The biggest brand fails of 2023

Is it just me or have some of our biggest brands been making some interesting marketing decisions lately. And by “interesting” I mean, god-awful.

I started noticing these cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs brand choices with the rollout of “Max” (no). But with changing to X it feels like we’re being trolled by these companies. Or else maybe there’s a collective gas leak in all of their boardrooms? These are my two leading theories because what else could be going on.

Below are some of the biggest brand fails IMO of 2023.

HBO Max becoming “Max”

HBO didn’t just spend the last four decades building an elite brand; it created its own category. “Prestige Television” was simply not a thing before HBO. The Sopranos walked so Mad Men could run.

So after spending a bazillion monies and time creating gorgeous content and building a strong editorial brand, why on earth would the company rebrand as “Max” and start showing Discovery’s trashy lineup of 90-Day Fiancé spin-offs alongside its own content like Euphoria? Why why why!?

While I’m sure there are strategic technical and financial reasons for the streaming platform to make this decision (I know less than 1% about content licensing), I just don’t see how the benefits of offering MORE, WORSE content could outweigh the benefits of sticking with prestige, curated television. Make it make sense.

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Southwest Airlines botching Christmas

Southwest Airlines was the Shirley Temple of American airlines: charming, tweed, quirky. I imagine every Southwest employee has an adorable dimple.

And then they ruined the 2022 holidays for 2 million passengers.

Turns out travelers don’t care WHY their flight was canceled (whether it’s for operations or logistics or staffing hiccups); they only care about being where they’re supposed to be during the 4 days they get off during the holidays. This was a huge miss for the brand, destroying years of trust they’d built with their passengers who always anticipated some level of quirk but not to this degree. Incompetence and outdated tech are simply not cute.

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Shein’s influencer tour gone wrong

In June, Shein, the fast-fashion merchandising giant, took a group of influencers on a tour to some of the company’s China-based warehouses. While the attendees posted footage of the trip to their social media accounts, they received quick and brutal backlash from their followers about illegal labor practices (which has been a theme of the company in the past). I believe Gen Z (who are the primary target market for Shein) would call this cringe.

Bud Light getting amnesia and forgetting who their customers are

In April 2023, transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney participated in a social media campaign for Bud Light. The campaign sparked a huge backlash by conservative Americans (the prime demographic for the brand) and in turn, Bud Light sales in the U.S. took a big hit. A bunch of marketing executives in charge of handling this situation were fired. Oh and of course Dylan Mulvaney has been relentlessly bullied with transphobic comments and DMs. Lovely.

While I’m all for using brands to help promote social change and equality, this move can backfire when partnerships feel disingenuous and/or you don’t have a firm understanding of your customers.

Netflix’s not live “Live” Love is Blind Reunion

Live television has been a thing since the 1930s. So when a major streaming service decides to stream something live (like its predecessor, TV), it’s not quite clear how things could go as horribly awful as they did for Netflix.

Netflix had spent months promoting a live reunion for the fourth season of their hit reality show Love is Blind. And then it was unable to broadcast the reunion, leaving millions of Netflix subscribers tuning into Succession and Yellowjackets instead. All this after bumping their prices and limiting subscription sharing. Talk about humiliating.

The absolute dumpster fire that is Twitter

Imagine buying a house for $44 billion (ok, I know this metaphor is already garbled but try and stick with me). Then imagine deciding you don’t like the way it’s decorated. You don’t like some of the rooms. You have some fresh ideas and want to make big changes. Would you decide to burn the whole house to the ground?

This is essentially what Elon Musk has done after purchasing Twitter in October 2022. Last week, Musk announced the rebranding of Twitter after facing extreme public pushback to many changes they’ve made (mostly around blue checkmarks). Oh, and this other small company you may have heard of. Meta, launched their own competitor product, Threads.

According to The New York Times, “Inside Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco on Monday, X logos were projected in the cafeteria, while conference rooms were renamed to words with X in them, including “eXposure,” “eXult” and “s3Xy.”. Workers also began removing bird-related paraphernalia, such as a giant blue logo in the cafeteria.”

I’ve never been a big believer in the advice, “All press is good press.” Sometimes the press just shines a light on what an idiot you are.

I'm curious to see which brands are going to bounce back...and which never will (cough, X, cough).