Even the most well-intentioned PR stunts can give way to absolute and utter catastrophe. Every action is ripe for a fail that we hopefully find ourselves honoring back here at Fail Blog, one day. In this case, we've pooled together some of the world's most notable PR stunt fails, for your enjoyment. And we don't think they'll disappoint. How about that whole LifeLock madness? Todd, you savage.
marketing
The online fake feud between Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman was a wildly entertaining spectacle to behold. As fans, we got to sit back and enjoy a couple witty celebrities, engage in the kind of playful, snarky banter we might lend ourselves over to with friends and associates in our daily life. It was relatable. And that was the beauty of it. "Tweet reports" indicate that the two men are calling an "official truce" and will be helping each other out in some marketing efforts. I'll believe it when I see it. I'm keeping the faith that there's some more trolling and roasting lurking around the corner from at least one of 'em!
Author, Kate O'Neill used her platform on Twitter to encourage people participating in online activities like the recent, trending profile picture aging meme on Facebook, to slow down and think about it critically. O'Neill asks people to consider how willingly posting that information online for Facebook's seemingly sentient algorithm to digest, can have a ripple effect on society as a whole; how that information can be fed into worldwide databases, sold off to advertising agencies, and used to exploit the very people that upload it, without considering the impacts, in the process. She doesn't aim to inspire panic in this Twitter thread, but instead, she wants us to think critically when considering the fast-changing landscape of the world around us. Some solid advice!
We swear this isn't an ad for Denny's. We just wanna show you all the weird shit they're posting online. We didn't think Denny's new marketing strategy to appeal to tech-savvy youths could get stranger. Then we found out they've discovered Tumblr. Here's 19 head-scratching moments made possible by whatever the hell Denny's is doing to sell pancakes.
The notoriously outspoken T-Mobile CEO seized the moment and poked fun at Verizon for releasing their earnings reports on the most acclaimed and toasted and stoned of days: "This is the same company that's made questionable decisions one after the other for the past four years and now finds itself losing customers to T-Mobile on a regular basis," a company spokesperson wrote. "There's really only one explanation… Verizon has been #VerHIGHzon this whole time."
The company then proceeded to repeatedly post a couple memes (see below) in an almost obsessively compulsive fashion; both were posted several times with different text:
Can we just give the bad-mouthed merc the big shiny golden trophy he so damn well deserves, and at the very least for his string of stellar performances amidst some pleasantly raunchy marketing campaigns. Speaking of which, let's take a quick trip down memory lane...
Yukon Health and Social Services is running a campaign to remind people to take their vitamin D. Might have wanted to give this a second read before printing them off, or at the very least let someone older than 13 sign off on the slogan.
Deadpool underwent a brief re-branding, posing as a romantic comedy with a lovely new poster. Some men decided to take advantage of this by "tricking" their girlfriends and wives into seeing it with them on Valentines day. To the surprise of no one, it turns out that most women who have not been hiding under a rock for a while know what the highly publicized comic book movie is about.
