Digital marketing campaigns are booming and have become essential to promote its products and its brand. However, it is important to target your consumers and their expectations, otherwise the objectives set will not be achieved.

A good way to avoid mistakes is to learn from the mistakes of others. This article will look at 5 big marketing mistakes made by big brands.

1. New Coke (1985)

Firstly, In 1985 coca-cola decided to launch a new recipe for its gasified drink : New coke. New Coke has experienced a real marketing failure. Not because people didn’t like the taste, but because the coca-cola that everyone knows was rooted in American culture.

Indeed, people wanted to find the original coca cola, the one they had known in their youth and that the olfactory senses had memorized. In fact people hated this ad even if the product was good for fear of not finding the old coca-cola.
The ad hadn’t worked so well that Coca-Cola released another classic coca-cola ad.

2. H&M Monkey Fail (2018)

Secondly, H&M also suffered a publicity failure when it posted a photo of a little black boy wearing a coolest monkey in the jungle sweet on their website.
The image has been savagely criticized on social networks because of the racist connotation. H&M then apologized on social media and removed the image from their site in many countries.

This example shows us the importance of knowing the expectations of your consumers when conducting a digital marketing campaign.

3. Domino’s Pizza Tatoo (2018)

Thirdly, Domino’s Pizza made a campaign in Russia to promote the company. The aim was to offer a nearly unlimited supply of pizza for people who would get a tattoo of their logo. But Domino’s Pizza underestimated its target market’s love for pizza and tattoos, indeed they started inundating their social media accounts with pictures of the logo tattoos on their bodies.

Moreover, The problem did not stop there. Domino’s Pizza was expecting that they were getting free publicity, however, it brought about the brand to make adjustments to their campaign. They started to set some limits concerning the tattoo sizes and later they were forced to abandon the whole project.

4. Pepsi (2017)

Pepsi had one of the most bitter marketing failures of 2017. Indeed pepsi tried to rely on the political activism of the moment to promote its brand. Unfortunately it was not taken with a smile by consumers.

In this ad we can see Kelly Jenner leaving a photo shoot to go to a demonstration where she will give the police who are blocking the demonstrators a can of pepsi. After that everyone applauds. Advertising was not appreciated mainly because it mixes politics and marketing.

5.Dolce & Gabbana’s Unethical Marketing Campaign (2018)

Dolce & Gabbana’s did an immoral marketing campaign. The campaign was an Instagram video which undervalued the refinement and intelligence of female showing a Chinese model brawling to eat Italian meals with chopsticks.

The model was pointed up like unrefined and there was some sexual content. Finally, this ad cost millions of dollars to D&G. Due to this ad, D&G had to cancel a show in Shanghai which was verry expensive . The big brand has been publicly attacked by Prada for this unethical advertising.