Author: Martin Communications

Last year, the MC team let me have a run at our lovely blog to talk about how sometimes, despite the best intentions of the teams behind campaigns, ads fall flat on their faces. Sometimes they are irrelevant, sometimes they just fizzle off, and sometimes they fail so spectacularly, you can’t help but wonder what they heck the person who approved the ad was on. Luckily for us, the latter are very fun to talk about. Back for 2017, it’s more Marketing Fails and What They Can Teach Us.

Here are 4 ads that will make you cringe harder than that time I chewed on a frozen lemon while simultaneously running all of my fingernails down a chalkboard.

Last year, I wrapped up my first year on the Martin blog by taking a break from making fun of bad ads to highlight some of my favorite Christmas ads from the year. The winner for me, and still one of my favorite Christmas ads of all time was Allegro’s English. This year, as I built my list, I got to thinking about that spot. The ad, from a Polish company, didn’t air in the US, but everyone I shared it with loved it.

[Intense trailer guy voice] In a world…

Where everyone and everything is scrutinized under the magnifying glass of the internet…

One man will lead a marketing agency team to the brink of the failspace…

All to bring entertainment and joy to the readers of a blog.

This is that man. This is his story.

We’re back, with more marketing fails, and what they can teach us!

Crispy Criminals

Social media is a fickle friend. One day, it can be the boon of your brand, and the next, it’s bust. This is the internet. Everything is forever, and once you blast your message out there, you lose all control over it. Sure, you can pull a Tweet or edit a Facebook post, but you can bet your bitcoin that somebody out there was smart enough to grab a screenshot.

I’m on a social kick right now, so this time, we’re focusing on three recent social media blunders and the lessons they can teach us.

The past few times I visited the Martin Communications blog, I encouraged all of you lovely readers to join me in gently poking fun at Scott Hoy and other bad ads, so that together, we could learn from their mistakes. As we wrap the year up, however, I wanted to do something a little different.

Marketing is hard. Just ask Scott Hoy. With increasingly short attention spans and an increasing number of ads affecting people each day, having your message heard among the noise is a challenge. In order to make their messages stand out from the crowd, some advertisers have taken HUGE risks. Some have paid off. Others have gotten the individuals and ad agencies who created them in hot water. These are the latter.

Continue reading “Marketing Fails III: Kickin’ Ads and Taking Blame”

A few months ago, Martin Communications was kind enough to let me take over the company blog for a day to extol the virtues of “Teaching off the Awful.” This approach to learning sees us taking valuable lessons away from terrible, terrible execution. In the end, you understand the concept or idea more clearly, because you’ve seen someone completely miss the mark.

Once a Marine always a Marine, as it’s said. I enlisted some time ago; from Jan 1985 to August 1989; it seems like yesterday. The duration was a total of four-and-a-half-years on active duty and during those years the possibility of being sent anywhere was inevitable. The military provided me the opportunity to see areas of the world that I wouldn’t have seen, but of all those travels, none have landed me on any soil of war or conflict.