6 Offensive Messages Hidden in Huge Marketing Campaigns

The Plan:

When Adidas hired designer Jeremy Scott to come up with a new shoe for kids, he did what was natural and looked to his childhood for inspiration. He found it in a toy from the 1980s called My Pet Monster. It looked like this:

amazon.com
And was, presumably, "totally badical."

Scott's monster-inspired sneaker design, called the JS Roundhouse Mid, referenced the trademark orange shackles, and looked like this:

Adidas
As a boy, Scott identified with the monster because it's tough being a teen.

The Mistake:

According to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the shoes were little more than an "attempt to commercialize and make popular more than 200 years of human degradation." To be fair to Scott, that probably wasn't the exact phrasing he used when he pitched the design to Adidas. You see what Scott was going for, now that you know the full story -- but it's not like My Pet Monster is an accessible reference to the sneaker-obsessed youth of today. And even if it was, they called the shoes "JS Roundhouse Mid" -- not "My Pet Monster Shoes" or "Totally Not Slave Kicks."

Adidas apologized for the unintentional allegory and decided not to release the sneakers, but they came to their designer's defense, promising that Scott's work was purely the result of an obsession with '80s pop culture ... and a big honkin' blind spot in American history.

Huh. For some reason that black guy seems oddly out of place with the overall motif they've got going here ...

The Mistake:

Well, to start, their logo looks like a Nazi reference from a dystopian sci-fi film.

Manchester United
"All men must use their assigned positions to defend the common goal!"

Of course, the swastika is a pretty simple shape, so it's understandable if you accidentally designed an abstract logo that's vaguely reminiscent of it. But how do you explain the severe and unflinching presence of the phrase "New Order" right next to it? If the term doesn't ring a bell, "The New Order" referred to Nazi-occupied Europe and was one of Hitler's favorite wacky catchphrases, right up there with "Do the Schutzstaffel shuffle!" and "I did NAZI that coming!"

The group's head of media, David Sternberg, released a full apology and promised to launch an internal investigation, which eventually concluded that the whole thing was a "bloody accident," no doubt enabled by decades of ceaseless World War II references in British comedies.

The Plan:

Check out the above JC Penney billboard for a new designer teapot. Do you see it?

No? You've no idea what might be off about this picture?

It's the pun, silly! This kettle has "the bells and whistles you deserve." Kettles whistle, and this one has a bell. Get it? Hahaha.

Also the teapot looks like a saluting Hitler.

The Mistake:

Wait, what? How can a teapot look like-

via CNN
"Here is my handle, and here is my Lebensraum."

Oh, shit.

There is no way that was intentional on the part of the designer. It's a total case of pareidolia. But look again: You can't deny it -- the lopsided hairstyle handle, the knob mustache, the saluting spout ... hell, thanks to a poorly placed side-handle, it's even wearing a little tie. This is the Manchester United of kettles.

It was Reddit that first pointed out the resemblance and Patton Oswalt who, thanks to his crippling lack of faith in humanity, first predicted that sales of the teapot would skyrocket. Which, obviously, they did. Adolf Kettler sold out online almost instantly.

Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
Most buyers put their purchase on top of their oven.

With fame comes notoriety, and soon even the Anti-Defamation League was chiming in to criticize a kettle that looked like a Nazi. So JC Penney decided to take down its billboard and cease sales of the teapot, instead leaving consumers to search for the Fuhrer in their toast slices and cereal bowls like the rest of us.

The Mistake:

The problem came when a few billion people in a niche audience called "Americans and people who have heard of America" noticed that the devil looked strangely familiar:

via Los Angeles Times
Hmmmmm.

So was the History Channel trying to say that the 13 percent of Americans who believe President Obama is the Antichrist are totally onto something?

Probably not! And it's probably at least a little suspect that folks see two dark-skinned dudes side by side and say, "Yep, those guys are both the devil, all right." But the idea that the producers had deliberately cast an Obama look-alike as the dark lord became so big on social media that the unsocial(?) media picked up on it, and right-wing Christians around the country offered many Internet high-fives to the filmmakers.

Thinkstock Images/Stockbyte/Getty 
"It makes sense, 'cause Obama, the Moroccan, and Satan are all Communist Muslims."

High-fives that were unwelcome, and left hanging: The History Channel eventually released a statement insisting that any resemblance between the sitting U.S. president and the king of hell is purely coincidental. Even so, the filmmakers decided that the controversy distracted too much from the film's message and have removed the devil from the rerelease, which means that, on some level, Barack Obama has vanquished Satan.

The Mistake:

See this proud bastard flapping alongside the Henkel urine-wedge?

Gleb Garanich/Reuters, selensergen/iStock/Getty Images
No, not the proud flapping bastard on the left. We're talking about the flag.

That's the flag of Ukraine. Oh, don't worry -- this product wasn't marketed to Ukraine. But then start worrying again, because it was marketed in Russia.

As you might know if you've taken a European history class or watched the news, or if you're generally aware of the abstract concept of wars or hatred, Russia and Ukraine aren't exactly on speaking terms. And yet boredom is the great equalizer, so many Ukrainians still watch Russian television. When ads for something you put in your toilet that looks exactly like the national symbol of Ukraine -- it's not just the colors; it's even goddamn flag shaped -- start running on Russian TV, folks just might start reading into it.

Henkel, not wishing to go down in history as the company that started World War III over toilet bowl freshener, immediately ceased production of the product. Sure, national integrity was preserved and conflict averted, but piss collectors all throughout Eastern Europe are now tragically absent the refreshing stink of citrus. Peace, but at what cost?

Related Reading: The amount of corporate boners is endless. Once upon a time, Abercrombie & Fitch had the whole racism thing locked down. Then there's the time Adult Swim caused a bomb scare. And never forget the time a giant beach ball terrorized London.

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