5 Corporate Promotions That Ended in (Predictable) Disaster

By James Greene Jr. July 2, 2009 737,962 views

So you need to create some instant excitement for your company, or product. You need to shake things up. You need to create buzz.

And really, what creates "buzz" better than some kind of riot, or stampede? Or people running screaming away from fires? That's the lesson we've learned from these fine examples:

#5.

Oprah Gives Away Free Chicken

KFC (now having officially dropped its slave name "Kentucky Fried Chicken") decided in May of 2009 to promote its new grilled chicken by giving it away for free. Wanting to keep their promotion subtle and discreet, they did the announcement on the show of a little-known entertainer named Oprah Winfrey.

What Went Wrong

With a hilariously tragic lack of foresight, KFC underestimated both the all-encompassing influence of Oprah and the subtle racism of using a black spokeswoman to sell chicken. They apparently didn't realize the Mighty O reigns over the kind of media empire previously only seen under the thumb of Richard Dawson in The Running Man, so when she told viewers they could print out a voucher for free lunch at KFC on the May 5th episode of her talk show, America shit a rainbow so large it could be seen from space.

Approximately 16 million people printed out the Winfrey-approved coupon and showed up at KFCs nationwide to pry their free chicken from Colonel Sanders's cold dead fingers. The fast food chain was overwhelmingly unprepared and ran out of product before lunchtime (evidently their market research suggested that the average citizen doesn't like chicken and hates not having to pay for things).

Angry customers in New York, outraged that their demands to complain to Sanders directly were dismissed as both "impossible" and "moronic," responded by starting mini-riots and sit-ins. Managers at some locations maneuvered around the debacle by telling customers they couldn't accept any coupons ending with the serial numbers "1234," which incidentally consisted of every PDF copy of the coupon in existence.

KFC also hilariously included the arbitrary restriction that the coupons couldn't be used on Mother's Day, which makes us think their CEO is in some kind of wacky Major League situation where somehow he makes a fortune only if he ruins the franchise.

The Backlash

Rival chain, El Pollo Loco, officially turned KFC's grilled chicken clusterfuck into tender-roasted lovemaking when they announced that they'd accept all six million rejected KFC coupons that coming Sunday (which just happened to be Mother's Day).

Coma bolas, hombre sexos pollos!

KFC President Roger Eaton tried to wipe some of the egg off his face (pun completely intended because we're talking about chicken) by issuing a public statement, but the damage had been done--his company sunk a fuck ton of money into Oprah only to have their customers scooped up by a rival chicken shack. Generally, this is not part of a good business model.

#4.

Ten Cent Beer Night

Before the aforementioned Major League movies, the only claim to fame the Cleveland Indians had was a racist mascot. But on June 4, 1974, Ohio's weaker baseball franchise decided to try and fill their stands by offering all-you-could-drink beer for the lip-flappingly insane price of ten cents a cup.

Where It Went Wrong

Bottomless beer cups at a dime a piece will bring people back from the grave. They might as well have offered buried pirate treasure to everyone that bought a ticket. 25,134 rowdy friends showed up to Cleveland Municipal Stadium that night and, unsurprisingly, proceeded to behave like drunken retards. Pot and firecrackers were being lit before the first at-bat was over, and by the fourth inning two people had run naked onto the field.

The visiting Texas Rangers were pelted with everything from batteries to wine jugs, but things didn't really get out of hand until a fan landed in the outfield and attempted to steal the cap of Ranger Jeff Burroughs. Texas Manager Billy Martin picked up a bat and exited the dugout to protect his player in a display of steel-balled awesomeness. Both team's benches followed Martin, and what ensued was one of baseball's most dangerous and drunken riots.

The Backlash

The game officially ended when a hunting knife pierced the ground next to an umpire. He called a forfeit in favor of the Rangers and then rushed into the locker room to shake the terror-poop out of his pants. Future beer nights at Cleveland Municipal were changed from unlimited amounts to four cups per customer, which research indicates is the precise amount of alcohol required to actually enjoy three hours of baseball.

#3.

McDonald's Monopoly

Every year, fast food monolith McDonald's slaps game pieces from the popular/boring board game Monopoly onto their drink cups, giving customers a chance to win valuable cash prizes to cover the cost of the gastric bypass surgery they'll need later.

You win--but at what price?

What Went Wrong

In the mid 90s, Mickey D's hired a subcontractor called Simon Marketing to organize and promote their Monopoly sweepstakes. Simon's Chief of Security, Jerome P. Jacobson, quickly discovered a flaw in the gaming system and found he had no choice but to steal the game pieces with the highest cash value.

Between 1995 and 2001, Jacobson passed out winning pieces to his friends and family and formed a covert prize network that netted over $24 million. This scam could have gone on for decades were it not for a guilty insider who dimed Jacobson out like Fredo Corleone.

I know it was you, Grimace. You broke my heart.

The Backlash

McDonald's ended up looking pretty stupid in this one, seeing as how their own subcontractors were hamburgling all their money. In the Golden Arches' defense, they started a new, legitimate cash giveaway almost immediately after the Simon Marketing folks were arrested.

Sadly, Ronald and his pals were clowned (GET IT? HE'S A FUCKING CLOWN) when their breach of contract suit was thrown out of court for lack of evidence and they were ordered to pay a $16.6 million settlement to the very guy who screwed them. In the world of fast food disasters, that ranks just above getting a mummified penis in your Happy Meal.

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112 Comments

Leperkhan, what the f**k are you talking about. Cassius Clay changed his name to Mohammad Ali because he found Islam and he felt the name represented his new faith accordingly. Read your history man.

10/19/2009 8:53:16 PM

jryan90

Hmmm.... Shitting Rainbows?

I guess that Lucky the Leprechaun is in for a surprise!

9/8/2009 5:30:33 PM

AngrySailor302

Hilarious!!!!I was cracking up!"America s**t a rainbow so large it could be seen from space" and "...to pry their free chicken from Colonel Sanders's cold dead fingers". You are a very funny columnist!

9/6/2009 4:56:08 AM

nuday22

You guys forgot the Pepsi promo where some kid won a Harrier jet.

8/29/2009 2:10:03 PM

phartman

No recheck on BK's Herb promo? Bald guys being dragged off the block, and "Where's my MONEY" at the checkout. That was idiotically fun.

8/21/2009 1:11:47 PM

Geronimo-S

Steve Dahl put the final nail in the coffin of disco. and to think he thought that was the end of his career.

8/15/2009 10:11:17 PM

ijpowers

clearly people severely underestimate the lows of human stupidity and greed....and quadruple that when there is alcohol involved

8/12/2009 1:52:14 PM

wickedmonkey

Whart? Not even a mention of Acclaim? For those of you that don't know about it here is what they did.

They tried to pay parents to name their children Turok
They tried to pay people for advertising on their relatives tombstones (for Shadowman 2)
They offered to pay any speeding ticket of any driver in UK the day of burnout2's release.

None of these actually ended in disaster, but having the church and the government of the UK b***h about you is no small feat.

7/31/2009 2:24:14 AM

Stratoukos

i was one of those people who scammed money from mcdonalds but then that f*g had to rat and we had to give it back and faced 3 years in prison

7/9/2009 9:11:33 PM

purple9haze6

QuankersJenkins you did that, too? If only my parents could afford to go to BK more often, I would have cleaned up like you.

7/8/2009 6:00:50 AM

reztoc

KFC doesn't think things all they way through, the general public over-reacts on a grand scale, & I still hate El Polo Loco for buying out El Polo Asada, which was superior in taste. (Church's Chicken ain't bad either). So uh...is that cute guy in the picture supposed to be KFC President Roger Eaton?

Oh noes! You actualy made me feel pitty for MacDonnalds! How will life go on?

Even reading it, I can;t even begin to imagine what went on at that Disco Demolition thing.

7/8/2009 2:04:10 AM

likalaruku

Alright, well I don't know who the f*** Doctor Chaos is, but if he's anything like me, he must be pretty f***ing cool.

MY point is that it's really tiring as f*** to hear "racist this" and "racist that" ALL THE F***ING TIME. And anything any white person ever does is tantamount to or largely related to f***ing SLAVERY!

All this bullsh*t about "we need to have an honest national conversation about race," by people who have no intention of doing any such thing. How about a "national shut-the-f***-up-about-race?" THAT could really do the country some damned good.

Tiresome as f***.

7/7/2009 10:40:42 PM

DrZin

I don't really care, cause a. i know you are a doctor chaos wannabe, and thats the only reason you lampoon commenters comments, and b. i wasnt saying that that was something i believed in or stood by, i was just explaining it in a way that you guys might understand, hey they say racist s**t all the time here.
ok:
1. his mother named him using white peoples naming conventions,so yes you can say thats the "slave name"
2.there were alot of black muslims in the 60s, and that was the 1st way to get rid of the so called "slave name", lose the whitey inspired name, and get with the happenin crowd of the time and take a muslim name, muhammed ali did
3.then we get to kfc, they dropped kentucky fried chicken, for the less ponderous kfc,sure, but it was also during the same time period that ad execs were adopting hip hop cheesely and lamely into their ad campaigns, thereby cheapening it. this was when we had the "mickey d's" rap, and had ronald breakdancing. hey look kids, mickey d's is hip to the beat, come on down and spend your money.
so see? "slave name" refers to the "whitey inspired" s**t, and you gotta drop it now so peeps will come on in and buy your stuff.
the guy in the article knew it, he wrote it.
next time send the real doctor chaos,

7/7/2009 2:18:11 PM

Leperkhan

"What they mean by slave name, its the same as Cassius Clay, he didnt want that name the white man gave him, cassius clay was a slave name . . ."

I thought his mama gave him that name. His mother was a white man? Seems strange.

". . . so he changed it to muhammed ali, cause that was far more hip hop . . ."

I don't think they had hip hop in the 1960s; it also doesn't really sound so "hip hop," Muhammad Ali. I don't know . . . sounds pretty muslim to me. Are you thinking of Ali G?

". . . Kentucky fried chicken was tired of its name that whitey gave it . . ."

Mmmm . . . Colonel Sanders was white and it was his operation. So, any name given by a white person to a person or a thing is a "slave name?" Even when there's not the slightest thing to do with slavery? Seems kind of . . . you know . . . stupid.

". . . so it was changed to the more hiphop-esque sounding KFC, to get rid of its slave name."

Mmmm, hmmm. Like when the Federal Bureau of Investigation changed to the totally fly, "FBI," to appeal more to the urban crowd. Or like JFK, who was always trying to appeal to the youths. Gotcha.

I enjoyed your racialist bullshit.

7/6/2009 8:36:51 AM

DrZin

If someone else already explained, i apologize.What they mean by slave name, its the same as Cassius Clay, he didnt want that name the white man gave him, cassius clay was a slave name, so he changed it to muhammed ali, cause that was far more hip hop than cassius clay.By the same token, Kentucky fried chicken was tired of its name that whitey gave it, so it was changed to the more hiphop-esque sounding KFC, to get rid of its slave name.
Mickey D's anyone?

7/6/2009 2:33:36 AM

Leperkhan

Burger King used to have scratch off cards you could get with meals during a promotion. Upon receiving my first card ever the first thing I did was hold it up to the light and discovered immediately that you could see right through the rubbery gunk you scratch off and see exactly which boxes to reveal. I won my weight in free Burger King for several weeks.

7/4/2009 9:38:56 AM