1Mister Rodney BK Ad
In 1984, Burger King ran an ad campaign with a character called “Mister Rodney” touting its superior cooking over McDonald’s. The campaign was stopped after Mister Rogers himself called Burger King’s vice president, who had the commercial taken off the air.
2. Windows 7 Whopper was sold at Burger King in Japan for the promotion of Microsoft's Windows 7. The hamburger contained 7 stacked beef patties, weighed almost 1 kg, and had more than 1,000 cal. The promotion period was extended from 7 days to 16 days due to unexpected popularity.
3. In 2018, the town of Mayo, Florida temporarily changed its name to “Miracle Whip” as an advertising promotion with Kraft.
4. The promotion for Mission Impossible 3 had the theme playing from selected newspaper dispensers on the streets in Los Angeles. However, some of the music-playing devices fell out leading the public to think they were bombs. The bomb squad detonated a news dispenser before learning of the promotion.
5. In 1955, Quaker Oats gave away free land deeds as part of a cereal promotion. Participants could mail in their cereal box to redeem a plot of land sized 1 inch x 1 inch in a gold-rush region of Canada.
Latest FactRepublic Video:
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Burma Shave Promotion
In 1955, Burma-Shave ran a promotion for a free trip to Mars if someone sent in 900 empty bottles of their product. It was intended to be a joke, but when a man from Wisconsin duly sent in 900 bottles, they scrambled to honor the promotion; sending him to Moers, Germany.
7. Apple’s famous 1984 commercial only aired twice, once locally in Idaho, and once at the Super Bowl.
8. Sega created a character named Segata Sanshiro to promote the Sega Saturn in the late 90s, an over-the-top martial artist who performed insane antics while yelling at people to play Sega Saturn. His last commercial had him protecting Sega headquarters from a missile attack and riding it into space.
9. To promote the game Burnout 2:Point of Impact, Acclaim Entertainment offered to reimburse any driver in the United Kingdom who received a speeding ticket. Following a negative reaction to this from the UK government, the plan was canceled.
10. Ikea once ran a print advert on which you urinated and if you were pregnant it gave you a 50% discount on a crib.
11Promotional Volkswagen Experiment
In a promotional Volkswagen experiment, one randomized group of subway commuters were given the choice of regular stairs and the escalator while a second group could choose between musical “piano stairs” and an escalator. The piano stairs convinced 66% more people than normal to choose stairs.
12. On 29 May 1886, Coca-Cola’s first ad appeared in The Atlanta Journal. Its creator John Pemberton predicted Coca-Cola would be a “national drink” but he and his son sold their stake to satisfy morphine addiction. He died penniless but the recipe remains a closely guarded trade secret even today.
13. Škoda actually made a full-sized car out of cake for their 2007 advertising campaign.
14. 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, once a TV news channel replicated and verified the ad’s authenticity it gained popularity amongst the general public.
15. There was a Victoria’s Secret “The Perfect Body” ad that sparked controversy in 2014 because it featured thin underwear-clad female models who all had the same figure. A petition asking the company to apologize for their “harmful marketing campaign” reached nearly 10,000 signatures.
16UK Commercial Slot
In the UK the maximum amount of airtime allowed for TV commercials is 12 minutes for any particular clock hour.
17. There was once a Colgate marketing campaign in Thailand, where once you finished eating ice cream or a lollipop, it revealed a toothbrush-shaped stick with the message “Don’t forget”, alongside the Colgate branding.
18. In 1992, Nike made a Super Bowl commercial where an animated Bugs Bunny played basketball with a real-live Michael Jordan. The commercial was so successful that Warner Brothers decided to turn it into a whole movie (Space Jam).
19. In 2018, Domino’s in Russia offered up to 100 free pizzas every year for 100 years if a customer got the Domino’s logo tattooed visibly on their body. Initially intended to last a month the promotion proved to be so popular Domino’s ended it after a week with 350 accepted winners.
20. Despite a $34 million advertising campaign in the United States by General Mills Inc., their breakfast cereal snack Fingos only lasted from 1993 to 1994.
21Reebok 50 Cent Ad
In 2005, the UK's Advertising Standards Authority demanded the cancellation of an ad where 50 Cent remarked on having really survived being shot 9 times, saying that the ad was “[..] implying it was possible to survive being shot nine times.” Reebok accepted their demands and withdrew the campaign.
22. Between 1967 and 1991, companies in USSR produced thousands of TV ads for non-existent products.
23. In Canada, Superbowl ads are nowadays considered an integral part of the Superbowl program. The CRTC (which regulates Canadian TV) specifically bans broadcasters from substituting the American ads with Canadian ones.
24. Apple was allowed to advertise the iPhone X in the UK as capable of shooting “studio-quality portraits” because there was no finite definition of what studio-quality means.
25. A device named An0m was marketed to criminal organizations as super-secure, with its own closed messaging network. It was actually run by law enforcement across multiple countries, who got copies of every communication sent through it.
