{"id":2206,"date":"2015-04-01T11:05:41","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T11:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/2015\/04\/01\/3-embarrassing-digital-marketing-blunders-by-big-brands\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T10:02:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T10:02:37","slug":"3-embarrassing-digital-marketing-blunders-by-big-brands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/2015\/04\/01\/3-embarrassing-digital-marketing-blunders-by-big-brands\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Embarrassing Digital Marketing Blunders by Big Brands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Website design, user experience, CRO<\/a>, content, PPC, display, email, SEO… these are the varied elements and channels that make up online marketing. But what unifies all of them in a productive and efficient way?<\/p>\n

Digital Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n

As part of your digital strategy, you should plan your budget against estimated returns and assess the opportunities available to you through each medium.<\/p>\n

You should also be looking at the marketplace, your audience, how they will respond to your efforts and also what makes you unique. Digital strategy covers all your online activity \u2013 it should dictate which channels you use and the messaging you use on them.<\/p>\n

Considering how important it is, you\u2019d think big companies would have their digital strategy down. However, that\u2019s not always the case.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at some infamous digital strategy mistakes from big brands that should have known better.\n<\/p>\n

British Gas \u2013 Lack of Foresight<\/h2>\n

In 2013, British Gas decided to run \u2018#askBG\u2019, a Twitter event where they planned to answer questions about a recently announced 9.2% price rise.<\/p>\n

The torrent of online vitriol was extreme \u2013 experts called it \u2018one of the worst PR disasters\u2019 ever seen on social media. Encouraging customer feedback, just after you\u2019ve announced a hugely unpopular and controversial price hike \u2013 this had disaster written all over it.<\/p>\n

\"digital<\/center>From a strategic standpoint, there was clearly a lack of planning and understanding on the part of British Gas. One look at their audience\u2019s historical response to this kind of price rise would\u2019ve told them how this was going to go.<\/p>\n

Unpopular decisions are always difficult from a marketing perspective, but you need to make sure your marketing strategy uses online channels to soften the blow \u2013 not make it hit even harder.<\/p>\n

Lesson learnt:<\/strong> Analyse the landscape – plan ahead<\/p>\n

American Apparel \u2013 Repeatedly Overstepping the Line<\/h2>\n

Defining your tone of voice is an important part of developing your digital strategy \u2013 your brand identity should drive all marketing activity.<\/p>\n

American Apparel have that down, they\u2019re edgy, political, sexy.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with this in concept. The adage exists for a reason, sex really does sell. Pushing the boundaries, generating controversy? That can work in your favour too.<\/p>\n

\"digital<\/center>If you\u2019re trying to be sexy and edgy, what\u2019s the worst thing that can happen? You get slapped down for sexualising children.<\/a> Twice.<\/a><\/p>\n

Sorry, make that three times.<\/a><\/p>\n

What makes this even worse? American Apparel recognised this was a problem \u2013 they replaced their CEO in January 2014. She wanted to tone down the brand\u2019s imagery, stating:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be overtly sexual. There\u2019s a way to tell our story where it\u2019s not offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was before the second and third incidents mentioned above. Clearly, there was a disconnect between American Apparel\u2019s marketing output, what they wanted want to do and what they could get away with.<\/p>\n

Controversy is good to a point \u2013 but there is a limit. If their questionable sexual content gets enough negative courage, even their most stalwart customers will be turned off.<\/p>\n

Lesson learnt:<\/strong> Unify intent and output \u2013 communication is key<\/p>\n

New England Patriots \u2013 Putting Their Fate in the Hands of Social Media<\/h2>\n

Social media is a powerful tool and one that can be an effective part of your strategy. However, if you don\u2019t have an effective plan it can blow up in the face of even the biggest brands.<\/p>\n

One of the most painful examples of this befell multiple Superbowl winning American Football team the New England Patriots.<\/p>\n

Aiming to push their Twitter account up to 1 million followers, becoming the first NFL team to do so, they ran a campaign where names would be picked from the pool of new followers in the run up to the target. Winners received a digital thank you from the team \u2013 including the winning Twitter handles emblazoned across the back of a team jersey and posted for the world to see.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this resulted in a Twitter handle including a racist slur being retweeted by the team. The automated system used to create the digital thank yous failed to recognise the offensive language, and thus the entire campaign backfired \u2013 with the Patriots social media team scrambling to apologise and explain the mishap.<\/p>\n

\"digital<\/center>What can we learn from this? Social media is powerful and opens up promotion opportunities that are worth taking, but when you give it free reign you are essentially rolling the dice with your public image.<\/p>\n

The only thing that can keep a handle on social media is a human being \u2013 and even that isn\u2019t foolproof. But letting an automated system do something like this, where you\u2019re going to retweet or use content that has come in from the public… that is a recipe for disaster.<\/p>\n

Lesson Learnt:<\/strong> Maintain control<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t find yourself on a list like this.<\/h2>\n

You don\u2019t want to be on a list somewhere as a company that\u2019s made a digital strategy mistake like this. Download our guide and answer the question: Can you afford not to have a digital strategy?<\/a><\/p>\n

\"digital<\/a><\/center>Comment below and let us know the worst digital strategy fail you\u2019ve seen or share the article and see how painful your friends find these blunders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Website design, user experience, CRO, content, PPC, display, email, SEO… these are the varied elements and channels that make up online marketing. But what unifies all of them in a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[],"related_service":[50],"related_industry":[],"class_list":["post-2206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital-strategy"],"acf":[],"card":"

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\n Blog <\/p>\n \n

\n 3 Embarrassing Digital Marketing Blunders by Big Brands\n <\/h2>\n <\/a> <\/div>\n
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\n Website design, user experience, CRO, content, PPC, display, email, SEO… these are the varied elements and channels that make up online marketing. But what unifies all of them in a… <\/div>\n
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\n 01 April 2015 <\/p>\n

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\n Digital Strategy <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/article>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2206"},{"taxonomy":"related_service","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related_service?post=2206"},{"taxonomy":"related_industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.elixirrdigital.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related_industry?post=2206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}