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Check Yo Content: Marketing Screw ups they should have fixed

A while ago we posted this image to our social media platforms.

However what you didn't know is that this image could have caused a lot of issues. The the first version of this image had one simple change that made it completely unusable. The reason we caught this was because no member of our team feels above getting opinions from each other. One of our designers created the image and before sending it to me had me have a quick look at the work. The original image had one problem that was, from my desk a few meters away, glaringly obvious to me.

You might see it straight away, or you might have to get up and view it from a few feet away. Still don't see it? Well lets just say it resembles a symbol of a rather bad time in German history. I of course laughed when I saw this and told my colleague. “Oh shit it does” was the response I got. The solution was actually quite simple. We change the colour to be more orange, A single tone closer to red was the difference between good content and everyone thinking ‘why does it look like a swastika’. A single conversation was the difference between the original image being posted and causing issues for the company and a very quick and simple fix.

Now while we check our work before it goes live many companies clearly don't. So here are our favorite marketing screw ups that should never have been published.

1. Walkers crisps put a little to much faith in humanity and the internet took advantage. Submitting images of mass murderers, serial killers and gifs. The biggest problem was that this system was automated so there was no way to filter out the troll submissions from the real ones.

2.Unfortunately this brand didn't check their logo all to well. The logo for brand Locum reads a little more inappropriately than intended.

3. This one is marketing its ACTUAL PRODUCT they forgot to spell check, it does not take a GENIUS to figure out where H&M went wrong with this shirt.

4. Adidas forgetting about terrorism congratulating runners on surviving the marathon when a few years previously there was a terrorist attack during the same race.

5. DiGiorno Pizza jumping on a trending hashtag without any research. #whyistayed was in relation to staying with an abusive partner.

When all else fails and teams forget to check in before a post goes live there is just one fail safe that can save a company form being destroyed in the court of public opinion. No we don't mean replying to every comment and troll. A sincere apology is always the best, and often only, option.


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