Top Branding Fails of 2021—and What (If Anything) Brands Learned

Einstein once observed that anyone who’s never made a mistake has never tried anything new. Well, as we know very well, companies try new things all the time—new products, new campaigns, new strategies. It follows that they make a proportional share of mistakes. Many are minor. Some are serious. As 2021 comes to an end, here’s a look back at a few of the memorable ones: Surprise—your CEO is a bully Tactless and tone-deaf CEOs are a given in corporate America, but Better.com’s Vishal Garg reached a new low in early December when he decided to pink slip 900 employees … via Zoom. “If you’re on this call, you’re part of the unlucky group being laid off,” announced the billionaire chief, who reportedly pocketed a $25 million bonus last year. “Your employment here is terminated. Effectively immediately.” Unsurprisingly, one of those terminated employees uploaded the recorded call to YouTube, and all hell broke loose. The VC-backed mortgage refinance startup had already lugged around the reputation of being a toxic place to work, with Garag himself once having calling his employees “a bunch of dumb dolphins” in an email. Three days after the Zoom debacle, the company announced that Garg would be taking a leave of absence while a third-party firm conducts “a leadership and cultural assessment.” Burger King’s misunderstanding women Burger King meant well; it really did. In March, the fast-food chain’s U.K. division sought to encourage more women to enter the culinary field and become chefs, going so far as to kick off a scholarship program to encourage them. So what’s wrong with that? The problem arose over how BK tried to publicize the effort. On International Women’s Day, the company ever-so-cleverly tweeted: “Women belong in the kitchen.” Alas, this bit of polysemy was lost on most of humanity, which failed to appreciate the context in which this well-worn sexist phrase had been employed. To its credit, BK felt the heat and got out of the kitchen: “We got our initial tweet wrong,” it said, “and we’re sorry.” The (bad) boy next door Countless brands with celebrity endorsers have paid the price when those celebrities behave badly. (Nike and Oscar Pistorius, anyone? How about Hertz and O.J. Simpson?) But those snafus were with traditional celebrities. How much greater is the peril when brands cozy up to someone who’s a social media influencer? Turns out, a lot—at least in the case of David Dobrik. Dobrik is famous for weekly prankster videos he makes with his Vlog Squad, some of which had drummed up minor controversies before. And no sooner had the 24-year-old vlogger surpassed 18 million YouTube subscribers than the brands came running, eager to ink promotional deals. Ah yes, a bunch of suddenly rich post-adolescent boys running around L.A. doing stunts—what could possibly go wrong? Well, in March, a young woman came forward alleging that she was raped by Vlog Squad member Dominykas (“Durte Dom”) Zeglaitis, after she’d been plied with alcohol—and that Dobrik had posted the video. That video quickly came down, and so did Dobrik. After posting a rambling apology, the vlogger went on hiatus as his sponsors ran for the Hollywood hills. Among them were DoorDash, Dollar Shave Club, Audible, General Mills, HBO Max, Facebook, EA Sports, SeatGeek and HelloFresh. Dobrik was back in front of the camera by June, so maybe YouTube stars can recover their reputations quickly. But his deep-pocketed sponsors learned their lesson. “We are no longer working with David Dobrik or any member of the Vlog Squad,” HelloFresh announced amid the crisis. “And we do not have any plans to work with them again in the future.” Peloton runs amok No brand wants the bad PR of recalling a product, but trendy fitness startup Peloton erred in thinking it could outrun some bad news. In March, CEO John Foley posted a letter on the brand’s website acknowledging “a small handful of incidents” related to its Tread and Tread+ running machines—including the death of a child who’d been pulled below the belt. While expressing “shock and sadness,” the company saw fit only to remind customers to keep children away from exercise equipment. But the Consumer Product Safety Commission felt more than sadness, advising consumers to stop using the treadmills completely. Given some 39 reports of broken bones, lacerations and even third-degree burns, that would have been a good time to recall the machines. Peloton refused. But pressure mounted, notably from U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) who told the press that “one family will never be the same … because a new, ‘hot’ company prioritized their brand over human life.” That seemed to do it. On May 5, after the tally of injuries had passed 70, Peloton finally pulled the machines from the market, with Foley admitting that “Peloton made a mistake in our initial response … for that, I apologize.” Facebook pioneers cutting-edge ways to goof Facebook not only set an example of how not to respond to a corporate crisis, it pretty much did it all year long. The floundering began with COO Sheryl Sandberg insisting that the Capitol riot of Jan. 6 was mostly organized on other social platforms, not Facebook. Meanwhile, a January report by the Tech Transparency Project revealed that “Facebook spent the past year allowing election conspiracies and far-right militia activity to proliferate on its platform.” Next up: Instagram for Kids, a priority project that would have brought Instagram’s abundance of inferiority complexes to children under 13. Following an outcry from parents and privacy advocates, Facebook “paused” the project in September. And then came employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen, whose leaked documents established Facebook’s knowledge of (and seeming indifference to) everything from vaccine misinformation to human trafficking, prompting a Senate hearing. Facebook’s response to that PR tsunami was to announce a rebrand as Meta. Little wonder, perhaps, that a CNN survey released in November found that 76% of adults believe “Facebook makes American society worse.” It’s only a buck—not! Founded in 1986, Dollar Tree grew into a discount colossus with an entire inventory of items priced—as the name suggested—at a buck or less. Unfortunately, inflation just can’t abide by that catchy bit of branding. In November, the company announced that the $1.00 limit on its merchandise wouldn’t work anymore, and it had no choice but to raise prices. The dynamic is understandable—but “One Dollar and 25 Cents Tree” just doesn’t roll off the tongue, does it? Worse still, the price bump messes with the brand’s very identity. As cofounder Macon Brock Jr. wrote in his 2017 autobiography, One Buck at a Time, “I viewed the dollar-only concept as sacred. It was everything. Without it, we’d be just another discount retailer.” Well, welcome, to just another discount retailer. Alex would be ashamed In fairness to Sony Pictures Entertainment, replacing Alex Trebek, the legendary host of Jeopardy! who died in 2020, was a near-impossible job. Even so, Sony’s weeks of sticking with troubled executive Mike Richards damaged one of its most revered programs. On Aug. 11, Sony announced that future hosting duties would be split between Mayim Bialik for spinoffs and specials and, for the nightly show, producer Mike Richards. (Did anyone think it was a little fishy that the showrunner had put himself at the top of the candidate list? Yes, plenty of people did.) Sony also stuck with Richards despite a poor reputation following him around, including derogatory comments he’d made about women and people with disabilities on a podcast he used to host and allegations of pregnancy discrimination against models on The Price Is Right, where he’d served as producer. Richards denied the allegations made against him. But when even more skeletons fell out of the closet on Aug. 20—specifically, reports that he’d made disparaging remarks about Jewish people and women—Richards stepped down. But Sony still kept him aboard as producer. The ill will engendered by that move quickly forced the media giant to hand Richards his walking papers—on Aug. 31, three weeks after the controversy began.