MARKETING FAILURES of 2018
How’s everyone doing this Monday night? This week’s topic is going to be similar to the week on Viral Marketing. But this time, I’m going to be doing something different. I’ll be showing one you some of the biggest marketing failures of 2018.
Before getting into all that, let’s talk about IMC for a bit here.
IMC, or better known as Integrated Marketing Communications is essentially, a concept that calls for the integration of all aspects of communications and messages. It is about marrying the various components of a campaign to ensure that the brand’s message to its audience is coherent and consistent.
There are many benefits to IMC, here’s some to name a few:
Customer Loyalty – With IMC being a form of relationship marketing, it helps a brand form a bond with its audience and this protects them from the advances of other competitors.
Increased Profits – This is made possible with increased effectiveness. A brand equipped with a clear, unified and consistent message has a higher chance of “breaking through the clutter”. As IMC utilises various communication channels/tools, this creates more avenues for consumers to be aware of the brand, and to ultimately, make a purchase.
Reduced Cognitive Dissonance – Exposure to consistent, and more importantly, relevant images and messages can help to reduce frustration, anxiety and confusion in consumers. This puts the brand in a more credible position in consumers’ minds.
Now, on to the exciting bit – here are some of the biggest marketing failures in 2018!
The #DGlovesChina campaign by Dolce & Gabbana featured a Chinese model in an advertisement, attempting to eat Italian food with a pair of chopsticks.
In the video, the model is seen struggling to get a grip on foods like a pizza, cannoli and spaghetti.
The advertisement sparked furor with Chinese people, with many taking it online to slam the campaign for its distasteful content. People were outraged over the depiction of Chinese people, as lacking an understanding of culture and refinement. Here’s a video done by Asian Boss, where they interviewed people on the streets of Shanghai.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the end of the incident. A couple of days later, Instagram account @diet_prada exposed Stefano Gabbana by releasing screenshots of Instagram messages between him and model Michele Tranovo. In the messages, the D&G co-founder was seen to accuse the model of eating dogs and he name-called her “China Ignorant Dirty Smelling Mafia” after she pointed out to him that the advertisement can come across as patronising and racist.
While the brand’s two founders have since came forward to issue a formal apology and state that both the brand’s account and Stefano Gabbana’s were hacked, many people found it hard to believe as Steffano Gabbana has had a habit of picking online fights with high-profile personalities – Elton John, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez.
This fiasco saw the hashtag #BoycottDolce trending on social media site Weibo and the brand had to cancel their Shanghai show, costing them millions of dollars. Many consumers also threw away their luxury items and vowed to boycott the brand.
In January 2018, Estée Lauder launched a new range of foundation. There were over 30 shades, but more than half were catered towards women of very light skin colour, with minimal options for women of colour. Many people felt that this sent out a wrong message – this expensive makeup brand is for white women.
In January, H&M released an image on its website to market one of its new clothing for children.
In the picture, is a picture of a boy of perhaps, African-American heritage, wearing a hoodie with the printed words “coolest monkey in the jungle”. What made it worse was a Caucasian boy standing next to him, seemingly looking down at the boy with a frown.
Needless to say, there were heated online discussions with many calling out the brand for cultural insensitivity.
Even international artist, The Weeknd, whom has collaborated with H&M in the past announced that he would no longer be working with the brand.
To sum up this week’s post, I’d like to share the four factors to consider when using an integrated approach.
Coherence – Different communications should be logically connected
Consistency – When having multiple messages, they should not contradict but instead, reinforce each other
Continuity – Communications are connected and consistent through time
Complementary – All aspects should be in synergy; the sum of all parts is greater than its whole
I hope this post has been fun for you, it certainly has been for me writing it. Come share with me what do you think of these campaigns or if you have seen any other marketing fails!
Till then, have a great week!
The Deserving Truth 
Hi Deborah, very informative post. I enjoyed reading your thoughts on Integrated Marketing Communications, or more commonly known as IMC. I also love how you explain the 4Cs, which are Coherence, Consistency, Continuity, and Complementary!
I like how you give clear examples of unsuccessful IMC campaigns. For example, the Chinese model attempting to eat Italian food with chopsticks, as well as the Caucasian boy looking down on the African-American boy. The marketers did not do their market research before the launch of the IMC campaigns. As a result, it received backlash from the public.
However, what is some examples of successful IMC campaigns? Do share with me your thoughts.
I appreciate if you can head over to my blog and leave me a comment as well!
digitalmarketingblogsherman.home.blog/2019/08/18/viral-marketing/
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Hi Sherman, it’s nice to hear from you again 🙂 Personally, I’m not one to believe that there’s bad marketing campaigns, it’s probably just a series of poor marketing decisions. I agree with you, marketing teams need to do extensive research because a brand accused of, i.e. cultural appropriation, can almost never bounce back up. Take the case of H&M, The Weeknd announced that he won’t be working with the brand anymore, and that’s a huge loss for H&M because as an international artist, The Weeknd has a vast fan base all around the world. Talk about losing an opportunity, huh.
To get to your question, the Old Spice “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign is actually my favorite. I wrote about it on my post on Viral Marketing. If you want to read more about it, here’s the link – https://thedeservingtruth.home.blog/2019/08/10/43/. Another successful example is the lottery advertisement done by King agency. The concept of the advertisement was that the Swedish lottery asked some individuals what they’d like to experience if they actually won the lottery. With VR and 5D technology, the individuals were gifted a sensory experience of what they desired. This got people talking about what they’d do if they won and this essentially increased participation in the lottery.
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Hi Deborah, I loved the examples that you’ve provided – especially the Estee Lauder one. It’s unbelievable no one in the company questioned the marketing department before the photos went live. But did they do anything to remedy the situation? Or did they just leave it at that? It’ll be great if you share with me more on the consequences of their flawed IMC plan!
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Hi Grace, to my knowledge, Estée Lauder did not make any changes to the shade range as it was already launched. But they did take note of consumer feedback and made sure that their subsequent makeup launches were more inclusive 🙂
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Hi Deborah!
Interesting read about your post on IMC! I must agree that IMC has lots of benefits, and I quite like the benefit of customer loyalty as customers are your bases that can get your business or brand growing. It is very interesting to see how brands and firms have different IMC and what are their strong and weak points. This is crucial for marketers as we get to study their IMC campaigns and focus on their strengths and not to execute the same mistakes.
Being consistent with your IMC campaigns is very important as customers want the simplest way to understand our intentions and being consistent is one of them that helps. Also, we must not forget to incorporate other marketing tools, such as 6 STEPPS of virality, word-of-mouth and influencer marketing that will make up a successful campaign. We must adapt and stay relevant to the changing technology that is happening and that is very important for us to study consumers and capturing their hearts.
Overall, a good read 🙂 thank you so much for sharing! Looking forward for more!
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Hello JQ, I’m glad you enjoyed the post 🙂 Yes, as marketers, we need to be able to keep up with the changing trends of consumers and the environment. Sounds demanding, but I believe the company’s success is partly dependent on how much effort it puts in to stay relevant.
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