Top 5 Worst Cases of Movie Marketing Gone Wrong

Selling a movie to audiences can be difficult. It isn't always easy to grab somebody's attention with an ad. So, many movie studios have done some pretty ambitious things to get their movie in the spotlight. But it doesn't always work, and some of them actually backfire on the advertiser. This post will focus on those rare instances.

I have decided to research the worst instances of  movie marketing backfiring, and rank them based on how bad the backlash was. Though it is rare for an ad campaign to get a response as bad as these, I did manage to find five of them that were about movies.

So remember, while not every marketing campaign is successful, at least most are not as bad as...

5. Spider-Man 2 - MLB Advertising

 

 Anybody who has ever been to a professional sports game knows that stadiums and advertisements go hand in hand. It is almost impossible to go to a professional stadium and not have some brand name shoved in your face. However, in 2004, Sony Pictures decided to take it one step further, and actually put their name on the baseball diamond. They signed a deal to place the logo for Spider-Man 2 on the bases and on-deck circles of fifteen stadiums. However, this did not blow over well with many baseball fans who saw it as overly commercializing the game. There was a huge outcry from baseball fans around the country, including the film's director, Sam Raimi. The plan was cancelled at the last second.

4. Captivity - Billboards

 

Captivity was a torture porn horror film from 2007, which is really only remembered for it's controversial ad campaign. Back then, the advertisements for any horror film needed to say only one thing: "This film is violent and messed up." And they succeeded in getting that message across with it's billboard, which showed four images of a young women going through four stages of the movie's plot: "abduction, confinement, torture, termination." However, most people weren't amused when they went up around Los Angeles and New York. Several people called it graphic and indecent, and some people, including Joss Whedon, campaigned for the movie to have the movies rating removed. The billboards were taken down, costing the studio that released the film a lot of money. The controversy did not even help the movie's sales, as it was a box office bomb.

3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) - You Suck Sarah Marshall

Judd Apatow's hit romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall had a creative way to get people interested in the movie before they even knew much about it. They put up several teaser posters around the country, that consisted of phrases like "You suck, Sarah Marshall" and "My mom always hated you, Sarah Marshall." The only issue was... well, people who actually were named Sarah Marshall. Yeah, people don't take well to seeing billboards that blatantly insult them to their face. This led to complaints, and some retaliation pictures featuring similar posters directed toward Judd Apatow. While there wasn't as much outcry as the last two, I'm giving this the higher spot because of how unforeseen it must have been.

2. Mission: Impossible 3 - Musical News Racks

Paramount Pictures had a seemingly safe and inoffensive way to promote their new movie Mission Impossible 3. They fitted musical equipment into over 4,000 Los Angeles Times news racks, which would play the Mission: Impossible theme song when opened. Sounds innocent, right? What could possibly go wrong? Well, many people saw wires from the player, and mistook it for an explosive device. As a result one of the news racks was destroyed by the Bomb Squad, and the rest were dismantled soon afterwards.

1. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters - 2007 Boston Bomb Scare

 

 You may be seeing a theme in the two highest entries.

Cartoon Network's Adult Swim decided to promote their hit series Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as well as the show's movie, using a guerrilla style marketing. Several LED signs were put up around Boston, which featured one of the shows characters giving the finger. However, like in the Mission Impossible 3 stunt, the creators of the sign did not do a good job of concealing the wires, so it had the same outcome. They also failed to notify the police of the purpose of these signs, even after learning they were mistaken for bombs. The signs caused a citywide panic, and led to the arrest of the people who put it up. Though no charges were pressed, Turner Broadcasting, Cartoon Network's parent company, needed to pay two million dollars to the Boston police and Homeland security to settle the matter. It also forced Cartoon Network vice president, Jim Samples, to quit. Well, at least you got the movie in the public's attention.

And those are the worst cases of movie marketing gone wrong. I guess the message to be taken from this is that not all publicity is good publicity.

Sources
http://www.ifc.com/fix/2009/11/when-viral-marketing-goes-wron
http://weburbanist.com/2008/05/06/5-great-examples-of-guerilla-marketing-gone-wrong-from-olympic-fumbles-to-bomb-scares/