London (Special to ZennieReport.com) – Influencer marketing can be a useful tool to open your brand up to new and niche audiences, build trust, authenticity, and boost visibility and engagement. However, the rise of influencer marketing has shown us what works and what doesn’t in the digital marketing world.
From cultural insensitivity to typos, celebrities and influencers have seen their fair share of marketing disasters. These failures remind us of what not to do in marketing and teach a valuable lesson about the risks these campaigns can bring. Bad publicity may exist after all.
Ciaran Connolly, Founder of website development agency ProfileTree, has analyzed and outlined the worst influencer marketing nightmares and what brands can learn from these blunders.
Influencer Marketing Fails: Kendall Jenner & Pepsi
In today’s modern world, many brands enter the political arena and use political and similar movements to inspire campaign ideas, such as the election or Pride Month. However, Pepsi’s collaboration with supermodel Kendall Jenner was a marketing disaster.
In 2017, amidst all the spotlight on political unrest in the media with Black Lives Matter activists protesting police brutality and systemic racism across the U.S., Pepsi saw this as a marketing opportunity. The ad shows a staged BLM protest where police are trying to control the crowd. Jenner leaves the photoshoot she is doing nearby to join the protest and hands a police officer a can of Pepsi, meant to symbolize unity and peace.
Pepsi was so close, yet so far from creating a positive impact with this ad, but maybe the rich white supermodel with no ties to BLM or activism was not the ideal choice. The brand was criticized for belittling a situation that would have been quite dangerous and for appropriating BLM protests to make money. The ad was pulled, and Pepsi issued an apology.
Influencer Marketing Fails: Fyre Festival
Marketed as an exclusive luxury music festival in the Bahamas, this soon became one of the worst event marketing failures in history. It was created by Billy McFarland and Ja Rule and set on a private island previously owned by Pablo Escobar. The event was promoted by influencers like Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Hailey Bieber. In theory, the idea and marketing were on point.
As festival-goers arrived, they were met with disaster relief tents instead of the luxury villas they had paid for. The gourmet meals they were promised were just cheese sandwiches, they had poor sanitation, no running water, and no festival after all acts pulled out. Guests were stranded with no way to get home, and it was all over social media.
Billy McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for fraud, and Netflix and Hulu released documentaries exposing the whole operation of lies and deceit. The festival became the ultimate influencer marketing disaster, known as the biggest cautionary tale when it comes to influencer marketing and social media hype.
Influencer Marketing Fails: TanaCon
Similarly to Fyre Festival, TanaCon was another marketing event disaster, but on a smaller scale. TanaCon was created by YouTuber Tana Mongeau after feeling like she was snubbed by the official VidCon event. She created the event to be free, fan-friendly and to rival VidCon, with big influencers like Shane Dawson, James Charles and Bella Thorne to attend.
The reality was that the event was a complete disaster, mostly due to poor planning. The venue’s capacity was only one thousand, and more than five thousand fans showed up, with young fans held outside with no sun protection, water or food. The gift bags promised to be worth four times the VIP ticket price were just a sticker and a condom. As well as the venue, security and staff were unprepared, and the event descended into chaos.
The police showed up, and the event was shut down within hours, with disappointed, hungry and sunburnt fans taking to social media. Fans demanded refunds, and the marketing scandal led to lawsuits and lots of hate toward Tana. It was eventually revealed that event organizer Good Times Live was to blame for the disaster, but TanaCon remains a symbol for big ideas turning into huge failures due to poor planning and overconfidence.
Influencer Marketing Fails: Logan Paul in Japan
Logan Paul was one of the most successful YouTubers in 2018, but his empire came crashing down with one video titled ‘We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest.’ Unfortunately, it’s not clickbait.
During his visit to Aokigahara Forest in Japan, also known as Suicide Forest, Logan and his team found a recently deceased person and decided to not only zoom in on the body but make jokes as well. The backlash was instant, with fellow YouTubers, fans and even celebrities calling Logan out for being deeply insensitive, disrespectful and exploitative. The video was deleted within 24 hours, but the damage was already done.
YouTube cut all ties with him, cancelling projects and demonetizing his channel, which was a huge blow. He apologized in a YouTube video and took a break from posting content, but soon rebranded himself as a podcaster, boxer and businessman. This remains one of the worst YouTuber scandals and proves that shock content is only effective to a certain point, and Logan Paul crossed this line.
Influencer Marketing Fails: James Charles & Tati Westbrook
In 2019, the public fallout of beauty YouTubers and influencers James Charles and Tati Westbrook shook the beauty community. Arguably one of the worst events in the beauty community, the scandal is still a hot topic even six years later.
The catalyst for this marketing nightmare started with Sugar Bear Hair, a brand of vitamins every influencer at the time was promoting. When James promoted Sugar Bear Hair, Tati felt betrayed as they are the top competitor for her own brand Halo Beauty. Of course, the only course of action was to call James out in a 43-minute-long YouTube video titled ‘BYE SISTER’. It only got worse from here.
Tati publicly shamed James for disloyalty, slamming him for inappropriate and egotistical behavior at her birthday dinner and beyond, and even acting predatory toward straight men. In just days after the video, James is ‘cancelled’, losing 3 million subscribers on YouTube, with other big names in the industry like Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson publicly siding with Tati.
James responds with a video titled ‘No More Lies’ on YouTube, in which he provides proof he is not a predator and clears up the Sugar Bear Hair situation, shifting public opinion to his side. Tati deleted her video, took a break from social media, and James managed to recover and continue his career.
This marketing disaster reminds influencers to settle grievances in private, not for the world to see. Bad publicity is real, and influencers’ careers and the whole beauty community are still tainted by this drama.
Ciaran Connolly, Founder of ProfileTree, commented, “Influencer marketing has become more refined over the years, as influencers and brands have learnt valuable lessons from failures like these. While some marketing blunders can be entertaining, like James Charles versus Tati Westbrook, others are deeply offensive and have real-life consequences, like Fyre Festival and Logan Paul.
“These marketing disasters can severely damage a brand’s reputation, making it challenging to recover from a major scandal. When influencers make these mistakes, they lose the trust of their audience and damage their reputation and credibility, making brands hesitant to collaborate with them. Not to mention any legal, financial and long-term consequences they must face.
“Reflecting on these marketing failures, it is important brands research influencers to ensure their values align, make sure marketing campaigns are legally sound and truthful, lead with honesty, authenticity, and most importantly take accountability to avoid backlash.”