Top 10 Dumbest Promotional Mistakes that Made Companies Lose Millions Marketing going Wild

If you are a small business owner and get angry because of that small Facebook Ad you paid for $5 didn't work all that well, well, imagine that you are one Chief Marketing Officer, working for a "Blue Chip" company and realize that instead of making the company money, his marketing mistake actually cost his company millions.

So here it is, the Top 10 Dumbest Promotional Mistakes that Cost Companies Millions!!!

Number 10: Apple-U2 Giveaway

You would have probably heard of this one, the story that made U2 part of the meme world for years to come, but just in case you don't know, let's go ahead and explain it a bit.

Back in the year 2014, some genius at Apple, Inc came up with the idea that people would love to have their new product prepackaged with an album that no one really cares about. At this point, you might think, "well, just a simple give away, what is wrong with that.?" well, aside from the annoyance it caused for people logging into iTunes for their very first time, there is also a mythological thing called "Royalties." So Apple, Inc paid an undisclosed fee in royalties to U2 and also took a whopping of 100 million in marketing campaigns for the band to promote their new album. As shocking as this might seem, Apple even stepped in to defend the promotion and the band which clearly led to a bunch of undesirable responses within various online communities.

Number 9: Walkers Weather Prediction

Answer quick, when I say "British Weather" what comes to your mind.? it was RAIN, right,? well you are probably smarter than the guys running marketing for Walkers Crisp and this is how the story goes. Some genius decided that people would have fun predicting the weather if they could win a prize for it, so Walkers Crisp decided to pay their faithful customers 10 pounds if they correctly guessed where the rain will fall on a grid map of the UK, of course, they weren't that stupid as they charged everyone the cost of a bag of chips (40 pence) to have a go, but as you've probably guessed, offering a total of $25 return to anyone that can guess the climate of a country with such a predictable weather pattern is not a great deal. Rain kept pouring during the time of the promotion and Walkers bravely followed through with their promises at a great cost. After the contest was over, Walker Crisp had to pay nearly 700,000 pounds to cover the entire contest but to be honest, you can conclude that it ended up working well as a marketing promotion since it made people remember the name "Walkers Crisp" for years to come.

Number 8: Ballon Fest in 1986 in Cleveland

For some people, the word "balloon" would cause them to have a flashback to the time United Way decided to release 1.5 million balloons over Cleveland and screwed up miserably. The whole stunt had a neat little idea behind it, since they basically wanted to do a little fundraising and grab the town's attention for a while, so they built a giant box the size of one city block and had 2500 students do the balloon filling while they waited for the crowds to gather. Once the launch started, it was one of the most beautiful things you could see, that is, for about 2 minutes, you see, nobody actually accounted for the fact that wind exists and therein lies their downfall...literally. The 1.5 million balloons started falling into the ground causing massive damage, the clogged the streets, waterways and pretty much every nook and cranny in town. If this wasn't bad enough, the balloons were blamed for the death of 2 fishermen who were found drowned 2 days later after the balloons interrupted coast guards in their attempt to rescue them, in fact, one of the fishermen wive's sued the company for 3 million dollars but settle for an undisclosed figure.

In the aftermath, United Way ended up paying millions to the city and the cleanup crews, not to mention settling several lawsuits from not a few citizens who were damaged by the balloons. 

To think that the Persians in the "300" movie used arrows to bot out the sun, what a waste, they should have just gotten United Ways to plan their attack and doomed the Spartans to a certain death.

Number 7: Jagermeister's Pool of Death

If you think the title is a bit too much, as you read on you will realize that is not far from the truth. This goes again to show that the marketers sometimes ignore the basics. So let's go a little into chemistry, some genius in the marketing team department decided that they'll make a gigantic pool party for Jagermeister's drunken fans, which I must admit, it was a great start, but then they wanted to have a lot of fog above the pool for that added effect which again, should be a plus to the sick party, however, what was not nearly nice was the liquid nitrogen they used to create the fog by pouring it into the water. Now, this is where everything goes to hell, the liquid nitrogen basically made an unbreathable fog above the whole area when it came into contact with the water and the marketing team must have been shocked big time upon realizing that humans need air to survive. This whole event was a mess and actually left one party-goer in a coma while hospitalizing 8 others. Jagermeister never actually disclosed. Now I realize that you need to see this by yourself so, here it is.

Jagermeister never actually disclosed how much they had to cough up for this mistake, but considering that they put someone in a coma, we can assume that it was a lot. Just goes to show, if you want to play smoke on the water, don't go happy on the chemicals.

Number 6: The Energizer Bunny

How can a cute little bunny screw up a company that much.? well, to answer that, go ahead and tell me the brand of the batteries in your remote. I bet you don't have a clue, and that was what the marketing team of energizer realized after it was a bit too late. While the bunny is actually a cute little mascot and it's probably known amongst the young whippersnappers of my readers, you can't really pull off that kind of marketing for something like a battery. The campaign was successful for sure, but the problem was that the actually managed to advertise their competitor in the battery field.

Duracell released a report after the Energizer Bunny first aired showing that their profits had actually doubled at that time because people thought that the bunny was advertizing Duracell, in fact, it worked so well that Duracell uses a bunny as their mascot now.

Now, as you may see, while the company didn't lose money, directly, the drastic drop in sales and all that money wasted on promoting your competitor is enough of a burn to make sure that they are more careful next time.

Number 5: The Tesco Math Problem

Tesco is praised for being a fairly cheap place to go shopping in the UK, but after this marketing failure, you might think that it's just because they really suck at math. Back in the year 2011, Tesco decided to do a special little promotion to outdo its competitor ASDA. Basically, it was the whole: "we will refund you twice the difference if our competitors item is cheaper." Tesco sadly forgot that most people go to school and know basic operations and count, and even if they didn't, they managed to learn on the way, so all its customers got savvy by only buying items that were on sale at ASDA, so they could go to Tesco, buy the same items on sale at ASDA and then after checking out they'd request double the difference by refering to ASDA website. For example, 1 shopper spends 200 pounds on Tesco in a shop that would have cost 120 pounds on ASDA (on sale products), so he or she is entitled to claim a 160 Pound voucher, therefore, Tesco is actually receiving 40 dollars for all that shopping.

You can see that doing this multiple times would save you a whole lot of money at the expense of Tesco. While this was a monetary and marketing catastrophe for Tesco, you have to give them props, they actually made a promotion that ended up being great for its customers...(dumb asses).

Number 4: Oprah and KFC

As we all know, Oprah is the omnipotent master of our destinies, so when she offers people a free KFC 2 piece meal, we all jump to get it, so why was it such a catastrophe.? Well, you can imagine that KFC was not all that pleased when people managed to print out over 10 million free food coupons from Oprah's website. During the time of the promotion, KFC gave away over 40 million dollars worth of free food and probably paid Oprah and an obscene amount of money to get her to do the promotion for them. No need to say that KFC will not be contacting her anytime soon.

Number 3: Silo...Bananas for Stereo

Now, this one didn't cost a lot of money but it was really stupid on the marketing side. So the same old formula comes to play, 

savvy customers + dumb exchange = price

Silo, a chain of electronic stores decided that a dumb exchange item would be bananas and the prize would be a stereo. Imagine their surprise when after the whole thing settled, they ended up with 11,000 bananas in their warehouse and a lot of stereos given away for around 40 dollars. So the only way to go is being nice and giving away all the bananas to the local zoo. Still, it kind of makes you think how wasted you have to be to come up with an idea like that in the first place.

Number 2: Mc Donalds Olympics

Well, pairing McDonald's with something that requires you to be fit, is a bit weird, but it gets weirder fairly quickly.

During the Olympics of 1984, McDonald's had a catchy slogan "If the U.S wins, you win." They included a ticket you could scratch on every meal and you would win a Big Mac for a gold medal, french fries for silver and a coke for a bronze medal in the event that was on the ticket. The problem was that the Soviets boycotted the Olympics and the USA ended up with 83 gold medals, 61 silvers and 30 bronze.

Basically, Mc Donald's lost a huge pile of money because the Russians were too lazy to compete. It seems that Russia can screw American businesses, even without the hackers.

Number 1: Lucky Number 349 by Pepsi

Riddle me this, what happens when you over estimate the powers of numbers.? If your answer was extreme riots and lawsuits, you probably work for Pepsi. Back in 1992, Pepsi had its "Number Fever" promotion and promised to give away 1,000,000 pesos, the equivalent to 40,000 US dollars to one lucky person with the right number on its bottle cap, the problem was that they had accidentally printed the winning number, 349, on 800,000 caps, due to an oversight in the manufacturing process. Consequently, they accidentally promise to give away a total of 55 billion of today's dollars. So people calmly understood the mistake and caused no trouble...Hell no!! people got furious, thousands of Filipinos began writing on the streets, demanding that Pepsi paid their rightful prize, which now totaled in millions. People even filed 689 civil suits and more than 5200 criminal cases for fraud and deception. However, Pepsi wasn't entirely at fault. It is believed that this marketing failed was caused by DG consultors, a Mexican consulting firm that Pepsi had hired to randomly pre-selecting the winning numbers which were clearly instructed not to make the number 349 a winner but, they clearly didn't read the memo.

Obviously with such a costly mistake, Pepsi couldn't affort to pay everyone, instead settled on giving just under 2000 US dollars, so Pepsi ended u paying nearly 10 million dollars for the whole campaign, rather than the original budget of 2 millon dollars.

Till next time friends, 

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What Happens When you Die?

What happens when you finally die, or in other words, what happens when you finally kick the bucket? so to speak. Despite our mostly science-grounded views on death theses days, it seems that many of us still believe in life after death. In 2014, UK citizens were polled by the Telegraph, and just under 60% of the respondents said that some part of us lives on. Now, in the USA, which still a very christian nation, Pew research in 2015 asked people what happened after you die. The survey found that 72% of Americans believe that you go to heaven, which was described as "where people who had lived good lives are eternally rewarded." 58% of the American adults replied that they believed in hell, which in turn was described as a place "where people who had lived bad lives and have died without being sorry are eternally punished."

It seems that alot of people do believe that after death, we might be ensconced in some cloud-strewn paradise, or conversely, if we failed to adhered to the ethics prescribed to us by our chosen religion, we might face eternal hellfire and the prospect of groveling to a bearded-red man who hardly ever puts down his pitchfork. But let's start with some empirical realism and what actually happens to the body when we die.

Physicians know that you are dead because your heart stops beating and there is no longer any signs of electrical activity in your brain. Brain death equals dead, although machines can keep you going a little bit longer. You might also get what is called a "cardiac death" which means that your heart stops beating and therefore, blood does not flow through your budy anymore. The strange and even wonderful thing is, people who had suffer cardiac death but had been brought back to life said that they were aware of what was going on around them. Others have talked about walking towards a light in such a near death experience. 

So you can be brought back to life from what we call "clinical death", but you only have a grace period of about 4 to 6 minutes. But let's assume that you get to the light and pass through; that is what we call "biological death" this means...game over, the final whistle, dead as a dodo. And this is where it get kind of undignified, but what is it to you, you're dead now, remember?, so when you are no longer with us, your muscles relax, that means your sphincter too, meaning that big ass burito you had for lunch will splill out of you, the gas you have inside of you may also leak out and cause a stink. The same goes for the pee you've got in your bladder, so dying not surprisingly is a very messy affair.

You want to know some crazy shit?, men may even ejaculate, and women may give birth after you have died in you were pregnant, which is something called "coffin birth". It doesn't happen oftend though, since instead of pushing, it's the gases in the abdomen that squeeze the newborn into the world.

As the body gets rid of what is trapped inside, noises might be emitted from your mouth as air escapes. Nurses and people working close to dead bodies have regularly reported hearing very alive-sounding moans and groans coming from the dead bodies. You might twitch, but it doesn't mean there is life in you, these are just muscle contractions.

You could also soon get an erection if you die lying on your stomach and the blood flowed down to your pecker. All your blood will pool to a certain area of your body. This is called "Livor Mortis" and it is the reason parts of your body will have that dark purple color you have seen on TV. So this are the lovely things that can happen quite shortly after you go.

With no blood flowing through your body, it will begin to cool down, this is called "Algor Mortis", or simply "death chill". It will keep cooling until it is the same temperature as your surroundings and you will become stiff within about 2 to 6 hours, and this we call "Rigor Mortis". This is because calcium is getting into your muscle cells, cell break down because there is no blood flow and this leads to bacteria growth, and that is why you start to decomopose.

You might look like your nails or hair have grown, but that isn't so, what is happening is that your skin is receding, giving the wrong impression of growth. The skin will loosen too, and blisters will appear on the body.

The following stage is putrefacation, when the bacteria and microorganisms start feasting on you. You will soon start to stink as bad as anything you could have imagined while you were alive...really it is unholy.

Soon, everything that was soft becomes liquefied, with things like bones, cartilages and hair remain strong, you are already on your way to decomposing by the time you are being put into the ground, but if embalmed and buried, decomposition could be a slow process. If you are left above ground, you'd be a liquefied mess within about a month, feasted on by insects, maggots, plants and animals. Underground, some experts say that it could take 8 to 12 years before you are reduce to your skeleton, and after 50 years, you will come back to the periodic table.

While some people report that their near-death experience was a scene to be hold, that's not always the case. One person writting on reddit said tha his experience was as follows:

I attempted suicide a few years ago by hanging myself with an extension cord. I had no pulse when the police arrived but nobody is really sure how long I was up there. I was resuscitated in the ambulance but was in a coma for a little under 2 weeks. Anyway, all I remember is a feeling similar to general anesthesia once I jumped off the table, but for the 5 seconds before it went black, I was in total panic and had a total change of heart from the confidence in my decision to end it seconds before. And then it was just... nothing. Like a deep sleep. And when I finally awoke from the coma, it was like finally reaching the surface of pool after diving too deep. I was in the same panic that I was immediately after I jumped from my table. Like I just blinked instead of being knocked out for 2 weeks. So to answer your question, I don't remember anything at all. It was like being in a deep, dreamless sleep. Perhaps if I regained consciousness immediately after being resuscitated, I'd remember something more interesting, but yea "nothing" is about all I can offer.

Edit: My personal theory is that I didn't have a near death experience like others because I had cut off oxygen to my brain. When I die down the road, I hope I still have some brain activity right before I go. I think Those near death expirences are the brains way of helping someone relax and allow their bodies shut down peacefully, without a fight.

Irish empiricist philosopher George Berkely was so hellbent on knowing what happens after, or those moments fter clinical death, that he actually hanged himself  to the point of death, with a friend nearby ready to cut him down before he died. He believed that there was something between Heaven and Earth, perhaps what philosophers have called the ether. The story has become lore in the philisophical circles, but it's thought all Berkeley really discovered was that hanging hurts your neck.

Frederich Nietzsche talked about the concept of eternal recurrence, or eternal return, meaning all existances or energy in the universe has forever an will forever keep repeating itself  "ad infinitum." So you get to live the same life over and over again, forever. Another reason for you to want to live well.

Here we can make similarities to the buddhist belief of the "Wheel of Samsara," wherein all souls, lives, will begin in a cycle again after death, except not exact the same life. This is what we called reincarnation, which some people say is connected to what we sometimes called "deja vu." Buddhist believe that we can put an end to this vicious cycle if we can become truly enlightened, therefore achieving "Nirvana."

Or maybe we make our way to heaven after our body stops working, tipping our cap to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, hoping that he will not deny us entrace for stealing that candy bar when we went on a school trip to Niagara Falls. We will be taken into paradise, a place replete with excellent foods and gorgeous maidens that make your dead knees go weak? or will we simply seed the Earth, our souls nothing more than a worldly fancy that took our minds off our cosmic insignificance and the feeling of futility that we sometimes experience here on "terra-firma"

It doesn't matter what religion or creed best describes you or follow, all of us are slowly or fastly walking to the bitter end, its time to make a change, not only because you think that will buy you a ticket to "Nirvana" or "Heaven", but because in this limited time you wish to make a change, live better and happier, for you and for the ones you love.

Until next time my friend, 

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