It’s always kind of fun when you see a company mess up. Especially when it’s international and makes billions of dollars. Sounds cynical, but when it happens it brings them back down to Earth and reminds you that they are made of people just like you.
Last week I saw two companies make an ‘oops’, or at least I thought they were. On reconsideration, I realized that maybe these companies just rock at branding and audience recognition: Chipotle and American Apparel both do these things already, so when I saw a Chipotle bag with ‘Lorem Ipsum’ writing and an American Apparel banner with a nude photo in the background, I couldn’t believe that they’d actually messed up.
No blogs or news articles have mentioned either one, so they’re either overlooked or both companies truly understand their audiences and know they would ‘get a kick’ out of their campaigns:
Chipotle
The ‘oops’ here was a take-away bag with well-designed paragraphs describing the food on either side – only one side had actual words, the other was filled with ‘Lorem Ipsum’, which every designer would know is a placement holder of garbled Latin (only those select few that use programs like InDesign would ever encounter Lorem Ipsum). Either the designer/printer for these bags didn’t finish their proof-checking, or Chipotle marketers know that their audience includes young artists that would get a laugh out of the bag ‘mess-up’. I sure did! Makes me think it’s a real ‘oops’ though, because they would have alienated every other person that wouldn’t ‘get it’.
American Apparel
This company is no stranger to nudity. Their audience are young ‘hipsters’ that want honest clothing and honest marketing. Their banners advertising various leotards and underwear usually show just those items, or less, on the models. Eye-catching for sure. The ‘oops’ of their recent banner showcasing dog collars is that there’s more nudity. In a dog collar ad? To be fair, I didn’t notice it at first, because it’s in the background behind the dog and it’s blurry. But it’s there and it’s a naked man. The photo was taken in someone’s apartment, and it follows American Apparel’s casual, everyday branding, but it appears that they didn’t consider the background and blazed through the ad design. An ‘oops’ or more audience-relativity?
The moral of the story is that you need to ensure you’re putting exactly what you want out there. Once you publish, there’s no taking it back. If you’re looking for subtlety, just be careful that it looks intentional, because if it’s not obvious enough, people will assume it’s a mistake. And we’ve seen where mistakes lead companies. Happy marketing!
*My own photo of the Chipotle bag has gone AWOL, so I’ve borrowed this image from the user brownpau on Flickr. Thanks!
