Online Branding Disasters and How To Learn From Them

In today’s world, having a large online presence as a business is crucial to your growth, but in such a competitive market you need to make sure that your brand stands out or risk finding it difficult to engage your users. How can you do this? Make sure that you’re authentic.

Consumers prefer to buy from brands that are genuine and understanding of their needs. Branding that doesn’t get the needs of the user and misses the point is likely to steer the audience away and there have been many examples of even the largest brands in the industry that have fallen at the hurdle of branding disasters.

Here are some examples of branding authenticity disasters and how you can learn from them.

Clothing Brand American Apparel mistakes shuttle disaster for a firework display

American Apparel is a well-known clothing brand that had a social media hiccup in 2014. They posted an image of the Challenger space shuttle disaster thinking that it was a display of a firework.

The post was meant to be in celebration of American Independence Day, but social media commentators were quick to act on the mistake and accuse American Apparel of being in bad taste as all the members of the shuttle were killed in the disaster. The shuttle broke apart after take off.

American Apparel subsequently removed the post from Tumblr and apologised claiming that the social media employee was unaware of the disaster as they were born after the tragedy and were unaware of what happened.

Lesson: There are many users of social media and a place where you can be easily targeted, so remember to research before choosing to post anything on your platforms. This particular mistake from American Apparel made the brand appear very insensitive.

Nivea’s ‘White Is Purity’ Facebook Post

Nivea used an image on Facebook with the tagline "White Is Purity" which many felt was a racist slogan.

The campaign was targeted at Middle Eastern audiences on Facebook. The idea was to promote Nivea’s invisible for Black and White deodorant’ which prevents white marks on dark clothes. Instead, many social media users claimed it had racial connotations and caused quite a stir on the platforms.

Lesson: Before posting an image on social media, consider casting a fresh pair of eyes on it first. It’s hard to believe that the ad went through the approval process in the Nivea marketing department without anyone suggesting that it could imply racial connotations, which is why it may better to get someone from outside of the department to do it instead.

Dove’s Changing Skin Colour Woman

October 2017 was the month that saw Dove release a new campaign for their body wash. In the video advert, it shows a black woman wearing a t-shirt similar in colour to her skin tone. Then as she takes it off, it reveals a white woman wearing a t-shirt similar to her own skin tone, essentially seeming as though the woman turns from black to white because she’s now used the body wash.

It was immediately labelled as racist, suggesting that black people are ‘dirty’. Dove eventually pulled the advert and apologised for misrepresenting women of colour.

Lesson: Consider the context of the campaign and think of the bigger picture. Ads can be taken very quickly out of context and if they go viral, they can cause major harm to your brand.

It’s unbelievable to think that even the biggest brands can make such mistakes. So, to make sure that you prevent brand content disasters, whether you have an internal marketing team or are gaining help from a design agency manchester, keep these in mind when creating them:

• Be sensitive to cultural issues such as race and gender
• Understand the context of any news before deciding to jump on the bandwagon
• Proofread as much as you can to prevent errors occurring
• Before launching your campaign, gain some consumer feedback
• If you do make a mistake, hold your hands up and apologise immediately. Don’t try to defend your creativeness.

Richard Meadow is a freelance writer that works closely with small businesses and android app development. He is always interested in modern and advanced technology and enjoys writing about it.