Do you guys remember "balloon boy?" He and his family are my most vivid memory of a PR stunt gone wrong - and WOW it went way wrong - but probably not in the way you think.
The story most of us know is that the family faked the boy accidentally taking off in a home-made balloon when he had been hiding in the attic the whole time. They were turned into memes, there was jail time involved, and tons of fines. That all sounds pretty bad, but it turns out that story may be a PR spin in and of itself.
There's evidence to suggest the whole thing was a legitimate accident and the family really didn't know the boy wasn't in the balloon, but the city needed to save face. That "saving face" involved threats of deportation (mom is Japanese), tormenting the family with endless interrogation, separating the children and questioning them illegally, and divulging false information to the media. For example, police officers told reporters that the family called the news stations for attention and then called the police. Records prove that the family first called military air service, then the police and called the media last - they were trying to secure a helicopter that could track the balloon. There's a lot more to the story, but we might never know the truth; only that it was a PR disaster the whole way around.
Reddit user u/Swordsy50 asked:
What's the best(worst) public relations stunt you've seen?
Kick back and enjoy some serious shenanigans, courtesy of Reddit and corporate fail whale fantasticness.
LifeLock
When LifeLock's CEO put his social security number on the side of a truck to show how secure their service was.
He ended up getting his identity stolen 13 times and the company got fined 12 million dollars for deceptive advertising.
- BoiNil
That Backfired Quickly
I'd have to go with the time Bill Cosby's twitter account tried to get people to turn his face into a meme. The linked a meme generator with a picture of Cosby's face. This resulted in #cosbymeme with lots of posts about his assault allegations, which were really coming to a head right around the same time.
- othybear
A Jet
Has to be the Pepsi Points / Harrier Jet situation.
Pepsi had one of those "points" promotions going in the 90s (collect points, redeem them for crap). Pepsi had an ad that said that for 7,000,000 Pepsi points, you could get a Harrier jet. The jet was worth ~$33m . The contest rules said you could buy points for 10 cents a piece. Sooo, for a cool $700k, you could potentially get the jet.
Someone tried to do just that, and sued when Pepsi wouldn't comply
- frnoss
Kendall Jenner's Shameful Secret
That new-ish Proactive campaign with Kendall Jenner. She pretended to have some dark, shameful secret and revealing it was going to be this big, empowering thing. Then the day came and it turned out she just had acne. That was easily the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
Taylor Swift
When Taylor Swift let the internet vote on what school she would perform at, and the top voted school was "Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing."
Taylor Swift discussed doing a gig, but between her and the school decided to donate money instead, she also gave the students of the school tickets for her next local concert. So all in all a pretty good reaction to a bit of internet trolling and a win for all concerned :)
Balloons
Balloon Fest in Cleveland in 1986 put on by United Way. Who knew that launching 1.5 million balloons would cause havoc around the city and lead to two deaths? There was a boat accident and authorities couldn't find the survivors because the balloons covered the water.
- Ersh777
Dan v. Dave
Reebok launched the "Dan vs Dave" campaign in the 90's for the Olympics hyping up who is the greatest athlete in the world Dan O'Brien or Dave Johnson. The commercials were non stop. They were decathlon athletes and clear favorites. It was always a major risk to sink so much time and money into a sport barely anyone watched. It became a nightmare for Reebok when O'Brien failed to even qualify to make the Olympics. Johnson only won bronze.
Just Guess
That time Snapple tried to have a fucking world record sized popsicle in NYC in the beginning of summer?
Guess what happened. Just guess.
An article about it said:
"What was unsettling was that the fluid just kept coming," Stuart Claxton of the Guinness Book of World Records told the Daily News. "It was quite a lot of fluid. On a hot day like this, you have to move fast."
I'm f*cking crying, that sounds equal parts horrifying and incredibly funny.
- Ulti
Wrong Casey
Telstra (Australian phone company), promoting Australian Idol winner, Casey Donovan, by linking to her website caseydonovan.com.au except they left off the au suffix and it introduced thousands of teenage fans to the world of gay US porn star Casey Donovan.
Not For Women
Anyone else remember Dr. Pepper's bizarre "It's Not for Women." campaign? They were trying to corner the men's diet soft drink market, so for their new product Dr. Pepper Ten, their ad campaign literally just explicitly stated "It's Not for Women." Like dude, c'mon, I get you want to market toward men, by why blatantly alienate half of your potential customer base??
Redditor arbetarbladet wanted to hear about the reasons people will leave the search for love behind.
They asked:
"What's a dealbreaker when it comes to dating?"
Draw a line in the sand and stick to it.
Start
I Mean Episode 18 GIF by FriendsGiphy"They don't initiate ANYTHING such as dates or intimacy."
Blackcore8
Obsessed
"The date being obsessed with themselves or continually talking about their ex partners."
LMcGenius
"Went on a date many years ago. This was one of my first dates after my wife left me. On this date the woman kept asking about my ex. Probably half of her questions were about the ex."
"Naturally I answered her questions but always tried to move the conversation back to me, her, whatever. Next day she texts and says she didn't think I was ready to date, that I was clearly still in love with my ex because I kept talking about her on our date."
BigPorter
Fixer Upper
"A ‘fix me’ person. I will support you to be your best. But I am not responsible to fix you."
nadanope11
"I think what’s even worse is when they treat you like you’re the fix-me-up. It’s very condescending and humiliating. That’s more of a pet relationship."
sebastianbass740
"I have a bad habit of picking partners who need fixing, it's unconscious really, but it's happened often enough to be an obvious pattern. And even as a person who sought out this trait, dealing with a person who needs to be fixed is exhausting."
L0vely_lacy
Blocked him fully...
"When u notice that they want to change you into ways they like more, subtle hints at start but progressively they get more ballsy."
Draxxony
"I dated a guy who saw me as a lump of clay he could mold to his liking. I told him repeatedly that I was uninterested in attending grad school despite getting great fellowships because I got the job I thought I needed graduate school for."
"He sat me down and told me he could leverage some of his connections to get me into a good program, I told him absolutely not and that I didn't need his help, that I had gotten into good programs,, and he ignored me and just kept on with his pitch. I broke things off directly after this and he vetoed and said he didn't agree so we were still together. Blocked him fully."
SahmiSahm
BRUSH!!
teeth brushing GIF by Michelle PorucznikGiphy"Not brushing your teeth/poor dental hygiene on a regular basis."
Ohyeahimoverhereyeah
Teeth are the key to life.
Stench
spray odor GIFGiphy"Old body odor stank."
Beavshak
"People need to realize that just because you don't smell it doesn't mean other people don't smell it. It's the same sh*t a smoker thinks."
DesperateTall
Earther...
"Flat Earther."
karmaredemption
"I just recently dated a Flat Earther! Didn’t find out until a few months in. Also didn’t find out about his ex being pregnant with his baby several months in, that was the dealbreaker for me but I should have stopped at Flat Earther."
Merskeet
"Or Young Earther."
"A couple years ago I dated a guy for a month before learning that he believed the world was just 6000 years old. The day I learned that, I showed up at the house of my biologist friends who had just been ranting about their college students who didn't 'believe' in evolution. I set down the beer and backpack I was holding and said, 'Guys, he's a Young Earther.' Took them a second to sort it out, and then we all collapsed with laugher. I broke up with him within the week."
firsttimetexan
RAGE!!
"A bad temper."
alval98
"My stepfather had a bad temper. Never violent, but I could never understand why my mother married him. Never date, much less marry someone with a bad temper."
MissNightTerrors
Not a Weapon
"Using their mental illness as part of their identity. No attempt to truly address it and leverage their illness to guilt others."
Toogern
"It's maybe not the best thing to talk about during a first date. But it's the kind of thing I would want my date to know beforehand. I'd rather be told that she's not interested because of my mental illness than not telling her and letting her discover this side of me."
OnTheDevilsGrave
Adults Only
Gary Coleman 80S GIFGiphy"As someone who doesn't want children, dating someone who does is a dealbreaker. Suffered a couple broken hearts over having to make this decision."
_JazminBianca
"This is so important! And, to add, believe someone when they say they don't want kids. Don't take it to mean that they don't want them right now, or any time soon. If they firmly don't want children, that's not likely to change."
pspisy
Deals to the self are important. Stay true...
