This post is part of our Ads Gone Bad series. Share your thoughts and memories of this ad in the comments, and be sure to check out our other posts on marketing gone wrong.
At the start of the 20th century, two companies that would go on to dominate American industry were locked in a battle over which type of electrical current the country would embrace. The direct current (DC) champion in this War of the Currents was Thomas Edison and his company, General Electric (NYSE: GE), while Westinghouse, now part of CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS), pushed AC, alternating current, made commercially viable by Nikola Tesla.
To make his case that DC was safer than AC current, Edison conducted a number of public exhibitions in which he "Westinghoused" -- his term for electrocuted -- cats, dogs, and cows using AC. He also had constructed the first electric chair for New York, which was used in 1890 to attempt the execution of William Kemmler. Unfortunately, those in charge underestimated the current needed, resulting in what was described as a horrifying display of cruelty, leaving Kemmler alive but badly hurt.
Undisuaded, Edison continued his campaign of Westinghousing all sorts of mammals. Meanwhile, Coney Island's Luna Park was puzzling over what to do with its elephant Topsy, who had killed three of her handlers in three years (one of whom had been trying to feed her a lit cigarette). When the ASPCA stepped in to protest plans to hang the animal, the owners struck on the idea of electrocuting Topsy. Edison made sure cameras were on hand to capture the tragic event on January 4, 1903 as 6,600 volts of AC dropped her in her tracks He released the film under the title Electrocuting an Elephant.
This post is part of our Ads Gone Bad series. Share your thoughts and memories of this ad in the comments, and be sure to check out our other posts on marketing gone wrong.
One could question whether there could be an ad so controversial as to harm the fortunes of haute couture shops. Certainly, noted fashion house Dolce & Gabbana has tested that hypothesis with an ongoing series of sex-charged ads, one of which caused an Italian minister to accuse it of inciting gang rape.
That particular shot, in which a nubile young lady is pinned down by her wrists by a virile male under the interested gaze of several other men, was singled out for its intimation of violence toward women. Other ads by B&G have heavily homoerotic content, and one, a tableau of soldiers posed around a particularly attractive male with a bullet hole in his forehead, has even been thought by some to play on the naughty joys of necrophilia.
This post is one in a series on prominent company nicknames. See all 25, and share your thoughts and memories about Taco Hell below in the comments.
Homer Simpson, when naming his first child, eliminated many monikers that he feared would invite rhyming nicknames (Screwy Louie, etc.) before choosing Bart (D'oh!). Combine this human propensity, the heat of Mexican food, and a soupçon of suspicion that low prices equal lower-quality ingredients, and the nickname for Taco Bell, Taco Hell, seems inevitable.
The YUM! Brands (NYSE: YUM) chain was born in the same town and at the same time as Mickey D's -- San Bernardino, California. There Glen Bell began selling 19-cent tacos, made possible by his innovation, using pre-fried taco shells. His restaurants, then know as Taco Tia, spread throughout southern California. In Redlands, the football L.A. Rams players who trained nearby began flocking to Bell's shop, and two of them became his first franchisees. In 1962, Bell sold out his share of the existing restaurants, now called El Tacos, and started Taco Bell. He took the company public in 1966 and sold his holdings to PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) in 1975.
Shortly thereafter, the chain went international. It continued to grow thanks in part to savvy marketing, including one promotion offering a free taco to everyone in the U.S. if the Russian Mir space station, on its fall from orbit, were to hit a floating taco target in the Pacific. (It didn't.)
This post is one in a series on prominent company nicknames. See all 25, and share your thoughts and memories about the Tiffany Network below in the comments.
If CBS Corp.'s (NYSE:CBS) nickname The Tiffany Network were newly coined, I'd speculate that it referred to the long history of Tiffany's, and how the current CBS viewing public had probably begun shopping there back in the '20s. If the company has a more recently gained nickname, it would be the silver (-haired) network, due to the skewing of its viewership toward the geezer crowd.
In reality, the Tiffany moniker hearkens back to the CBS of radio's heyday and the early days of television. With the likes of Edward R. Murrow reporting from London during the Blitz, Orson Wells scaring the bejebus out of listeners with his broadcast of The War of the Worlds, the hit multi-cultural comedy I Love Lucy, and the iconic western Gunsmoke, the network's reputation for quality was once as glittering as one of Tiffany's diamond-pavéd bracelets.
How the mighty have fallen. CBS, with debacles such as the Katie Couric news anchor stint, now lags behind Fox in weekly ratings.
The Tiffany Network is part of a massive entertainment company with fingers in television (66% of revenues), radio (remember radio?) (12%), outdoor advertising (16%), and publishing (6%). Yes, those are all very 20th century businesses. The question troubling current investors is just how the company will move into the 21st century without swapping all its diamonds for rhinestones?
Yang busted some moves recently dancing with the star of Where the Hell is Matt?, the outstanding internet feature following adventurer and dancer (I use the term loosely) Matt Harding. Don't miss the video at the end of this post, if you're not familiar with Matt. - it's perhaps the most charming, uplifting video I've seen in years.
Of course, who can forget Steve Ballmer's dance at the podium during a Microsoft presentation? And, of course, Mark, 'Gimme the Cubs" Cuban performing on Dancing with the Stars?
Come to think of it, many CEOs are already quite accomplished at performing the fan dance with their balance sheets. Ex-Gov. Spitzer has shown his fondness for the hustle and the shag, while Donald Rumsfeld is still waiting for the cakewalk to begin. Senator Craig seems to favor the swing, while President Bush appears dead-set on taking on the Persian Dance before he waltzes out of the White House.
And me? Having lived through the Vietnam Era, I'm doing the Time Warp again.
This post is one in a series on prominent company nicknames. See all 25, and share your thoughts and memories about HoJo's below in the comments.
Howard Johnson's and its 28 flavors gave mid-20th-century Americans a view of the future: choice. In a time of eight-color boxes of Crayolas and three television stations, the implication of HoJo's abundance fired our imaginations. Though the restaurant chain had been in business since 1925, it took off during the depression when the founder adopted the now-traditional Cape Cod building with an orange roof topped by a weather vane of Simple Simon and the Pieman.
The company was also among the first to franchise, a major contributor to its growing success. With the advent of the national freeway system in the 1950s, Howard Johnson's quickly monopolized the rest stops and exits, making it larger than Micky D's, the King, and the Colonel combined.
Part of its success was in devising better prepackaged foods and a standardized menu, allowing the common Joe to work the grill. By 1954, the chain had grown to 400 restaurants, large enough to support expansion into the motor lodge business, catering to the increasingly mobile American traveler.
In the '60s, HoJos served more food to Americans than anyone except the U.S. Army. By the time the descendants of the founder sold the firm in 1980 to Imperial Group, the chain included 1,000 restaurants and 500 motor lodges.
The internet was buzzing last week after an article in the Shelbyville (that's right, I said Shelbyville), Tenn. Times-Gazette reported that Tyson Foods Inc (NYSE:TSN) employees at the local poultry plant could take off the Muslim holiday Eid Al-Fitr, which celebrates the end of Ramadan, instead of Labor Day. As you might expect in year seven of our 'war' on terrorism, some readers went apoplectic at the thought of an American corporation granting a non-Christian holiday.
Now Tyson is in a full-court press to respond to the story, and I think the company deserves consideration. Its press release explains that the exchange affects only this plant, and was granted in response to a request from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Stores Union. Around 250 of its members are Somali immigrants, legally in the U.S. as political refugees, who work at the plant.
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.
The cliché of the pencil-thin model is made corporeal in the body of supermodel Kate Moss, the waif that launched a thousand brands. Among those brands tying their fortune to her size 0 sails were H&M (STO:HMB), Burberry (LON:BRBY) and Chanel.
Leading the retreat were the brands to whom she had lent her good name, the same H&M, Burberry and Chanel. Each invoked the morals clause to terminate her contract, making that a multi-million dollar line of coke.
So that was the end of Moss, right? Think again. In the fashion world, morals transgressions are so, like, yesterday. Within a year, Moss had signed new contracts with Calvin Klein and other top fashions brands. Brendan Behan, who said there is no such thing as bad publicity (except your own obituary) knew what he was talking about, at least in the fashion world.
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.
By guest blogger Mike Brewster:
Former women's number one Martina Hingis hung up her tennis shoes for good last year after testing positive for cocaine in a post-match drug test -- within the hallowed confines of the All England Club Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (that's Wimbledon to you and me, pal), no less.
At one point Hingis' career was on a Chris Evert/Martina Navratilova-type trajectory, but got derailed by a slew of injuries that started in the late 1990s. The main culprit was a chronic foot problem she always maintained was caused by defective sneakers from her Italian sports apparel sponsor, Sergio Tacchini.
In 2001, Hingis filed a $40 million lawsuit against the company, claiming that the sneakers, which she wore from 1996 through 1999 as part of a $5.6 million endorsement deal, "were unsuitable for competition." Sergio Tacchini fired Hingis that same year as its main celebrity endorser.
Even though the Manhattan Supreme Court dismissed the suit in November 2002, the company never really recovered. The brand that once clothed John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Pete Sampras filed for bankruptcy last year, and just last month its remaining assets were purchased by Hong Kong businessman Billy Ngok. And as we all know, these days nothing says "quality athletic shoes" like Chinese manufacturing.
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.
Before Michael Vick, quarterbacks were (mostly) tall, slow white men who passed the football, handed it off or got creamed by pass rushers. Vick changed the game by combining the strength, speed and agility of a running back with the arm and savvy of a quarterback. With it, he turned the traditional also-ran Atlanta Falcons into a contender. How could any company in the sporting goods field not sign such a sure-fire hall-of-famer as a spokesperson?
And sign him they did. Nike (NYSE:NKE) created a "Michael Vick Experience" ad campaign. He appeared on the cover of the 2004 version of Electronic Arts' (NASDAQ:ERTS) Madden football. The sponsor money rolled in, and when the Falcons signed Vick to a 10-year, $130 million contract, he had reached the pinnacle of sports success.
Then came the expose. News reports tying Vick to a dog fighting ring, then naming him as the pivotal figure in a horrendous gang who raised killer dogs in a kennel on Vick's property and buried the losers nearby. By the time Vick was taken into custody, his brand was so fouled that companies couldn't back away from him fast enough. The only sales of equipment with his name on it was to dog owners who used them as chew toys.
In a fiasco, everyone involved suffers. I just wish the everybody here hadn't included innocent dogs.
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.
Basketball star Kobe Bryant may be this generation's Michael Jordon, a combination of lightning-quick moves, shooting touch and court savvy unmatched by any backcourt player in the world. As leader of the Los Angeles Lakers, he has become a fixture on the scoring leader stats sheet and the All-star roster.
Raised in Italy while his American father Joe "Jellybean" Bryant played basketball there, Bryant was a polished and appealing personality when he entered the NBA straight out of high school. His popularity quickly translated into lucrative endorsement contracts with Nike (NYSE:NKE), Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) and McDonald's (NYSE:MCD).
Therefore, the sports world was stunned when a Colorado hotel maid accused the married Bryant of sexually assaulting her. The resulting tawdry court case made Bryant the laughingstock of the league's fandom. Although the case was eventually settled out of court with Bryant's public apology, the damage had been done. McDonald's declined to renew its agreement with Bryant, having had one unhappy meal too many.
Since then, Bryant has mended his marriage, grown in his career (MVP in 2008), and regained endorsement contracts. I doubt, though, that you'll ever seen Kobe and Ronald McDonald share the court again.
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.
In the buildup to the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was the prohibitive favorite to win gold in the 100-meter sprint, having set a world record the year before at the World Championships. Many companies vied to tie their name to his speedy frame, and his coach estimated that Johnson was bringing in a cool $480,000 a month in endorsement money from companies such as the Italian family-owned sports company Diadora.
Once the Olympics began that September, the sponsors must have been high-fiving one another as Johnson, on the biggest stage in sports, broke his own 100-meter record by running a 9.79, which won him the gold medal.
He should have kept running, right out of the stadium and to a safe hiding place. Test of his urine found evidence that Johnson had been using steroids. He was stripped of his medal, his time was disallowed, and after further investigation, his 1987 world record was also invalidated. Diadora pulled its $2 million contract, and other sponsors followed suit. Johnson ended up living in his mother's basement, and Diadora probably made a bonfire of its Ben Johnson campaign.
The aftermath of this scandal is felt even today, as baseball and cycling struggle to overcome the same pollution of competition and incredulity of their fans. There's not a company in the world that yearns to cultivate the brand 'cheater'.
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.
In a confrontation between bombast and street cred, Fox mouth Bill O'Reilly managed to rip the Pepsi (NYSE:PEP) bottle from rapper Ludacris's live, warm fingers. In August of 2002, O'Reilly, upset with the musician's street language and what he perceived as glorification of crime and misogyny, called for a boycott of Pepsi. At the time, Ludacris was a featured representative of Pepsi, no doubt part of the companies attempt to reach out to the 18-34 demographic.
After the company dumped Ludacris in response to the boycott, Pepsi immediately stepped back into a pile of controversy by signing the rock and brain-damage icon Ozzy Osbourne, he of bat-head biting-off fame. (Nothing goes better with bat than an ice-cold Pepsi.)
O'Reilly's diatribe helped call attention to the brutality of Lucacris's lyrics, not atypical for the genre but fear-inspiring to the Fox nation. For example:
"Hollow laid hollow sprayed I'm the hollow man I get to my hollow point wit my hollow plan Hollow bullets I pull it I'm about to live in vain And then I drill em refill em make sure they feel the pain"
(BTW- Is this a shout-out to T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men?)
While the controversy cost Ludacris his Pepsi deal, O'Reilly was to swallow his tongue for a second time two years later when the rapper was signed by Anheuser-Busch (NYSE:BUD).
I don't see Bill O'Reilly pulling in big endorsement contracts these days. So who's your daddy now, Bill?
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.
Hip-hop/R&B artist Akon is the only person to have twice held both the first and second spots on the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously. Winner of a Grammy for his hit "Smack That", he has expanded his repertoire to include producing music and founding his own music production and distribution companies. Such a popular entertainer and entrepreneur would obviously be attractive to a company such as Verizon (NSYE:VZ), looking to hook into the cell-addicted young American.
Akon brought strong ties to the world market, too. Born in Senegal, and raised in New Jersey, a Muslim rumored to have wed multiple women, his exotic background added to his appeal.
Unfortunately, for Verizon, his background failed to properly prepare him to control his on-stage antics or properly estimate the age of his audience. In April of 2007, during a set in Trinidad and Tobago, Akon invited a young lady onto the stage to join him in a simulated sex routine. Unfortunately, the lady proved to be the 15-year-old daughter of a minister. Even more unfortunately, for Akon and Verizon, Akon's film crew recorded the incident and uploaded it to the web, where it drew great public censure. Shortly thereafter, Verizon pulled its sponsorship of Akon's Sweet Escape tour and quit offering his music as ring tones.
Akon's song "Sorry, Blame it On Me," is an apology to the young lady at the center of the scandal. Verizon is still waiting for its song of apology.
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.
In 1987, Anheuser-Busch (NYSE:BUD) was featuring renown musicians such as Stevie Winwood and Phil Collins in a "The Night Belongs to Michelob" ad campaign. I'm sure the ad hacks in charge thought they'd had a stroke of genius when they conceived of using Eric "Slowhand" Clapton, performing his hit "After Midnight", as part of the series. 1 a.m., guitar god, and Michelob; seems like a natural, right?
I can't help but think that someone should have checked on Clapton's habits before launching the ad. Having fought well-publicized heroin addiction and a taste for cocaine, Clapton revealed to Rolling Stone that at the time of the ad's release he was in a detox facility. Battling alcoholism. His nights belonged to imaginary snakes rather than dirty-dancing runway models.
My suggestion? I'd steer clear of junkies as spokespersons, unless I was selling needles, smack or size 0 dresses. The image of spokespeople puking their guts out doesn't make me yearn for a beer.
This post is part of our Ads Gone Bad series. Share your thoughts and memories of this ad in the comments, and be sure to check out our other posts on marketing gone wrong.
This post is part of our 
This post is one in a series on prominent company nicknames. 
This post is one in a series on prominent company nicknames. 
This post is one in a series on prominent company nicknames. 
The internet was buzzing last week after an article in the Shelbyville (that's right, I said Shelbyville), Tenn. Times-Gazette reported that 
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank t
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank t
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 
This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 
In the buildup to the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Canadian sprinter 
In a confrontation between bombast and street cred, Fox mouth
Hip-hop/R&B artist 
In 1987, 
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