Vote up the most unfortunate - and cringe-worthy - social media posts.
Given how the United States decided to formally recognize corporations as people in 2010, these 2018 corporate fails should come as no surprise. Just like a thoughtless celebrity can make a public gaffe that leads to major backlash, the employees who man the Twitter and Facebook pages of major companies can land in the midst of some major corporate social media fails.
It's bad enough to tweet out something of questionable taste that reflects poorly on a single person. Imagine making a poorly timed joke or factually inaccurate statement that tanks the reputation of a company made up of hundreds or even thousands of people. These cringe-worthy corporate social media fails of 2018 will make you think twice before hitting "post."
Bad jokes, misguided ad campaigns, misinformation, and occasionally downright incompetence can lead to massive outcry and even profit loss. The corporations with the worst social media are often left scrambling to make quick apologies to save face. While 2018 corporate screw-ups can leave a company's PR team working overtime, the good news for these brands is we live in the age of the 24-hour news cycle. One headline-grabbing scandal can only last so long before being replaced by a fresh source of public outrage.
In March 2018, Snapchat enraged the public when it ran an ad that mocked Rihanna's domestic abuse. In 2009, the news broke that Chris Brown had brutally beaten Rihanna during an argument. The ad Snapchat posted was for an ap called "Would You Rather", based on a popular party game in which players must choose between two unpleasant scenarios. The ad in question asked users, "Would you rather slap Rihanna or punch Chris Brown?"
Snapchat issued an apology after facing backlash, claiming the ad was approved in error and removed as soon as the company became aware of its content. Rihanna, however, was not having the apology. She posted a lengthy response via an Instagram message condemning the app for shaming domestic abuse victims everywhere. Rihanna ended her rant with the words, "Shame on you. Throw the whole app-oligy away."
175 votes
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100 VOTES
Ram Used A Martin Luther King Jr. Speech About The Evil Of Advertising To Sell Trucks
Plenty of successful ad campaigns have premiered on Super Bowl Sunday, but having millions of viewers means reception can just as easily swing the other way. This was the case for Ram Trucks when they released a new commercial on Super Bowl Sunday in 2018. The commercial included audio from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Drum Major Instinct" sermon, played over a montage of working class people and Ram trucks driving through tough terrain. The audio included the lines:
"You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know the theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love."
This was linked to the new Ram tagline, "Built to serve." However, had Ram officials listened to the rest of the speech, they would have heard King slam advertisers that make people feel they need to drive a specific type of car to make their neighbors envious.
Needless to say, reactions to the ad were extremely negative. The company was slammed across social media platforms and the commercial was interpreted as hypocritical and downright offensive.
100 votes
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113 VOTES
Whole Foods Opens An Asian Food Store Called 'Yellow Fever'
— Jenny Yang ������������ (@jennyyangtv) May 1, 2018
While the franchise had been in operation for over four years in various California locations, Yellow Fever began to cause controversy when it opened a location in a Long Beach Whole Foods. Given the prevalence of Asian families in the California city, many took offense to an Asian-themed restaurant that made use of a pejorative term as a name. After comedian Jenny Yang sent out an angry tweet about the restaurant, Whole Foods faced a slew of public backlash.
In defense of Whole Foods, the restaurant's owner is an Asian-American woman who felt using the term "Yellow Fever" - a term traditionally signifying white men's inappropriate attraction to Asian women - could be empowering. She intended to help reappropriate the term by using it to celebrate Asian food and culture. However, many other Asian-Americans still took issue, claiming a single restaurateur does not speak for every Asian person.
113 votes
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108 VOTES
The United States Air Force Used The Yanny/Laurel Debate To Make A Tasteless Joke
«Les talibans auraient préféré entendre Yanny ou Laurel plutôt que le bruit de notre A-10»
Ce tweet de l'US Air Force qui annonce le bombardement d'une ville est d'une violence �� pic.twitter.com/bWxbGWegvG
In May 2018, an online audio clip made headlines everywhere as different people heard different things. While some swear the recording was saying "yanny," others distinctly heard "laurel." In the midst of a bombing campaign in Afghanistan, the US Air Force decided to get in on the fun with a tweet stating Taliban forces would rather have heard "yanny" or "laurel" instead of the noise of an A10 dropping bombs. The tweet was widely panned online for being insensitive and diminishing the potential loss of civilian lives in the Middle East due to the ongoing War on Terror. The original tweet was quickly deleted.
PepsiCo was apparently considering releasing "Lady Doritos." What exactly are they? During an interview on the Freakonomics Radio podcast on January 31, chief executive Indra Nooyi had this to say:
"As you watch a lot of the young guys eat chips... they lick their fingers with great glee, and when they reach the bottom of the bag they pour the little broken pieces into their mouth... Women I think would love to do the same, but they don’t. They don’t like to crunch too loudly in public. And they don’t lick their fingers generously and they don’t like to pour the little broken pieces and the flavor into their mouth."
Nooyi also said the company was brainstorming women-specific snacks that could be marketed and packaged in a different fashion.
The bizarre conversation sparked plenty of jokes – and anger – across social media. Who would ever assume snacks should be gendered? PepsiCo eventually issued a statement assuring the public they were not making Lady Doritos, stating, "We already have Doritos for women – they're called Doritos."
120 votes
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86 VOTES
Jeremy Scott Launched An Ad Campaign Featuring 'Illegal Aliens'
On June 25, 2018, designer Jeremy Scott launched a new campaign for his brand featuring models with strange skin colors, like blue and red. No one had too much of an issue with this, but when he captioned his Instagram, "THE ONLY THING ILLEGAL ABOUT THIS ALIEN IS HOW GOOD SHE LOOKS," people felt it was incredibly tactless in the wake of the immigrant family separation crisis at the US/Mexico border.
The collection is based on the conspiracy theory that President John F. Kennedy believed aliens were real and confided in Marilyn Monroe about it; she then allegedly threatened to go to the press, which conspiracy theorists say is why Monroe had such an untimely death. Still, to many, the joke feels insensitive as immigrant families struggle to be reunited.
