Sydney Sweeney
Although it’s possible, even likely, that they both sucked in their own right, she’s had two box-office bombs since her weird commercial for eugenics. Americana and Eden have both flopped spectacularly.
Burger King
They wanted to promote their culinary sponsorship for women to celebrate International Women’s Day, but the cheeky copy they chose made them go viral for all the wrong reasons: “Women belong in the kitchen.”
Kendall Jenner and Pepsi
In 2012, they finally answered the question: What if an iconic racial protest was about nothing, had no stakes and starred a white billionaire? The ad featured Jenner solving racism by offering cops a Pepsi, evoking the imagery of a famous Baton Rouge protest in which Ieshia Evanss was arrested for calmly, peacefully approaching a gaggle of cops in riot gear.
The NYPD
In 2014, the NYPD asked bootlickers to post nice interactions with cops and use the hashtag #myNYPD. This was an alley-oop for protesters, who flooded the hashtag with the unending hours of police brutality content the NYPD had so graciously provided over the years.
H&M
After their U.K. app featured a Black model wearing a “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle” shirt, they immediately lost deals with celebrities like The Weeknd and G-Eazy. There was worldwide backlash, and they had to close some locations in South Africa.
Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton
At the height of NFT mass hysteria, Fallon had Hilton come on his show to lamely, tepidly, pathetically compare their computer-generated monkey cartoons. Both were later sued for promoting Bored Ape Yacht Club without disclosing their financial stake, along with stars like Justin Bieber and Madonna.
Little Mix
The British pop group posted a picture of a promotional taxi wrap to their Instagram, writing, “So surreal… we’re on the side of a taxi.” But that message was preempted by a message obviously intended for a social media manager: “How’s this copy jade:”
Scott Disick and BooTea Shakes
When Disick went to post a supposedly organic Instagram picture with his tub of diarrhea tea, he also sloppily pasted in an entire email from BooTea’s marketing team: “Here you go, at 4pm est write the below.” This probably got the pointless post more attention that it otherwise would have, so maybe it was the work of a marketing mastermind.
Mattel
The packages for their line of Wicked dolls included a QR code that, somewhere along the line, they lost control of. Instead of pointing to the planned promotional material, it pointed to a porn site.
Dove
They couldn’t have designed a better example of choice feminism if they tried. A 2017 ad went viral because it showed a white woman transforming into a Black woman by removing her shirt, and then into another woman of color by removing another shirt. People were quick to point out that women of color aren’t able to choose or conceal their identity, and that’s one of the fundamental problems of patriarchy and white supremacy.
Balenciaga
Georgia fashion designer Demnas created two different, subconsciously creepy campaigns for Balenciaga — in one, child models were holding teddy bears in bondage gear, and in another, Nicole Kidman and Isabelle Huppert posed with a book about child sexual abuse law.
Lil Wayne
He partnered with condom company Strapped for a campaign intended to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS in younger African-American communities. One activation showed Lil Wayne being bent over a cop car and handcuffed, with his effects (including a box of Strapped condoms) spread across the hood of the car. But the angle of the photo combined with the grimace on his face makes it look remarkably like the cop is testing the product on Wayne himself.