How to Avoid Marketing Duds Once and for All

Introduction

Good product is equal to terrific business success!

If this is the only mantra you live by, then maybe you should think again!

From the classic Ford Edzel to the more recent Amazon Fire Phone, numerous products which were loaded with unique, and even futuristic features failed to woo customers. 

And the blame goes to – FAILED MARKETING. 

So, no matter how good the product is, it should be accompanied by an even better launch marketing strategy to ensure smooth sailing. 

Gary Vaynerchuk put it correctly,

“Content is king, but marketing is queen and the queen runs the household.”

Campaigns can fail for a variety of reasons, including inadequate audience understanding, poor research, and creative differences. 

In this Review, we will look at some failed launch marketing campaigns with an analysis of what went wrong, and what we can learn from them.

Launch Campaigns that Went Sideways

Botched product launch campaigns happen across industries, and the latest one is definitely not the final one. From big fashion brands to automobile giants, transportation bigshots to renowned gaming franchises – failed marketing campaigns can be found everywhere. 

Let’s have a look at some such cases with a critical eye.

1. A Game Not Well Played

While underselling one’s capabilities is definitely bad for marketing, so is overselling. Let’s take the example of Cyberpunk 2077 – an open-world action-adventure role playing video game launched in 2020.

The parent company, CD Projekt Red (CDPR) created tremendous hype about Cyberpunk 2077 among gaming enthusiasts by releasing mind-boggling cinematic trailers and demo plays. However, this overhyped game was a complete launch disaster pulling tons of negative reviews because of poor gaming experience and frequent crashing. This was a major fiasco.

Now let’s go back in time. Before the launch, CDPR left no stone unturned to create hype for the game but in reality, the company was running well behind schedule on the development.

Instead of further extending the deadline and letting their fans know about the issues in development, they continued to keep the fans in the dark while pushing their developers to meet the deadline.

CDPR’s marketing team however took things to another level. Instead of handling the situation tactfully they amped up the hype with grand advertisements, which even included roping in Keanu Reeves!

The expectations were sky-high, and the developers were under immense pressure to deliver. The release date announced was April 2020, but the developers needed more time to add finishing touches.

Though CDPR was eager to push out the game on announced date, they were forced to reschedule the launch to September 2020, and again, to December 2020.

Eventually, when the actual game came out after 9 months delay, it was highly criticized for a series of technical glitches, which rendered a poor gaming experience that was way below expectations.

The general sentiment was that of disappointment and condemnation.

i. What Went Wrong

Let’s see what went wrong here: 

CDPR got buried under the huge expectations it created itself. They were well aware of their shortcomings and instead of addressing and fixing them, they tried to hide it with the grandeur of marketing.

A study on consumer behavior done by University of Georgia and published in ScienceDaily states that overhyped marketing has a strong tendency to backfire.

It suggests that marketing creates emotional expectations, and the more extravagant colors you add to it, the more pressure of expectation you have to deal with.

And if your product fails to live up to that hyped expectation, then the intensity of the backfire will be proportional to the hype you have created.

If customers don’t feel as good as they expect to feel, it drastically affects how they evaluate the product. 

In simple words, promises directly connect with the emotions of people, and when those promises are not kept, it evokes emotions equivalent to emotional assault.

ii. What to Learn

Well, there is a lot to learn here. 

First, strike a balance between the amount of hype you create and how much you can actually deliver. Failing to deliver the high expectations you create will only crash your product. 

Second, honesty is always the best policy, and there is no exception when it comes to marketing.

Extravagant advertisements/ claims may give you some mileage for a short time, but eventually, people will find out the shortfalls in your promises and they will abandon your product.

The worst part- a bad reputation once can negatively affect your company in the future. Big brands (like CDPR) may overcome this with their huge resources, but for budding businesses, this can turn into a whirlpool that may take you down. 

2. What’s In The Name?

Well…everything, when it comes to marketing. Shakespeare expressed a notion regarding names but following that is a strict ‘no-no’ for marketing teams.

Here’s why:

Volkswagen, the automobile giant of Germany, is known for making affordable cars, and when they launched a high-end luxury model named ‘Phaeton’ it failed miserably despite being applauded by auto experts as a marvel of automobile engineering.

Phaeton was really amazing—in terms of styling, riding experience, and performance, it was at par with the standards Volkswagen is known for.

Also, its luxury features could compete head-to-head with other German goliaths, such as Mercedes.

Yet it failed, probably the biggest product failure in the history of VW, and once again, the marketing team was in the line of fire.

i. What Went Wrong

Let’s see what went wrong here: 

Volkswagen’s marketing team did a poor job right from the campaign strategy to the launch. They came up with the name ‘Phaeton’ probably without researching its roots thoroughly. The word is derived from Greek mythology.

Phaethon was the son of the sun god Helios, and as the myth goes, one day he took his father’s chariot for a ride, lost control of its horses, veered off the regular course, and burned everything on earth.

Ultimately, Zeus stopped this menace by killing Phaethon with his thunderbolt. 

Naturally this story does not do the car any favors. People did not want to buy a car with a jinxed name. But the trouble didn’t end there.

The brand name Volkswagen also did the car great harm.

Volkswagen’s marketing team was targeting status-conscious elites as their potential customers, and to do that, they mailed out personalized hardback brochure books in matte-black sleeves to reflect the luxury of the car.

But they failed to understand their audience and ignored the fact that for elite customers, performance and quality come second to status.

They would prefer a similarly prized Mercedes which has higher status value than a Volkswagen, which literally means “the people’s car”.

And that’s what happened, luxury car buyers didn’t prefer a VW badge in front of their car because it was not at par with their sense of status.

ii. What to Learn

Entering or experimenting with a different market niche (in this case, the luxury car segment) is not a bad idea; rather, several business success stories are based on such changes.

But entrepreneurs have to keep in mind that products are not only associated with quantitative aspects such as quality but also have qualitative aspects such as status.

And this is where the role of strategy in marketing stands out.

A new type of product or experiment is always welcome, but how to place it depends on proper identification and understanding of the target audience. 

Let’s understand it with the VW example, VW didn’t try to understand their target audiences’ perceptions of status, luxury brands, or VW.

Instead, they completely relied on their notion that luxury, quality, and fancy marketing tricks would win people’s hearts.

But what they could do was ask themselves two questions:

first, why do people buy luxury brands such as Mercedes?

And second, what value do these luxury brands provide to their customers?

The answer to both of these questions is the same: status.

Which VW doesn’t have in the minds of people.

This is what VW failed to grasp.

If they did, they would launch the car without tagging the luxury badge to avoid a status dilemma, or they would launch it under the wing of the much more status-credible Audi, which is a subsidiary of VW.

So, the lesson here is that before you go for a launch, you should have a well-informed (by market research, competitor studies, understanding of the audience, etc.) strategy for campaigns to develop a perfect message for the audience and to avoid unnecessary clashes with people’s sentiments such as status.

3. Fashion Fiasco

When it comes to experience, marketing campaigns should also be sensitive to people’s emotions. What happens when they aren’t? 

Here is a case of Kenneth Cole.

Fashion industry giant Kenneth Cole once posted a tweet to market their new spring collection launch in Cairo. The tweet reads: 

“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online.”

The tweet was posted in 2011 during the Egyptian Revolution in which 840 people were killed and over 6000 injured.

Backlash was inevitable and several twitter users roasted Kenneth Cole for being insensitive. Sensing the heat of the situation Kenneth Cole took down the tweet and issued a re-tweet apology by saying:

“Re Egypt tweet: we weren’t intending to make light of a serious situation. We understand the sensitivity of this historic moment -KC.”

But it was too late, and the brand was attracting negative emotions from people, including a #boycottkennethcole hashtag went on trending soon after.

i. What Went Wrong

Let’s see what went wrong here. 

Well, playing with something controversial is not always bad but you need to be careful about the ‘what, where and who’.

Kenneth Cole took a very sensitive issue of people’s protest against government’s oppression (what) and posted it on twitter (where), a platform which is essentially driven by people’s opinion (who).

Further, he used #Cairo so people from Cairo could easily find it out.

First of all the choice of platform (Twitter) was wrong because Twitter is quite popular among people to show protest, discontent, disagreement, and criticism.

Kenneth Cole was probably ‘just kidding’ by making an already controversial issue a marketing stunt but, expecting a sense of humor from opinion-heavy twitter users to understand the underlying actual motive (product launch in this case) is not a good idea.

Especially, when it was directly pointed towards the people in distress by adding the Cairo hashtag. 

ii. What to Learn

The lesson to be learned here is before choosing a platform for your campaign you must have a thorough understanding of the platform and the type of audience it has.

Each social media platform has a different tone and energy.

These platforms also have different sets of audience which account for different sets of likes/dislikes, sensitivity and behavior.

For example, on Twitter people tend to voice their critical self-more than on a platform like Instagram. 

So, tailor-make your advertisements to reach the right audience by delving deep into the target audience persona.

There is still room for wit, but make sure you do so while maintaining a certain level of tact.

A great way to put people at ease in your interactions is to keep things light-hearted. But, a poorly placed joke can result in negative engagement.

Conclusion

To put simply, marketing is not an easy job nowadays. However, when there is a problem there is also a solution.

Being honest about your product, understanding your target audience and taking a tailor-made approach for specific platforms is the best way to take the first step. 

That’s all, folks! 

We would love to hear your opinion in the comment section below.

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