Jagermeister - Pool Party

An event can be seen as an easy way to promote efficiently a product or service. However even in the most basic event every precaution must be taken to avoid any mistake that could damage the brand.
And that is exactly what Jagermeister didn't do.
Jagermeister, the well-known alcohol brand whose consumers are hype and love to party decided that a sponsored pool-party in Mexico would be a great event to remind everyone that the brand is for hype people that love to party. During the whole set up the organizers decided that, in addition to gorgeous ladies in bathsuit and sexy dudes surrounded by jagermeister, it would be really interesting to have some kind of mist coming out of the water.
This is how they decided to add liquid nitrogen to the pool. What they certainely didn't expect was the chemical reaction provoked by the liquid nitrogen and the chlorine.

The Jagermeister pool disaster

Combine nitrogen and chlorine and you obtain some nitrogen trichloride, a very toxic gas that immediately knocks out whoever breathes it.
As a result, 9 people have been hospitalized and one person has even been in coma for a few days. More than 4 complaints were filed with the government.

Morale of the story: Curiosity kills the cat... But nitrogen trichlorine is better at it

Gerber - Singles

Some companies do have the right idea, only it just doesn't come up at the right time... Or with the right shape.
In 1974, Gerber, a baby food enterprise, tries to extend its brand to the adult food market. Willing not to spend too much money in new manufacturing tools or in brand re-positioning, Gerber decided that the niche market of the single living adults would suit its expertise. Single people don't need to buy a lot of food at the same time, they only need small portions. And this is how Gerber launched a baby-food-jar similar product range for adults. I have to admit that they thought about that very carefully, since nothing is omitted : vegetables, appetizers, mashed potatoes and meat, desserts... You could truly feed you with that single brand.

The for-adults-baby-jars

Thing is that the company didn't think about the consumer's motivation. Why would this single 35 years olds man buy this product ? So that he remembers that he is alone ? Or that, as he is single, he cannot be seen as an accomplished adult ? Or that not only he is single but he also doesn't have friends to go out and eat with ? The product range didn't work at all and has quickly been removed form the shelves. No need to ask if Gerber did a market research before its launch. If it had done that maybe it could have been one of today's leader in the single-portion food, in plastic or aluminium package, that are made for busy people...

Moral of the story : The end justifies the means... Or maybe not !

Harley-Davidson - Perfume

When someone asks you to think about a good motocycle, you have two solutions: to think about a japanese brand, or to think about an american brand. Would you think about Yamaha, or rather Harley-Davidson ?
Well, whatever was your answer, today is about the american brand, which is responsible for a wonderful and full-of-lessons failure.
Harley-Davidson's customers are extremely loyal to the brand due to its values: liberty, authenticity, power, testosterone. This brand has an iconic stature, and many customers even have the brand's logo tattooed on their body. In a noticeable logic, Harley-Davidson's marketers thought that if customers were that loyal, then they could buy tons of derived products. Starting from baby clothes to ties and lighters, Harley-Davidson developped a whole range of derived products that had nothing to do with the original product.
In the 90's, the motocycle brand finally crossed the red line when it launched the Harley-Davidson perfume and aftershave range. The purist fans strated to accuse the brand of "disneyfication" and to believe that Harley-Davidson was fallen into the "more products = more purchases" trap. Isn't that the worst thing that could happen for a supposed authentic brand ?

Does anyone see the authentic biker in this ad ? No one ? Great, me neither.

However Harley-Davidson didn't suffer that much from this mistake, which has finally been recognized and corrected by the company.
In 2014, the brand's market share was 57% in th US, with an increase of 20,5% in Asia and 8,2% for Europe. It is still the leader in front of Ducati, Suzuki, or Triumph.

Morale of the story: All that glitters is not gold !

Just For Feet - Racist Ad

Sometimes the marketing strategy is good, and the fail is in it application. That has been the case of Just for feet, an american shoes brand. In 1999, as the company was becoming more and more popular, it decided to (and could afford to) do an advertisement that would be seen during the Super Bowl, that would gather more than 127 million homes in front of their TV. Here is the video of it:

Just for feet Super Bowl ad (1999)

A huge storm of protests immediately arose from the population to denounce this fully racist and violent ad. By what right dared the company to compare an african man with a wild animal hunted by a white man ?
Just for feet reacted in alleging that they trusted Saatchi&Saatchi, their communication agency, and relied on their expertise. The shoes company sued Saatchi&Saatchi for damages in advertising malpractice, and finally dropped the lawsuit.
Not only this ad was racist and violent, but also pointless: how would the consumers want to buy shoes that a top-world athlete doesn't even bear ?

Today Just for feet doesn't exist anymore as the last shop closed in 2004.

Morale of the story: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure !

Kellogg's - Cereal Mates

When in America the number of working hours began to increase at the same time than the fast-food development, Kellogg's saw an opportunity on the breakfast market. The idea was that american people had less and less time on the morning to eat, especially when they live far from their work. To gain some of this precious time that is the morning time, Kellogg's began to offer a little box of cereals with some conditioned milk and a plastic spoon: the Cereal Mates. This box was declined with four kinds of the most popular kellogg's cereals : Corn Flakes, Frosties, Fruit Loops and Mini Wheats. It believed so much in this new product that it launched a TV advertising campaign:

But this product never worked and the following year in 1999, when Kellogg's rival General Mills became the market leader, it was abandonned.
The fact is, Kellogg's did not understand the need of its customers and did several mistakes in its product elaboration.
Its first and main mistake was the milk conditioning. As the product was stored on the breakfast shelves the milk was warm, and when Kellogg's decided to store it on the refrigerated shelves nobody thought of buying their breakfast cereals in there. In addition to that, advertisings show children using the product by themselves, while in reality the packaging was not practical enough to enable them to serve the milk properly. To finish, the taste of a conditoned-in-a-sanitized-way milk was not very good.
The second main mistake was the price. Sold at more than a dollar, the product's price was considered way too expensive compared to its quality and its promises it couldn't keep: indeed, the Kellogg's Cereal Mates were supposed to be a practical product above all. But serving the milk and using a spoon was no practical way to quickly eat breakfast for a huge majority of consumers.

A few years ago Kellogg's tried again to create a practical breakfast product, and launched the Nutri-Grain range, some cereal bars which need neither milk nor spoon. And it is now one of the Kellogg's biggest successes, as Nutri-Grain became the second most liked breakfast biscuit market brand within nine months.

The moral of this story: Forewarned is forearmed !