1Where’s Herb?
Burger King launched a $40 million ad campaign in November 1985 called “Where’s Herb?” The idea was to find a character named Herb who’d never been to Burger King. Other chains pointed out that if Herb wasn’t at Burger King, it meant he probably liked other chains' burgers more. Burger King’s profits fell 40% in 1986.
2. Victoria's Secret was originally marketed to men to buy for their partners. Leslie Wexner bought it for $1 million and changed the marketing to women. To create the illusion of luxury, the company listed on catalogs that it was headquartered at a fake London address, but the real one was in Columbus, Ohio.
3. Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which used to air many PSAs through the 80s to the mid-2000s, was actually funded by alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical companies. The ads steered clear warnings about legal drugs being abused.
4. The “Fearless Girl” statue that’s famous for “standing up to the Bull on Wallstreet” was commissioned by an investments firm, State Street Global Advisors, which holds $2.8 trillion in assets. The statue was to advertise a new investment fund they were offering.
5. One of the few times Pink Floyd allowed their music to be used for corporate advertising was a bizarre 1973 ad for Dole bananas.
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6Murphy’s Irish Stout
Murphy’s Irish Stout, a brewery in Cork, Ireland, had a 60-second anime advert produced by the creators of Ghost in the shell in 1997. It was the first anime advert shown in Ireland and the UK and it shows six Samurais racing to make “Last orders” at a pub.
7. In 1996, after the Sugar Puffs mascot ‘the Honey Monster’ appeared in an advert playing football for Newcastle United, sales of the cereal in nearby Sunderland plummeted. The boycott continued until 2009 when Honey Monster appeared in an ad wearing a Sunderland shirt.
8. The drink mix Tang wasn’t created by or for NASA. It was introduced in 1957 but sold poorly until the U.S. space agency used it for John Glenn’s 1962 Mercury mission. Tang was then marketed as what the astronauts drank, but Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin later said, “Tang sucks.”
9. The inventor of Vaseline used to advertise his product by burning himself with acid and fire, then covering the wounds with the jelly while showing off his other healed injuries.
10. Mr. Goodbar was created in response to the Great Depression. It was marketed as a “meal replacement bar” for lunch and allowed the Hershey Company to be one of the only major companies to not lay off a single employee.
11Citroen Ad
The world’s largest advertisement was Citroen’s 1925-1934 advert which used the Eiffel tower. For almost a decade, the word “Citroen” was emblazoned vertically on the tower. 250,000 light bulbs and 600 kilometers of electric cable were used to make the 30-meter-high letters.
12. When Crystal Pepsi was released, Coca-Cola released a competitor called Tab Clear. However, Tab Clear was intentionally marketed poorly in order to hurt Crystal Pepsi’s image by product association. The “born to die” strategy was successful and both campaigns were dead 6 months later.
13. In the 1980s the yellow pages aired an advert in Britain. The ad saw a pregnant woman with cravings ask her husband for a pizza with tuna fish and a banana. Thousands of people tried to place orders for this weird combination of toppings, prompting Domino’s to put it on the menu.
14. Before World War 2, skimmed milk, as a byproduct of the butter-making process, was either thrown out or used to fatten pigs up. Shortly thereafter, it was marketed as a weight-loss food to people.
15. Harold and Kumar were written to go to Krispy Kreme, but after the company declined to be featured in the film, White Castle was selected instead. Happy about the free advertising, White Castle become the first fast-food chain to have an R-Rated comedy advertised on fast food containers.
16Kent Micronite Cigarettes
From 1952 to 1956, billions of Kent Micronite cigarettes were sold with a filter made from asbestos. The new filter was marketed as “the greatest health protection in cigarette history.”
17. When Coca-Cola marketed its Dasani brand of water in the UK in 2004 it was a PR disaster because they referred to it as “bottled spunk” and used the slogan “can’t live without spunk” not realizing “spunk” was a slang word for semen in the UK.
18. Bubble wrap was originally invented in 1957 to be used as wallpaper. After not selling well it was marketed as a greenhouse insulator, and then eventually as the packaging material, we know it as today.
19. Cinco De Mayo’s popularity as a holiday in the US is largely due to a marketing campaign launched by Corona Beer’s importer in 1989.
20. Philadelphia Cream Cheese was invented in New York and has never been produced in Philadelphia. Its name was an 1880s marketing strategy because at the time Philadelphia was known for its high-quality dairy.
21Eflornithine
Pharmaceutical company Aventis stopped production of Eflornithine, which was a cure for sleeping sickness and a lifesaving drug for millions of Africans, between 1995-2001 because it wasn’t making enough profit. Instead, the product was marketed in the west as women’s facial hair removal cream.
22. The Pan-American Coffee Bureau coined the phrase ‘coffee break’ in 1952, and ran a $2 million advertising campaign with the message that a ‘coffee break’ would give workers ‘a needed moment of relaxation along with a caffeine jolt.’
23. Coke Zero is specifically marketed towards men, who were shown to associate Diet Coke with women.
24. Casio was widely accused of false advertising after launching an ad where a hockey player used a G-Shock watch as a puck to demonstrate its toughness. However when a TV news channel replicated and verified the ad’s authenticity it gained popularity amongst the general public.
25. PEZ was originally marketed to adults as an alternative to smoking cigarettes and their early slogan was, “No smoking, PEZing Allowed.” The name PEZ is an abbreviation of PfeffErminZ, which is German for peppermint.
