and his was easily the most marketable image, emphasis on image and was, out there. But, even if he successfully returns to golf, what advertisers will want him as spokesperson. Extenz? See what I mean?
And maybe I’m being too tough on pork producers for challenging the term ‘swine flu’.
But sometimes the would-be cure is worse than the, pardon the expression, ‘disease’. To wit:
“Pork Industry Has Beef With Swine Flu (NPR)”
“Swine flu not kosher in Israel (Reuters)”.
Which, of course, prompted yet another wiseass to think like a PR guy:
Some days you just can’t win for losing. Does this mean that our weekly bacon blog is on the endangered species list?
Oh, and let’s not forget the Wisconsin group responsible for promoting tourism in their state. As their first act, they created the Wisconsin Tourism Federation. Must I spell it out for you?
Tags: Best of 2009, Jay Leno, Marketing, Tiger Woods
Perhaps Tiger can sell gold.
What’s happening with the Jay Leno thing? I haven’t been watching it, but I never watched him anyway.
who remembers ACME inserting coupons for collard greens, grape soda and fried chicken in honor of black history month http://www.targetmarketnews.com/storyid02100902.htm
Wow, that’s a good one! Doesn’t Acme sell chitlins (aka “Hog Remainderama”) any more?
None of this would be a problem for Tiger if he hadn’t been married. Hell, he’d be making shaving cream commercials surrounded by supermodels.
Drug ads for Restless Leg Syndrome?
Any Real Estate Development promotions in the last year?
Bush saying about his Presidency “I did what I did for the good of the country”, which is a plagarism of Pol Pots exit speech?
Sayyy, waitaminnit, didn’t Joe Montana, who did that Noxsema shaving cream commercial (“Take it off, Joe. Take it ALL off”) actually MARRY that Swedish model who was in the commercial? Off to check the internets…
Maybe Tiger could fix his problems by marrying one of his skanks.
Well, OK, she wasn’t Swedish. And, um, it wasn’t Noxsema, it was Schick. But he DID marry a model he met on the Schick ad shoot. From Wikipedia:
“He met Jennifer Wallace, an actress and model, while the two worked on a Schick commercial, and the two married in 1985.”
It was his third marriage. Gee, I wonder if Notre Dame still lets him on campus…
I’d add the Obama Chia Pet to the list — it came out last January and lasted about as long as a snowflake in Miami.
But the best marketing of the year must go to teabaggers, who managed to convince the nation that pictures of the Million Man March were pictures of them in Washington….
BTW, for those with voyeuristic tendencies, here is a recent photo of the happy couple:
http://nhl.msg.com/photo/0euC5ZZ1uS5PD
When she told Joe to “take it off, take it all off” 24 years ago, how was he supposed to resist?
PM,
I think it was actually the Promise Keepers march. The Million Man March probably had too many people of color in the picture to be credible.
Good point, UI!