40 Blunders Brought to You By Corporate Clowns, Coworkers and Those Tech Bros Everybody Loves to Hate

Well, somebody is to blame for these blunders (and it ain’t us)
40 Blunders Brought to You By Corporate Clowns, Coworkers and Those Tech Bros Everybody Loves to Hate

Ah, a list of screwups by coworkers, eh? Where do we even begin? This one dork in Random Fact-Finding accidentally threw a myth in his list, so he… 

Oh, the title of this list is meant to mean big business blunders, huh? 

Hmm. Well, maybe we can do a list of Cracked employee gaffes next week or something. Today, we guess we have to focus on CEOs, marketers and whoever else messed up royally at their respective places of business.

Dacia

Dacia's Car Commercial That Offends Everyone CRACKED.COM Romanian car company Dacia made what AdWeek described as the most offensive car commercial ever in 2011, using dick jokes and ethnic stereotypes to offend the elderly, car salesmen, and the entire country of Romania. Warning: There are ra- cial slurs for the Romani people in that commercial. Like, whoa, really bad ones.

XLS-Medical Max Strength Diet Pills

XLS-Medical Max Strength Diet Pills CRACKED.COM A 2015 ad for diet pills was banned by the ASA for taking an irresponsi- ble approach to body image and confidence by featuring an already unusually slim young woman com- plaining that she'll never fit into the clothes she bought for vacation, a problem seemingly more easily solved by exchanging them. Now do all diet pill ads.

Yves St. Laurent

Yves St. Laurent's Skeletal Model CRACKED.COM Also in 2015, the ASA banned a print ad for Yves St. Laurent that featured a model who was al- ready extremely thin but then also lit in such a way that made her appear on the verge of death. They can't even find an actual body thin enough for high fashion anymore.

Natural Cycles

Natural Cycles's Entire Existence - - - SarasCycles Progras the veckan - - - esk for 100 de Idag en can KOYS - DEL 1000 - mar 2015 20 17 . P 40 3 2 - 2 S V DE 11 كر V DE 19 38 31 OF 29 2M 27 26 V 25 TO In 2018, a fertility-tracking app 3 E 2 S un called Natural Cycles tried to undo a generation of sex ed by claiming to Z CRACKED.COM be a highly accurate contraceptive ad in a series of Facebook ads. They were forced to pull the ads

Domino’s

CRACKED 30 minutes or less caused car accidents. After a jury awarded more than $78 million to a woman struck by a Domino's driver in 1989, the company said that it would no longer promise free pizza if their driver didn't show up in 30 minutes or less. Domino's Pizza

Pepsi

CRACKED Number Fever resulted in riots, five deaths, and dozens of injuries. In the Philippines, a marketing disaster in 1992 led to riots, five deaths, and dozens of injuries - all because people were desperate for a chance to win $68,000. Pepsi's Number Fever campaign promised 18 new millionaires, but when the final number was announced, it turned out that over 600,000 people had the winning number, 349. LIPPINES, INC. ATION Bro. Bhamble PEPSI Santos d on L ВОУСОТТ BOYCO SI PS OTT ВОУСОТ S EP BOYCOT S 49 BOYCOTT LLIANS PEPS PEPSI 349 ALLIANCE 349 ALIT

Nintendo

CRACKED Hold Your Wee for a Wii killed a woman. In 2007, KDND ran a contest called Hold Your Wee for a Wii, where the person who drank the most water without peeing would win a $250 Wii video game system. The station urged contestants to drink as much water as they could, resulting in the death of 28 year old Jennifer Lea Strange by water intoxication. !!M e-107.9 Vd the end Wii all the hits GAME INICLU JEU INCLUS JUEGO INCLUXD Wii

Juul

CRACKED The healthy alternative to cigarettes is causing an epidemic of nicotine addiction. Juul Labs' marketing strategy has been under scrutiny since the company's rise to the top of the e-cigarette market. A recent surge in lawsuits and investigations has exposed Juul's targeting of children and adolescents through social media, schools, and stealthy design features. The result is an epidemic of nicotine addiction among American teens. JUUI

Lysol

CRACKED Totally safe and gentle for your lady parts... probably. In the early 20th century, Lysol was marketed as a feminine hygiene product and hundreds of women were poisoned as a result. In 1911 doctors had recorded 193 Lysol poisonings and five deaths from uterine irrigation. Despite reports to the contrary, Lysol was aggressively marketed to women as safe and gentle. Lysol® The Poise BRAND that Knowledge Gives School is to the worken Againson well-boing of doe to with make these 80 facts Best eveilable to women, the makerie of Les have prepared bix FASTIBIOCITY well groomed 00 Transise Hypest which

Du Pont

CRACKED Cellophane baby swaddlers. In the 1950s, Du Pont Cellophane ran a series of ads portraying babies and young children wrapped in their cellophane. These advertisements were eventually discontinued around the same time that warnings about infant suffocation from plastics became more common. DUPONT

DDT

CRACKED DDT everywhere all at once. In the 1950s and 60s, heavy marketing of DDT as a powerful insecticide was common before it was known that it had devastating effects on wildlife, the environment, and human health. The ads encouraged consumers to spread the chemical virtually everywhere without knowing of the long-term consequences. DDT is good for me-e-e!zZ

Entrata

CORPORATE CRASH & BURN BLAMING COVID ON THE JEWS In 2022, David Bateman stepped down from his role as founder and chair of Entrata after sending an email to tech CEOs, Utah business people, and politicians. In the email, he said that the COVID-19 vaccine was part of a plan by the Jews to kill people. CRACKED

Overstock.com

CORPORATE CRASH & BURN CATCHING THE IRE OF THE DEEP STATE Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock, stepped down in 2019 after he said weird stuff about the Deep State, which caused the company's stock to fall by 36%. Coincidence? CRACKED

Trump Steaks

Donald Trump's Exclusive Introduction worst TRUMP business idea STEAKS THE WORLD'S GREATEST STEAK ever (maybe). Trump Steaks were (for some reason) sold at the Sharper Image. Sharper Image CEO Jerry Levin called it a horrible business idea, saying, We literally sold almost no steaks. If we sold $50,000 worth of steaks in total, I'd be surprised. CRACKED

Actionable Insights

CRACKED CORPORATE CRASH & BURN BEING RACIST IN A BAR Jason Wood, the CEO of Actionable Insights, stepped down from his job in July 2020 after a video of him making a racist comment in a Fresno bar spread around the internet.

Kim Kardashian

Kim Kardashian spammed social media with useless diet lollipops. Marketing sugar-filled lollipops with unproven secret ingredients as a weight loss tool may seem incongruous, but what's even less rational is posting an Instagram advertisement for such a product during Mental Health Awareness Week. kimkardashian Follow kimkardashian #ad You guys... FLATTUMMY @flattummyco just dropped a new LOLLIPOPS product. They're Appetite Suppressant LO Lollipops and they're literally unreal. Appetite Suppressont They're giving the first 500 people on their website 15% OFF so if you want to get your hands on some... you need to do it quick! #suckit Load more comments Which

Pay by Touch

Turbine 14 PAY BY 167 To Hondensator TOUCH 2013 PAY BY TOUCH place center OF finger flat S sensor CU press and hold wait E for green light GRACKED.COM This company used biometrics for payments back in 2002. But the CEO was caught in a bunch of scandals (embezzling, drugs, domestic abuse), and the company went bust before smartphones were even invented.

Cryptocurrency

CRACKED A cryptocurrency enthusiast died on Mount Everest. A publicity stunt-gone-wrong killed one of the four cryptocurrency enthusiasts that were hired to scale Mount Everest and bury two hardware wallets containing $50,000 worth of ASKT tokens. The company got backlash for their lack of transparency surrounding the death. 0,0 askfm

Yahoo

Red Lobster

A Red Lobster president lost her job after creating an endless crab promotion. Red Lobster Edna Morris tried to boost profits with a $22.99 din- ner promotion, but instead lost millions by bungling her calculations on how many times patrons would refill their plates with pric- ey crab. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures was sued for using the names of actual news outlets in their marketing. CRACKED.COM While marketing 'The Fourth Kind' movie, Univer- sal created fake news sto- ries of alien abductions and posted them online using the names of actual Alaskan news outlets. Those outlets sued and won.

Source

Finance Bros

FINANCE IS A MAN'S GAME, DEBUNKED 10006 doleodsolnresultsinachallersaeurket 006 0 0 0000 0A 00 1 1 Men are actually overconfident with their investmen

Troll Marketing

Troll marketing is when brands shame their own customers on social CRAGN media or in ads. For instance, they may make a sarcastic statement based on

Indonesian Marketing Stunt

An Indonesian marketing expert thought it would be a good idea to throw money out of a plane. Instead of a traditional campaign for his book, Tung Des

McDonald’s Japan

M a In 2006, McDonald's Japan ran a promotion in whicH 10,000 mp3 players would be awarded to lucky customers. The players contained a virus which sto

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