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

Facebook - Facebook Home

Facebook. The phenomenon of the last decade, that had reached a billion users in 2012, and had a movie dedicated to its creator. Well, facebook had its failures too.
In 2013, Facebook decided that its customers, who are using more and more their smartphone for basically... everything, would probably like an alternative user environment, closer to them and that would facilitate their communication with their friends. And this is how Facebook launched Facebook Home, an Android app, aimed to replace a smartphone home screen. You could thus view your friends' updates and notifications on a full screen environment, which was also made in order to hide as much as possible the Android shape of the phone : the research bar is not visible for example.
On its app launching, facebook collaborated with HTC in order for the phone company to sell its new smartphone, the HTC First, with the pre-loaded app.

The facebook Home design

The problem is, no one wanted the facebook Home app. Not the users, not the phone sellers. The app was too invasive on the consumers' phones, and quickly on internet topics were created with a "how to get a rid of Facebook Home on the HTC First" subject.
Another face of the failure arose, that is quite embarrassing for Facebook : the app has been created by... Iphone users, who were therefore not aware enough of how an Android user thinks. The thing is, Android' USP (Unique Selling Point) is its personalization possibilities. Widgets, folders, or docks are all things that Apple doesn't offer in its smartphones. The constat is simple: How can you possibly create something that personal for a target that you don't even know ?

Morale of the story: Don't pull all your eggs in one basket !

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 !

Mattel - Earring Magic Ken

In the toys stereotypes' history Mattel is one of the major leaders. This company produces indeed the Barbie dolls since 1959 and her lover Ken since 1961. Barbie and Ken in addition to be the perfect man and woman, they are supposed to embody the perfect couple: they both are beautiful, rich and smart and sincerly love each other. It has always been a challenge for Mattel to keep them up to date.

In 1993 Mattel decides to interrogate several little girls to know what they expect about the Barbie and Ken couple. Mattel asked them a simple question : do you think that Barbie should have another boyfriend or should she stay with Ken ? The girls answered that she should stay with Ken but that Ken should be cooler.  This is how a new Ken, baptized Earring Magic Ken has been launched.

The Earring Magic Ken

As you can see, the Cool Ken wears a purple vest, a purple fishnet T-shirt, has an ear piercing and is blond. It seems therefore that the new Ken... is gay. At least this is was the public opinion's mind. A lot of journalists wrote and talked about it, from the New-York Times to People Magazine and CNN. A columnist wrote an article in a gay journal, The Stranger, talking about how heterosexuals had begun to take the homosexuals codes. Later in his article he also explains his point of view concerning this (bad) marketing choice. According to him the little girls' "cool" concept was not coming from the boys from their environment like their fathers, brothers or uncles. They were actually looking at MTV, Madonna's dancers clothes, or at these guys on TV parading for the rights equality.

After a few times where Mattel did not know what to do (criticism was going on but they couldn't take Gay Ken out of the shelves without being seen as homophobic) they finally decided to stop its production after the The Stranger's edition. 

Mattel's mistake has been not to understand where this "cool" concept was coming from, and to forget that even if the dolls are designed to be liked by little girls, parents actually buy it so they must be convenient for them as well.

However the Gay Ken had a lot of success in the gay community and is now a collector item, being sold around 50$ on Ebay.

Today the Mattel's dolls are convenient for everyone and the new dolls range, High Monsters, is the latest brand's success. Mattel is still one of the toys brand leaders next to Hasbro and Lego. 

Morale of the story: One man's meat is another man's poison!