It can take years for a company to build up a good reputation. And just a few seconds to throw it down the drain. It's one thing for a business to make a really bad move. But the way the team handles the aftermath can make or break them.
Take Boeing, for example. You might remember an incident in 2024 where passengers were left terrified after a piece of the Alaska Airlines plane blew off mid-flight. They were traveling at 16,000 feet in the sky when it happened. It was just one of several major safety issues in recent years. Instead of tackling the crises head-on, the aeronautical company came under fire for their lacklustre responses and avoidance of press conferences. Boeing ended up losing billions last year and it's still struggling to recover. Public relations experts believe there might have been less reputation damage had the corporation dealt with things differently.
It's not unusual for big companies like Boeing to face PR nightmares. Some are so disastrous that they're still mentioned decades later. Someone once asked people to share what they believed were the worst PR disasters of major corporations in history. And there were thousands of responses. Bored Panda has put together a list of the craziest comments. Let us know which ones stand out for you by upvoting them. You'll also find more about Boeing's PR crisis between the screenshots.
#1
Samsung - their phones blow up, their washing machines blow up, and apparently their tvs listen to you in your home.
Image credits: Yelkerty
Imagine sitting on a plane, minding your own business, when suddenly you hear a loud bang and feel a rush of cold wind. The temperature plummets. Along with the cabin's air pressure. That's exactly what happened to passengers on board an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland International Airport in Oregon to Ontario, California, on 5 January 2024. To say I'd be terrified is an understatement.
"Er, yeah, we'd like to go down," a calm voice told air traffic control. "Alaska 1282 declaring an emergency… we're descending to 10,000… we're depressurised."
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the door plug for the fuselage of the Boeing 737 Max 9 "blew off" just minutes after takeoff. Those on board were exposed to open air 16,000 feet above the ground. And the harrowing emergency landing that followed.
#2
Said this in another thread but the one that stands out to me is the Pepsi campaign from the 90's in the Philippines. They offended a large cash prize to the person who got a certain number on their Pepsi, but they accidentally put it on 800,000 pepsis. Pepsi employees were assaulted, there were violent riots and thousands of people sued.
Image credits: Samanthugalicious
One passenger later told the BBC how his phone went flying and his socks and shoes were ripped off by the uncontrolled decompression. Cuong Tran said he "held on for dear life" during the incident and believes his seatbelt saved him from being blown away. Thankfully, he wasn't seriously injured, but he did suffer lacerations.
"The captain said we had passed 10,000 feet. Then the hole blew out on us and I remember my body getting lifted up. Then my whole lower body got sucked down by the howling wind," Tran told the BBC. The passenger added that the decompression lasted around 10 or 20 seconds. But we can just imagine it feeling like the longest few seconds ever. "It was probably the first time in my life I had a feeling of no control over everything. I was in disbelief over the whole situation," he said.
#3
The one that irritated me the most was when Bank of America had one of their customers arrested for inquiring about a questionable check. The guy had made a transaction with someone on craigslist and was a little suspicious about the check he got, so he took it into his local branch to ask if it was legit. The teller held it for a bit, then said, "yeah, go ahead and sign it." Once he signed it they told him he was guilty of passing a bad check and arrested him.
Image credits: fellunb
The door plug was later found in a backyard in Oregon, having dropped down thousands of feet from the sky. It emerged that Boeing engineers had failed to bolt the door panel back on properly after it had been removed during repairs. Definitely not a tiny mistake.
A number of angry passengers went to court to sue both Boeing and Alaska Airlines. They claimed damages for injuries and "intense fear, distress, anxiety, trauma [and] physical pain," according to legal documents. "The lawsuit alleges that Boeing delivered a plane with a faulty door plug and that Alaska management had deemed the aircraft unsafe to fly over the ocean but continued to fly it over land, according to the complaint," reported ABC News at the time.
#4
A few years ago Chevron had an accident on one of their Marcellus shale well sites in Pennsylvania that resulted in a young man being killed and a giant gas well fire/blowout that took days to extinguish.
Chevron's response? Free pizza vouchers for the local community.
Image credits: straeta
#5
I'm surprised I haven't seen anybody mention the unlimited crab legs that nearly sunk Red Lobster back in the early 2000's.
Image credits: DrInsano
#6
Personal favorite was the Avenger game controller. It was a controller designed to be used by the disabled. When they had issues shipping on time the head of their marketing team/contractor took to personally harassing people complaining about the delays.
Happened in 2011. Fun read if you are interested.
Image credits: AvellionB
In a January 2024 statement, the attorney representing four of the plaintiffs said it was too soon to know for sure what exactly went wrong. "We do know Boeing is ultimately responsible for the safety of their planes and Alaska Airlines is ultimately responsible for the safety of their passengers," Mark Lindquist added.
Alaska Airlines said it could not comment on pending litigation. While Boeing remained tight-lipped. Months later, in March, was when the companies finally decided to publicly address the mounting lawsuits. But instead of taking accountability, Boeing blamed Alaska Airlines. And Alaska Airlines threw Boeing under the proverbial bus.
“Alaska Airlines cannot be liable for design or manufacturing defects,” the airline's attorneys wrote. Boeing also asked the court to drop the claims against it.
#7
A few years ago the company I work for reached one of our goals: 25% customer penetration. Marketing decided to have - I s**t you not - a *penetration celebration*. Everyone got company branded blankets. Also, on that same day an affiliate of ours was having a promotion and sent us vibrating pens.
So to recap we had a penetration celebration and received blankets and vibrating pens.
Image credits: theoat
#8
When the CEO of BP (Tony Hayward) said, "There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back" during the oil spill.
Image credits: salemsaberhagan
#9
Not a major corporation but OJ Simpson publishing "If I Did It" after the murder of his wife.
Image credits: PM-SOME-TITS
In April, an article published in CEO magazine criticized Boeing’s response to the crisis. "[It] has been unilaterally negative, with some even going as far as calling it incompetent," reads the site. "The company’s only response thus far has been to say that they will cooperate with any investigations and be '100% transparent' about the situation."
And in July, Boeing was in trouble again. This time, "for sharing non-public investigative information with media on [the] 737 Max 9 door plug investigation." The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced that it had sanctioned Boeing.
"During a media briefing Tuesday about quality improvements at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, a Boeing executive provided investigative information and gave an analysis of factual information previously released. Both of these actions are prohibited by the party agreement that Boeing signed when it was offered party status by the NTSB at the start of the investigation. As a party to many NTSB investigations over the past decades, few entities know the rules better than Boeing," read the NTSB statement.
"Because of Boeing’s recent actions, Boeing will retain its party status, but no longer have access to the investigative information the NTSB produces as it develops the factual record of the accident."
#10
Merck knew about concerns that the medication Vioxx could lead to cardiac events . The medication was eventually linked to roughly 28,000 heart attacks. Merck eventually settled for $80 million.
Image credits: bsend
#11
Jack in the Box E. Coli was pretty big. Four kids died from this, 178 sickened.
Image credits: Filldos
#12
After Asiana Airlines flight 214 crashed in San Francisco, KTVU released the "names" of the crew. Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee F*k, and Bang Ding Ow. I'm guessing someone got fired after that incident.
Image credits: umaro77
It was downhill for Boeing throughout 2024. Among the turbulence, there were the sudden deaths of two Boeing whistleblowers and a massive strike that cost the company more than $5.5 billion. 30,000 workers took part in the walkout, demanding better wages. That action began in September and lasted for seven weeks. It halted the production of the 737 Max, the 777 and the 767 freighter. All while Boeing was still trying to recover from the other crises of the year.
#13
Mountain Dew held a contest where anyone could submit a name for the new flavour - anonymously on the internet - then vote for which name they wanted to succeed. The top ten were posted on their website.
IIRC 9/10 of the top submissions were variations of "Gushin Granny", with the number one being "H*tler did nothing wrong".
Image credits: AntiparticleCollider
#14
When Nestle gave out formula in poor countries even though many there didn't have access to clean water and would really water down the formula to make it last. They tried to present formula as superior to breast milk but ended up killing a fair amount of babies. Rarely does a marketing concept end up with lots of dead babies but Nestle managed to do that.
Image credits: MegaSeedsInYourBum
#15
Susan Boyle's Album party when it was promoted with a hashtag
#Sus**an**bumparty**.
Image credits: TheNaBr
While some experts believe too much damage has been done, others say Boeing might "miraculously" recover from the disasters that have plagued it. Mr Dunlop thinks a change in mindset will be fundamental to Boeing's future.
"The fastest way to turn around a company is to have a complete change in attitude on how you treat your employees, how you treat your customers, and most importantly in how you treat your suppliers," says Mike Dunlop, an aerospace industry veteran and author of a book about turning around failing businesses.
#16
Not really "PR", but just not understanding what the problem was: Wii U. Advertisements never made it clear what it was exactly (an addition to the Wii or a new system?).
Image credits: faller675
#17
Pretty sure The Spice Girls PR team made a poll for what city 'the girls' should visit next on their World Tour.
Baghdad won by a mile.
This was during peak Iraq war.
Image credits: anon
#18
This guy, Gerald Ratner single-handily sunk his company when he said his products are "total c**p" in an interview.
Image credits: downvotemeufags
According to CEO magazine, Boeing’s biggest mistake in its crisis response last year was not learning from previous mistakes. "After controversy in 2018 and 2019, when two of the company’s planes crashed due to defects, Boeing promised change and improved safety measures," reads the site, adding that the January incident could have had a fatal outcome.
"Had someone been sitting closer to the portion of the plane that was exposed, if someone had not been using their seatbelt or if the incident occurred at a higher altitude, things could have turned out much worse, all of which only serves to make the public trust Boeing even less."
#19
I remember watching "The H*locaust" TV mini-series back in the late 70s. Baltimore/DC market if that matters. The commercial directly following the scene where the cremations took place and their aftereffects was for 'Snoopy Sniffer and Easy-Off oven cleaner' product.
My family's jaws dropped and nothing was said for what seemed to be an eternity. It was one very long and silent cringe. We talked about the next morning over breakfast. Odd stuff. I think it made the papers.
Image credits: Cannoli-HeavySide
#20
When Sony's CDs installed a rootkit on your computer to enforce their copy protection.
Image credits: Megatron_McLargeHuge
#21
Heh. Did my undergraduate economics dissertation on how PR disasters affect a company's stock price in the short term. From the paper:
Stock (Firm) Name and Ticker
Short description of event
Amazon (AMZN: NASDAQ)
Amazon comes under public fire after it was discovered that they were selling a how-to guide for pedophiles through their 3rd party marketplaces.
American Apparel (APP: AMEX)
American Apparel releases an ill-advised marketing campaign focused on purchasing new clothes after the events of Hurricane Sandy
Bank of America (BAC: NYSE)
Bank of America releases a new set of fees for debit cards. Consumer backlash was swift and palpable.
Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL: NYSE)
Carnival’s ship Triumph experiences an engine fire, trapping cruise-goers on board for five days, in unsanitary conditions.
Domino’s Pizza (DPZ: NYSE)
Two cooks from Domino’s are caught on video defacing food. The video goes “viral”, causing public outrage.
JetBlue (JBLU: NASDAQ)
Travelers are caught on New York runways for hours on Jet Blue planes, with little to no access to food, water, or restrooms
Nestle (NESN: VX)
Public backlash and calls for boycotts after company is discovered using environmentally harmful ingredients.
Netflix (NFLX: NASDAQ)
Netflix announces their DVD rental business is spinning off into a new company called Qwixter. Consumers pan the idea.
Nike (NKE: NYSE)
Nike refuses to recognize winner of SFO women’s marathon. Social media outrage follows, as company remains obstinate.
Papa John’s (PZZA: NASDAQ)
CEO announces hours of employees may be cut when B. Obama is elected, as ACA comes into effect.
Pepsi (PEP: NYSE)
Pepsi responds poorly to dead mouse found in consumer’s Mountain Dew, says soda would have “jellified” the remains.
Pernod Ricard (RI: PA)
Subsidiary company, Absolut Vodka, releases marketing campaign showing Western U.S. owned by Mexico
Progressive Insurance (PGR: NASDAQ)
Progressive endures public shaming after dispatching lawyers to assist the defense of a case involving one of their clients as a plaintiff.
United Air Lines (UAL: NYSE)
A YouTube video entitled “United Breaks Guitars” goes viral, decrying how United Airlines baggage handlers damaged musical equipment.
YUM! Brands (YUM: NYSE)
Subsidiary company, Kentucky Fried Chicken, unable to meet coupon commitment released in new advertising campaign tied to Oprah Winfrey show.
#22
Adult Swim, a block of programming on Cartoon Network, hired two guys in Boston as part of a sort of guerrilla marketing thing for their movie based on their Aqua Teen Hunger Force show. These two guys would put up these light up-LED boards in various places in the city, and they had the characters on it (at the least, it had the mooninites flipping the bird).
They put them in places like near a bridge and whatnot. This was in 2007 so people were still on edge, and people eventually would see these hastily assembled boxes with wires and LEDs near places like bridges.You can imagine how that went.
Things didn't go well. Though authorities would later be ridiculed for over reacting, there was still a backlash against Adult Swim and Cartoon Network. The resulting backlash caused an executive vice president to resign. This resignation caused a shuffling of executives at Cartoon Network, and the man who replaced him was one Stuart Snyder.
Under Snyder, Cartoon Network increased its amount of live action shows. It should be noted that the man he replaced, Samples, did introduce some live action stuff, but it increased greatly under Snyder. The beloved Toonami block was axed. General quality started going down as they pushed more live action stuff (such as "Dude, What Would Happen", which was essentially a dumb, kid-version of Mythbusters). Again, this is *Cartoon* Network.
Eventually the ship righted itself, better quality shows began to come in (Adventure Time, Regular Show), and Toonami was revived on the Adult Swim block, so things worked out in the end. But it still went through a rather chaotic period.
All because of some idiot who decided that having two artists put wired light up boxes in areas in Boston was a good idea (alternatively, the two artists were idiots. Or both).
#23
The Ford Pinto. It could have been a great smaller car that didn't cost an arm and a leg. I had one for years and it was actually fun to work on. It could have been like the VW Beetle. But the design called for a rubber or plastic liner for the fuel tank as a safety feature in case the car was rear ended. The bean counters nixed that because they figured out that in the long run they would probably save money by eliminating it. They calculated that they would have to pay out in some wrongful death lawsuits but in the long run it would be a winner to the bottom line. It would have added about $25 to the price of the car.
#24
Don Mattrick promoting the Xbox One. When the system was first introduced, Microsoft intended it to implement a number of draconian new policies:
- Having to check in on Xbox Live every 24 hours
- No more used games. Games would be locked to your account and console.
- In order to borrow a game from a friend, they would have to authorize you to play. I think you only had 48 hours to try it out.
- It would have been mandatory to have the Kinect plugged in at all times
All this, coupled with Mattrick saying there was already a product for people without online connectivity (Xbox 360), resulted in Microsoft scrapping these plans.
Here's the video of Mattrick telling users to stick with the 360: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VMcsQdXogY.
#25
I would say that Bud Light campaign to remove 'no' from your vocabulary. Which I guess to them sounded good in their heads, but ended up just sounding really, really r*pey.
#26
In 1984, McDonalds did a promotion where for every event the USA won in the Olympics, customers could get free food. They knew that the Soviet Union would win a lot, so they wouldn't have to give away too much. This was the year that Russia chose to boycott the Olympics. America dominated, winning 174 gold medals, and McDonalds lost a deal of money.
#27
Target's credit card data hacks.
#28
It's probably forgotten now, but the McAfrika burger from McDonalds. An entire continent of starving people (well not quite), with a lot of countries suffering from famine at the time, and they just named this new burger after the entire place. They also refused to pull the burger and let it do the entire campaign in 2002.
And they brought it back in 2008.
#29
What about AYDS.
When AIDS (the disease) started making the news in the early 80s, the company that made AYDS (the diet pill) refused to change the name.
They were like Michael Bolton in office space: "No way! Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.".
#30
The Tylenol deaths that happened in the 80s.
In 1982, seven people died after taking Tylenol. Johnson & Johnson immediately halted all production and issued a nation-wide recall costing them upwards of $100 million. It was eventually determined that someone had tampered with the bottles and laced pills with cyanide, which led to Johnson & Johnson developing tamper-proof packaging.
Even though it wasn't the company's fault, this sort of thing tends to destroy brands. Amazingly, primarily due to the company's strong and decisive actions, they were able to rebuild trust in the brand and overcome what happened.
#31
Kool-Aid failing in the aftermath of the Jim Jones incident. They failed to make people realize that it wasn't Kool-Aid, it was Flavor-Aid.
#32
I distinctly remember a period not too long ago where a beer company, that was known for high quality beer, tried to cut costs by using sub-par ingredients. Initially, no one really noticed so they took it a step farther... then they did it again. Eventually, there consumers caught on and were royally upset.
The company tried to back off and return to form but they never recovered. I think they went out of business, or some such.
I wish I could remember the company. Maybe I can find it. This might have been a case study from college now that I think about it.
#33
There was a really big and successful chevy dealership near me that got caught changing people's paperwork after the sale and using carbon paper to forge signatures. People would get a great interest rate, leave and the dealership was changing the rate to exorbitant rates(like going from 0.9% to 12.5%) they got caught, a lot of people went to jail including the owner and the dealership was shut down overnight.
#34
Lately Nivea
Nivea and that recent campaign. White is purity: keep it clean, keep it bright don't let anything ruin it. With a young white lady sitting in a bathrobe on a bed.
Pissed different people of for different reasons or both
And that recivilize yourself campaign. Look like you give a d**n: with a well dressed black man holding the severed head of an angry black man with an Afro and beard ready to throw it.
#35
Digiorno #WhyIStayed.
#36
My favourite will always be the time Apple decided to inflict U2 on everyone without warning.
Equally awful was U2's embarrassing video (half) apology, where they all sit back to back in a circle and Bono does all the talking whilst sounding utterly pretentious.
#37
Malaysia Airlines has to be up there; it launched the "My Ultimate Bucket List" campaign, asking its customers what they want to do before they die, not long after the MH370 and MH17 tragedies.
#38
Cracker Barrel firing Brads wife.
#39
Walmart had a ton but they bounce back.
#40
A Vietnamese customer found a fly inside his energy drink (Number One) from soft drink company in Vietnam (Tan Hiep Phat). He tried to ask for compensation from a company (approx. $50k) or he will go public about it. After a few talk, they both reached an agreement that would lower the compensation to $25k, and the company agreed to pay, however they contacted the police and sued him for blackmailing them. After trial, the customer got 7 years in prison. The company won the law suit however they got s**t on by the community for doing that (lost approx. $50m)
Well there is 1 interesting case going on with Mazda Vietnam. If u guys want to hear, just let me know lol
/sorry for bad english. Not my native language though.
#41
New Coke.
#42
The Sun newspaper in the UK. After the Hillsborough stadium disaster, they ran a cover story blaming the victims for causing the problem and making the authorities' jobs harder...when two decades of official inquiries proved exactly the opposite. To this day, many residents of the Liverpool area (the team whose fans were killed) refuse to buy the Sun.
#43
Blizzard decided that the best way to combat the toxic nature of their online community in World of Warcraft was to introduce the RealID system, which effectively doxxed the entire WoW community to each other by having their account associated with their real name. The backlash was so severe and Blizzard probably realized they can't even legally dox parts of their own community because of their age, so they ended up pulling it.
Flatly, Battle.net 2.0.
That time EA paid PR people to host faux protests for Dante's Inferno, which turned out to be a fairly unremarkable game.
That other time EA paid grandmas and old people to play Dead Space and recoil at it on-camera so that people who, in principal, should not have been able to buy an M rated game because they're too young would know their parents don't like the game.
UBIsoft's general treatment of PC gamers as thieves and criminals, and retaliating by selling them defective products that don't work.
Phil Phish.
#44
Richmond International Raceway hosted a race that was sponsored by Federated Auto Parts, called the Federated Auto Parts 400.
The hashtag to promote it:
#FAP400.
#45
I can't remember the clothing store but they had a sweatshirt with "Kent University" on it. The thing is that it had red splatters on it that looked like blood. It got pulled quickly.
#46
Malaysia airlines - It wasn't just because the plane was lost and couldn't be found, although many people were upset about that.
Their PR response was terrible, marginalising or ignoring the families involved while generally refusing to talk to the press or take any real responsibility.
#47
That time Wolf Cola became the official soft drink of Boko Haram.
#48
After last friday terrorist attack in central Stockholm, the store in which the truck crashed into, Åhlens, decided to send out an e- mail (saturday evening) to their members saying that they would open the store on sunday and that all damaged merchandise would be 50% off.
The CEO later apologized and they kept the store closed. Way to try to make money out of a tragedy.
#49
* The major financial institutions implicated in the 2008 Financial crisis
* Ford's Pinto recalls due to the unsafe fuel system. I was born well after this fiasco, but I still heard many references to it growing up and even today
* Volkswagen Emissions scandal. IIRC, the expected cost for VW to rectify/comply with the fines, buybacks, repairs, etc is approaching 20 billion.
#50
Let me regale you fine folk with a tale of a company by the name of Sega, their ill fated Saturn and their fall from grace as a console manufacture.
The year is 1995, the month is May, the setting, E3. Sega was a dominant force in the market in the 80s and early 90s but lately hasn't been doing as well. Several failed genesis add ons and experiments put them on their back foot. Worse yet, not only did they have to compete with their long time rivals Nintendo, a new challenger has appeared in the form of Sony and their PlayStation.
Sony had just made a bombshell of an announcement across the hall during their presentation. Not only would the Ps1 be releasing in North America that year in September, it would be releasing at a full $100 cheaper than anyone anticipated (Side note: Funny enough, Sony is responsible for both the most famous AND most infamous pricing announcements of E3. The PS1 being $100 cheaper than expected is the most famous, whereas the PS3 being $599 for the base model was the most infamous. That's a tale for another day though.)
This rattled Sega, they knew they had their Saturn system coming out that year but there was no way they could compete with the price of the PlayStation. Worse yet, Sega's original plan had them releasing around the same time as the PlayStation. They knew they couldn't compete with the price. So in a desperate gambit, during their own press conference, they announced that the Saturn wouldn't be coming out late summer/early fall like planned. They said it was out now. On store shelves immediately.
Now, this could have been a boon for Sega... had they bothered to warn anyone. This move caught everyone, from retailers to consumers to game developers by surprise. Retailers weren't prepared for the sudden release of the system, which pissed them off since they suddenly had to make space for the console and change their flyers to advertise it. Game developers were pissed because none of their games were ready for the early release as they were still anticipating a fall date. Consumers were blindsided and those that were saving for the console were pissed as they thought they had more time.
The only games available at launch were a scant few first party titles, and the system was still more expensive than the PS1. The early release meant almost nothing as most games wouldn't be ready until the original release date anyway. This destroyed not only consumer faith in Sega, but retail and publisher faith as well. Many people point to the Dreamcast as the death of Sega's console division but that was just the final nail in the coffin. The demise truly began during the Saturn and Sega's poorly planned launch of the system.
And that, ladies and gents, is the tale of the release of the Sega Saturn.
edit: I just remembered something I forgot to mention. The other big reason for this being a massive fuckup is that Sega had already announced September 9th, a Saturday they dubbed "Saturn Day" as the original release date of the Saturn. The early release also destroyed all fanfare they had about that specific day.
#51
Posted this in another thread recently but Lime Crime (which is not exactly a major corporation but is one of the bigger names in the indie beauty game) is just an all around PR disaster and always has been. The biggest scandals associated with it are the fact that they had a major data leak on their website that was probably caused by a lack of security (though the company denies that one and say that they just got hacked), which caused people to lose hundreds and even thousands of dollars after their credit cards were stolen. They also fairly recently got a warning from the FDA about some potentially toxic compounds in some of their products (they're safe to use externally i.e. on the cheeks and eyes, but can be toxic if ingested so they're not lip-safe). In both of these cases, the company made no mention to customers until a big enough stink was raised about it. The more minor issues ("minor" in big quotes here) are that they have a bad tendency to threaten legal action against critics and delete negative reviews or harass people for posting them. And the negative press is totally warranted, and was even in its early days - they were very quickly accused of repotting (aka taking another, cheaper product, putting it into your own packaging, and selling it for a markup), and there was also some health and safety concern (the founder posted a video of her 'process' when it came to mixing products, as proof that she wasn't repotting, and she wasn't wearing any safety equipment in the video). The founder also once dressed as Hitler for Halloween, just as like, the weird icing on the s**t cake.
And in addition to all of this: the products really aren't that great. I bought some (I'll admit, very early on, so things might have improved since then) and they were terrible. The lipsticks dried my lips out to an unfortunate degree and made me look terrible (the only use I ever got out of this was for a zombie costume a few years ago), the eyeshadows weren't true to the swatches on the website (which is a huge no-no for beauty companies - another strike) and I was just generally not super happy with anything that I received.
#52
Starbucks forcing the baristas to talk about race with customers after those Ferguson protests.
#53
When that one company tried to fool their Japanese investors by making a "tiny town" to look like a large development had already been built.
#54
Carl's Jr. had gotten a lot of flack in the past for coming off as sexist because of their ads. Recently they've re-branded themselves to ditch that style and coming off as "American burgers". I think they're just trying to jump on the nationalism bandwagon without being politically isolating their more open customers.
#55
When they promoted that one Call of Duty game by sending a fake tweet saying there's been a terrorist attack in Singapore.
#56
The Pepsi ad that came out like 8 years ago had quite a bit of backlash.
#57
This year is Canada's 150th birthday. VIA Rail, the only real rail company up here, put out a promotion for youth aged 18-28 to buy tickets across Canada for $150 CAD. That's a f*****g fantastic deal. The problem is that they claimed to be selling an unlimited number of these.
Clearly, they grossly underestimated how many people would take the opportunity to see our country without going broke. Two million youth attempted to buy tickets, and within 48 hours VIA backpedaled on it and stated that only 1867 (year of Confederation) were sold, and that sales were now closed.
People are rightfully pissed about being led on like that, and they've now lost business from an entire generation. GG, fucktards.
#58
The failure of the Apple Newton tablet was so well-known that it was featured on The Simpsons among many other places.
#59
Lebron James' "The Decision" was widely regarded as a terrible PR move. People often overlook that much of the money raised by its publicity went to the Boys and Girls Club, so it was technically a success from that standpoint, but it really damaged his reputation.
#60
Not the worst, but certainly ranks up there:
Ford Australia makes (or made, as they are tragically shutting up shop) a sedan and ute version of the Ford Falcon.
The cars are almost the same from the front doors forward, but have minor detail changes that are sometimes required because the back of the ute is updated less frequently than the front of the sedan.
At a product launch/press release for the new range many years ago, one of the Motoring Journalists was comparing the promotional handouts for the sedan with the promotional handouts for the ute. They had the same format and said the same things in the same place, with obvious exceptions like "big carrying capacity" for the ute and "lots of rear legroom" for the sedan.
Strangely, the sedan handout listed 'Side Intrusion Bars' under Safety Features, whereas the ute handout did not. The journalist asked an engineer why this was so. Surely both models would have Side Intrusion Bars since they essentially used the same doors?
The engineer openly admitted that Side Intrusion Bars had been omitted from the ute design as they needed to save $6.
Once again, the guy he was telling this to was a Motoring Journalist. Oops.
#61
This will be buried, but Smith & Wesson had a pretty bad run during the Clinton Administration.
Basically, for several decades, S&W was the gold standard for police service revolvers. Then Glock came onto the market and started eating their lunch, because a reliable polymer 9mm with 17 rounds on tap allows more flexibility than a six-shooter. Add that gun sales were not going so well, and that the 1994 A*****t Weapons Ban was curbing a decent amount of civilian gun sales, and most gun companies needed government contracts to stay solvent.
Enter the Clinton administration. In exchange for a way out of their fiscal issues, and some easier access to government contracts, they were asked to compromise on a few things, including putting a safety lock on their revolvers that could be activated with a key.
Turns out, there were a few problems with this. One was that, in addition to being aesthetically poor, sometimes they would turn themselves on, locking the gun up, sometimes to the point of being inoperable (Non-gun people: imagine if your car's air bag had a small chance of randomly deploying). The bigger issue is that there was a massive boycott of the company, led in part by the NRA. Most gun people didn't like the AWB or being told what they could buy, and S&W was seen as being in bed with the people the gun owners disliked the most.
The result was that Tomkins PLC, who owned S&W, sold the company for $15m, after having paid $112m to acquire the company a few years back. The purchasing company, Saf-T-Hammer, who made the locks in the first place, also acquired $30m to $45m in debt when they bought S&W.
So yeah, that was a pretty big PR disaster. Them and Cheaper Than Dirt after Sandy Hook.
#62
Aaron Barr, CEO of intelligence contractor HBGary (back when it was called HB Gary Federal), said in an interview that he would take down Anonymous through manipulating social media after doing "Research" on potential criminals he believed to be in the group and also saying he'd publish the names of suspected members of the group. In fact, most of the people on the dox file were innocent bystanders who had shown an interest in the group on forums, Facebook...
When Anonymous found out, they were furious with Barr and his company. Barr believed he was safe from some "Petty Criminals". To quote [Stephen Colbert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oMYYP1LnMA);
> Now, to put that in hacker terms, Anonymous is a hornets' nest, and Barr said, 'I'm going to stick my p***s in that thing'. Because, faster than you could say, 'Get these hornets off my p***s!' Anonymous took down Barr's website, stole his emails, deleted the company's backup data, trashed his twitter account, and remotely wiped his iPad.
The fact Anonymous took the company's systems down so quickly and so thoroughly basically destroyed its credibility overnight. The CEO of HBGary, the parent company of HBG Fed., entered a private chatroom with Anonymous to denounce its subsidiary and to ask for them to avoid attacking the parent company.
Clients of the company dropped their services as quickly as possible due to how poisonous they had become. Bank Of America hired HBG Fed. to investigate a WikiLeaks dossier as well as to attack the site via malware as well as fake "Exposés" so they could sue WikiLeaks for libel, which also implicated two defense contractors, a law firm and US Chamber of Commerce. There was a congressional hearing over their alleged crimes, only for the Chamber to denounce their involvement and investigate whether the group of companies broke federal law.
With no support, HBG Fed. was sold to ManTech International.
