Back in December, I posted an article on 2008’s Dumbest Moments In Business. Topping the list last year were The Big Three (Ford, GM and Buick), the SEC for letting Madoff slip through the cracks (for a decade) and Countrywide’s former CEO whom spearheaded subprime mortgages.

Now, Fortune has released another edition of the top business blunders, for 2009 (thus far)—because there’s always plenty of “dumb” to go around. Ladies and gentlemen, even more do’h!-worthy moments in business:

KFC runs out of chicken; riot ensues. When you recruit Oprah Winfrey to help market your free meals, you have to expect a huge turnout—about 4 million. Unfortch, when KFC ran out of chicken and had to turn valid coupon-holders away, some sued, some staged sit-ins and many ranted on the Internet.

Tropicana’s “generic” redesign. Tropicana unveiled its brand-new “simply designed” cartons and drinkers inundated the company with negative feedback—even comparing the new packaging to the generic store brands. Tropicana quickly reverted to the classic “straw in an orange” imagery. (Dear Tropicana, ever heard of a “focus group”?)

Apple’s “Baby Shaker” iPhone App. I wish they were kidding. For exactly two days, an app was available for iPhone users that consisted of a picture of a baby, along with crying sounds, and the user was encouraged to endure the sounds as long as possible before shaking the phone to quiet the child (X’s appeared over its eyes, so you knew when it was finally “quiet”). Apple apologized, then announced its 1 billionth App Store download.

Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) encourages AIG execs to off themselves. In a radio station interview, Sen. Grassley stated that AIG executives should follow the Japanese model and apologize—and then commit suicide.

President Obama’s .0005-percent spending cut. When the president made a big deal about his $100 million cuts from the cabinet, many snickered. While $100 million is a tidy sum, it makes barely a dent in the U.S.’s $1.8 trillion budget deficit.

Well, I could go on and on, but I’ll let you click on the source article for more dum-dum moves and laughable faux pas from the nation’s biggest companies and wealthiest figures.

Source:

Fortune: Dumbest Moments In Business 2009—Mid-Year Edition

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I happen to be of the “Um, what?” group when it comes to the disturbing king ads Burger King has been pushing as of late. I’m certainly not the only one looking for answers: Advertising Age, Gawker and Fast Company have all taken part in the great debate over whether the commercials are super-creepy or super-creative marketing. Some say the average consumer is too low-brow to appreciate high-concept marketing, while others blame timing.

I will admit, the king concept is bizarre enough to create buzz (good) and has certainly re-energized BK’s brand (also good). But this comes seemingly at the expense of alienating their target audience (very, very bad) and not considering outside factors, such as the recession (also bad).

Whatever the problem is, the most recent numbers show that BK is losing ground, big time, to McDonald’s and Wendy’s. (McDonald’s was smart enough to push simple, all-American and value-oriented ads during a time when the country is feeling a little down and hurting for extra cash; their overall message being “you deserve a treat and it’s only $1!”)

So, BK took a risk—a pretty big one—and it didn’t pan out. In business sometimes these things happen. However, the even bigger mistake is waiting so long to reassess the changing environment and update their marketing accordingly.

~Danielle

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For business owners who also happen to be Google feature fans (i.e., Google Docs and Google Desktop), a little-known feature called Google Insights might just help shape your marketing.

Here’s how it works: Google Insights allows anyone to evaluate search terms that have been plugged into Google by comparing them to other search terms, finding out when these terms are most popular (seasonality), where these search terms are most common searched geographically and more.

For example, asking Google to “insight” the term “tanning” fetches the following results:

• The amount of searches track fairly closely year-over-year (from 2004 to 2008), with the highest number of searches being performed in March and April of each year.
• The most popular state for people searching the term is West Virginia (Ohio, Washington, Nebraska and Michigan round out the top five, in that order).
• The top related search terms are various forms of “tanning salon,” “tanning bed” and “tanning lotion.” The top 10 related terms also include “spray tanning” and “sunless tanning.”
• Search terms that are on the rise in relation to tanning include “black tanning lotion” and “designer skin” (a nod to online lotion diversion, I’m sure) as well as a few names of popular salon chains (“boca tanning club,” “chili peppers tanning” and “sundays tanning”).

This is a wealth of useful information about the industry! It provides, ahem, insight, into what your customers want (to find a tanning salon), what specific terms they are using to search for what they want and even which state the most potential customers are living in—and it does this all for free.

Check it out and see what it reveals about your business!

~Danielle

P.S. To see the results page for the info listed in this article click here.

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