what is the most weird marketing strategy ever executed?

Question

what is the most weird marketing strategy ever executed

Answer 1

People getting tattoos of companies on their bodies for cash.

Answer 2

One I'll never forget is the Fox network having a petty attempt to shill their programming they called Fox-o-Rama. It was such a desperate attempt on their angle, in my opinion, for ratings. Not sure if it worked. It was used for an episode of Living Single, Married with Children and an airing of Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love......

What I know is that they ran a promotion with 7-11 where you would go buy 3D glasses and a scratch ticket-like card. There were several shows that would have a logo on the bottom corner of the screen that would count down and tell you when to sniff the card. These episodes that featured this also had enhanced camerawork, where some of the characters would partake in zany, cartoon-like slapstick sequences. Ex) Marcy from Married with Children slapped Jefferson in the face and he spun around like a bad Looney Toons character.

An example: I remember on an episode of "Living Single" where one of the guys on it shows up to the girls apartment with a pie, and as soon as he waves it to them, to show it off, the logo on the corner of the screen would say something like "Ready, get set......" and you'd sniff the card after scratching it and it smelled like air fragrance apple.

Innovative eh? I remember they did this 11 years ago.....

Answer 3

I think it would be the Ford (auto makers) promotion ad sometime ago, which had created lots of criticisms and racism issues then.
The Ford marketing division took a picture of about 12 people who posed for an ad, which included about 4 black people in that picture. Later however, at some stage, the Ford company seemed to have changed their minds about the photo, and actually reconstructed the picture to appear in a way that all black people in that picture became white color! This unethical event created lots of havoc then (racism, etc), and which Ford later admitted to it and appologized.

Answer 4

Carl's Jr. launched an ad featuring a fetus talking to his mother about the Spicy BBQ Six Dollar hamburger with jalapenos she's been eating.

Watch ad here:
http://adage.com/shared/includes/spotwin.html?vid=carlsjr-baby05.asf

During the ad the fetus pulls his umbilical chord to get his mother's attention and ultimately grabbing part of the uterine wall in a suggestion he'll intentionally tear it out during birth.

The fetus warns his mother to go easy on the spicy stuff or he'll come out early. "It Aint For Babies," the voiceover of the ad concludes.

Answer 5

Maybe not the weirdest, but very unusual and successful - the music group OK Go. They filmed themselves dancing in the back yard to one of their songs, then sent that out on email to friends, and then it was posted on Youtube.com. Millions hit that video, and soon the group became very successful. They made a second video of themselves dancing on treadmills for their second song.
I'm pretty sure they won or at least were nominated to a few MTV awards a few days ago.

This is the original video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bav63MWNUKg

This is the treadmill dance:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=92IWqopETfI

This is a video about the OK GO phenomena:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=92IWqopETfI

Answer 6

I think when the Coca-Cola Company changed the original flavored coke to "new coke" was the worst marketing blunder of all time.Why mess with the best? That was the dumbest idea I have ever heard of.

Answer 7

The little plastic watch guard that went across the front of all of your swatch watches! Big fad in the eighties. You had to have a ton of swatch watches then they came out with this little platic guard that look like a really thin string of plastic that went across the watch face. It was suppose to be so cool - thats why I still have a box of these watches and the interchangeable guards collecting dust in my closet!!!!!

Answer 8

Where's the beef? with Clara Peller, the 90 year old woman who can't believe the size of hamburgers other than Wendy's.

Answer 9

Sometime within the past decade, there was a couple who got their dream wedding by swapping "free advertisement" for wedding products and services. The invitations (free) had a "thanks to X Printers for providing the invitations" on the invitation itself. The reception had posterboards on easels thanking each of the following companies for providing food, photography, music, etc. It was a brilliant way to get a fabulous wedding for next to nothing...but I'm thinking the whole affair looked something like a trade show.

Following suit several years later, two college students used their own bodies as advertising billboards in exchange for tuition and living costs. They had T-shirts printed which said something like, My education was brought to you by the makers of the following products." With many thanks, of course.

Man! Talk about thinking outside the box!

Answer 10

The weirdest ones seem to be commercial advertisement that include the product but it has absolutely nothing to do with whats going on in the commercial.

Answer 11

I seem to recall a couple fo years ago one of the traditional steak sauces (HP or A1) had a cow singing "the only one for me is you" on television commerical,

evertime I saw that cow singing, I could not help but think how morbid it was that a cow was singing to a steak sauce that was going to be used in the process of eating same cow.