A review of the top 10 advertising and marketing failures in 2021

2021 is coming to an end and the new year is about to arrive. It is time to review the annual performance and look forward to the new year.

Advertising and marketing "crashes" happen every year, but there were particularly many in 2021. Multiple brands in multiple industries accidentally suffered a "big crash" in advertising, marketing or promotion. There was even one brand that "crashed" twice in a year.

1. A company’s advertising “failed” twice in one year

In January 2021, Changan Ford mistook the traditional Chinese Year of the Ox for the Year of the Horse in its advertisement, which triggered overwhelming criticism from the market. Netizens jokingly commented that in ancient times, Zhao Gao called a deer a horse, and now Ford calls a cow a horse.

On May 18, a Changan Ford advertisement evaluated the speed of the car lifting up a girl’s skirt, saying that in Japanese anime, boys lift up girls’ skirts when running at high speeds. Is this true? There is also a topic word attached: A feast for your eyes. This advertisement was commented as being very disgusting and vulgar. Many authoritative media outlets, including Xinhuanet and CCTV Finance, have also made serious comments on this.

Changan Ford's advertising "crashed" twice in one year, creating a big joke for the sake of publicity. In particular, the advertisement about lifting skirts to test car speed caused public discomfort. This once again tells us that good advertising must abide by laws and regulations, respect consumers, and win people's hearts.

2. The "0 sugar scam" promoted by Internet celebrity drinks for many years has been exposed

In recent years, the internet-famous beverage Yuanqi Forest has been using 0 calories and 0 sugar as its promotional selling points, which has especially attracted young people to buy it. However, in June of this year, Yuanqi Forest used the term "no sucrose" in a milk tea product, which caused heated discussion. It turns out that the sugar-free product that Yuanqi Forest has been promoting actually contains sugar, but it is just sucrose-free. It turned out to be a "0 sugar scam"!

Later, Yuanqi Forest publicly apologized and promised to clearly mark the formula and modify the formula on subsequent packaging. Corporate advertising and marketing rely on concepts to attract consumers, but there is no need for pseudo-concepts. Lies will always be exposed one day.

3. A "failed" advertisement to "commemorate oneself"

April 4th is my country's traditional Qingming Festival. Meizu Technology posted a Weibo message saying "In memory of the cancelled advertisement." In response, netizens expressed their discomfort.

No wonder netizens said: If Meizu continues to do this, it will sooner or later sacrifice itself. Regardless of the festival, corporate brands always hope to take advantage of the hot spots, but some traditional festivals are very serious, and not all festival hot spots can be used as hot spots.

This time, Meizu failed by taking advantage of the Qingming Festival popularity, which is actually worthy of deep reflection for all companies and brands.

4. Controversy caused by a Weibo post

Early in the morning of May 4th Youth Day this year, Tencent Public Relations Director Zhang Jun posted a Weibo post saying: "While we are busy planning various tributes to young people, the young people are sleeping." Zhang Jun's remarks quickly sparked heated discussions, especially among many young netizens. Some netizens even responded bluntly: The weasel is wishing a happy new year to the chicken, but the chicken hasn't even gotten up yet.

The above remarks quickly sparked heated discussions among netizens, and the topic "How do you view Tencent's Zhang Jun's youth remarks" became a hot search on Weibo, with as many as 120 million views.

As a public relations practitioner, Zhang Jun made personal remarks on an important holiday, which caused social controversy and lacked professional rigor. Marketing must be sincere and come from the heart to resonate with the public. If a company only markets for the sake of marketing, then isn't that just self-entertainment? I would like to ask how many companies are not like this?

5. Even advertising experts fail

In June this year, Nongfu Spring, known as an expert in advertising and marketing, launched a new product of soda sparkling water. The advertising slogan "Made in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan" appeared on the outer packaging of the advertisement, which was suspected to be based on Fukushima, Japan, causing heated discussion. Against the backdrop of the highly publicized Fukushima nuclear leak in Japan, it is easy to cause misunderstanding among consumers.

Although Nongfu Spring later responded, saying that this sparkling water is a flavored beverage and that its ingredients do not contain any ingredients imported from Fukushima, Japan, and that the ingredient, the Dawn White Peach, is native to Fukushima and was introduced to my country in the last century, it has nothing to do with the origin of the Dawn White Peach.

Every detail in an advertisement must be grasped accurately and carefully considered. Nongfu Spring obviously ignored the details behind it for the sake of product selling points, which can easily cause misunderstanding among consumers. More importantly: advertising should always be objective and factual and respect consumers.

6. No bottom line for riding on the popularity

On August 23, Nezha Auto, a new car-making force, staged a marketing farce of "inviting Wu Yifan to be the spokesperson for five minutes" to attract attention. This is really a hype for the sake of hype. They are crazy about becoming famous!

Wu Yifan has been detained for suspected illegal activities. Many brands have distanced themselves from him, authoritative media have criticized him by name, and all platforms have banned related accounts. Brands can't even hide from it at this point, so why bother to take advantage of this popularity?

The People's Daily commented on this, saying that some corporate marketers took advantage of the "opportunity" to pursue "stink" and profit, and in order to "continuously create hot spots, even if they did something wrong they could become hot spots" they engaged in malicious marketing without any bottom line, and even thought of response strategies, fully demonstrating their crooked professional ethics and values.

7. The top luxury car ads that even “Principal Wang” thinks are low

In September this year, Rolls-Royce China invited internet celebrity couple Wanwan and Lin Han to create a promotional video. It originally wanted to use the internet celebrity couple's test drive to show the Rolls-Royce Cullinan traveling south of the Tianshan Mountains to demonstrate the adventurous spirit of this luxury car, but it "failed"!

Some Rolls-Royce owners left messages saying that the spokesperson lowered the quality of the customer base. Even Wang Sicong couldn't help but make a joke on Weibo: I suddenly feel that RR is very low-class and I won't buy it in the future. Rolls-Royce's invitation of an internet celebrity to be its spokesperson triggered a large amount of negative public opinion backlash, with netizens shouting: Does Rolls-Royce need a spokesperson?

When a company or brand hires a spokesperson, it is very important that the spokesperson's image, temperament, resume, and life philosophy are consistent with the company's and brand's own philosophy and brand image. Otherwise, the impact of a "crash" will be very large.

8. Extraordinary "aesthetics" actually "uglify Asian women"

An online work exhibited at the "Dior and Art" exhibition in Shanghai in November this year showed a sinister look, a dark complexion, heavy eyeshadow, Qing Dynasty armor... The image was extremely uncomfortable to watch and was suspected of "vilifying the image of Asians", triggering a barrage of criticism from netizens.

The China Women's News commented that the photos released by Dior showed the "arrogance and prejudice" of Western brands in aesthetics and culture, and reflected the intention to vilify the image of Chinese women and distort Chinese culture. As the incident continued to ferment, Dior removed the controversial photo from its social media platform without giving any explanation.

China is an important global luxury consumption market. For any brand, causing controversy will be detrimental to its brand image. Although art can have different perspectives, it cannot be separated from the public aesthetic, otherwise it will inevitably "turn over."

9. The "big crash" caused by the failure of wool-pulling

L'Oreal's Double Eleven promotion "turned upside down". After a L'Oreal facial mask was launched in the live broadcast rooms of Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, it was claimed to be "the biggest promotion of the year". In fact, it was not worthy of its name. The pre-sale price was 429 yuan, and buy 20 pieces and get 30 pieces free. However, in L'Oreal's official live broadcast room, similar products only cost 257.5 yuan.

This soon triggered a wave of collective complaints from consumers, as well as an arm wrestling match between top internet celebrities and international cosmetics giants. The popularity in November belonged to L'Oréal Paris, with multiple topics searched over 100 million times, including 800 million views of the L'Oréal apology topic. However, this popularity was considered "black red". Later, L'Oréal provided a supplementary plan, and the matter gradually died down amid controversy.

What the battle for the lowest price reflects is that consumers only want to buy at the lowest price. E-commerce live streaming is no longer an era of "competing for low prices".

10. The “Rainbow Fart” ceiling has collapsed

In the last month, a "big essay" on the official account of Shanghai Wenfeng Beauty and Hairdressing Group made us know Chen Hao, the president of Wenfeng Group, who possesses "super powers". This "Brother Hao" has opened his "third eye" and is proficient in the "Six-Harmony Resurrection Technique", which has aroused heated public discussion. Soon, this "Brother Hao" was involved in business issues such as inducing large consumption and false propaganda and was investigated by the market regulatory agency.

On December 7, Wenfeng Company was fined 100,000 yuan by the market regulator for promoting "massage cure" in its advertisements. Wenfeng was constantly on the hot searches, and the topic of "rainbow fart" was on the hot searches, which triggered criticism. Although "Brother Hao" later came out to accept media interviews and responded publicly, Wenfeng issued an apology statement on the Double Twelve day, expressing his willingness to accept supervision and resolutely make rectifications.

An article full of flattery caused a "big crash" for Wenfeng Group. Although there were many funny moments, it made people see the personal worship of the boss by employees. I dare to ask, are there many companies like this? How many workers treat their leaders or bosses differently?

The above are just a small selection of representative incidents of NBS new products that "crashed" in 2021 for various reasons. In fact, many more "crashed" incidents have occurred, but each incident is worthy of reflection and deep thought.

Author: Wu Wenwu

Source: NBS New Products (ID:nbscaijing)