14 Times the Tagline Made People Avoid the Product
A great tagline can elevate a brand to legendary status. Just think about Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ or Apple’s ‘Think Different’ – these simple phrases have become cultural touchstones. But for every marketing triumph, there are spectacular failures that left executives wondering where their campaigns went wrong.
Marketing missteps happen even to the biggest companies with the deepest pockets. Here is a list of 14 taglines that backfired so badly they actually drove customers away from the products they were meant to promote.
Ford Pinto
Ford’s infamous 1970s compact car carried the tagline ‘Pinto leaves you with that warm feeling.’ This unfortunate phrasing became darkly ironic when the vehicle gained notoriety for fuel tank fires during rear-end collisions.
The poorly timed slogan reinforced public fears about the car’s safety issues and contributed to its damaged reputation.
Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner Ad
Though not a traditional tagline, Pepsi’s implied message that their soda could bridge serious social divides bombed spectacularly. The 2017 commercial showing Kendall Jenner solving tensions at a protest by handing a police officer a Pepsi trivialized important social movements.
Public backlash was immediate and fierce, forcing Pepsi to pull the ad within 24 hours of its release.
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Holiday Inn Express
Their tagline ‘Stay Smart’ inadvertently insulted customers who chose other hotels. The accompanying commercials implied that simply sleeping at a Holiday Inn Express made average people suddenly capable of performing brain surgery or other expert tasks.
Many viewers found it condescending rather than clever, suggesting non-guests were making poor, unintelligent choices.
Burger King’s ‘Women Belong in the Kitchen’
On International Women’s Day 2021, Burger King UK attempted a subversive campaign with ‘Women Belong in the Kitchen’ as their headline, followed by smaller text about female chef representation. The context was lost on social media, where only the offensive headline circulated.
The backlash was so severe that Burger King deleted the campaign and issued a formal apology.
Microsoft Zune
Microsoft’s ‘Welcome to the Social’ tagline for the Zune media player confused consumers who didn’t understand what was ‘social’ about yet another MP3 player. The marketing failed to clearly explain the device’s sharing features, leaving potential customers unsure what made it different from the dominant iPod.
The vague messaging contributed to the product’s lackluster adoption.
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RadioShack Rebrand
In 2009, RadioShack attempted to modernize with the awkward shortened name ‘The Shack’. Their campaign announced, ‘Our friends call us The Shack’.
The problem? Nobody actually called them that. The forced familiarity came across as inauthentic and desperate. Consumers viewed it as a transparent attempt to seem cool rather than addressing the company’s fundamental problems.
Coors Light
Coors Light once advertised their beer as ‘Turning Cold Into Yes Since 2008’. Many consumers found the tagline uncomfortably suggestive of ignoring consent in social situations.
The implication that cold beer could turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes’ struck many as tone-deaf, especially amid growing social awareness about consent issues.
Sony PSP White
Sony’s 2006 campaign for their white PlayStation Portable featured aggressive imagery of a white woman forcefully grabbing a black woman’s face with the tagline ‘White is Coming’. The racially charged imagery and messaging sparked immediate controversy.
Sony quickly pulled the campaign after widespread criticism for its racially insensitive undertones.
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Bloomingdale’s Holiday Ad
The department store’s 2015 holiday catalog included an image with the tagline ‘Spike your best friend’s eggnog when they’re not looking’. The casual promotion of drugging someone’s drink was met with justifiable outrage.
Bloomingdale’s issued an apology, but the damage to their reputation was already done.
Volkswagen’s ‘Clean Diesel’
Volkswagen heavily marketed their diesel vehicles with environmental taglines like ‘Clean Diesel’ and ‘Truth in Engineering’. These claims became disastrous when it was revealed in 2015 that VW had installed defeat devices to cheat emissions tests.
The taglines transformed from selling points to symbols of corporate deception, costing the company billions in fines and lost consumer trust.
Bud Light’s ‘Up for Whatever’
Bud Light’s ‘The perfect beer for removing “no” from your vocabulary for the night’ appeared on bottle labels as part of their ‘Up for Whatever’ campaign in 2015. The message’s apparent dismissal of consent boundaries triggered immediate backlash.
Anheuser-Busch quickly apologized and discontinued the label, but not before significant damage to the brand.
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McDonald’s ‘I’d Hit It’
In 2005, McDonald’s briefly ran billboards featuring a man with an intense expression toward a burger with the slang phrase ‘I’d Hit It’. While attempting to be edgy, the double meaning was inappropriate for a family restaurant.
The campaign was quickly pulled when executives realized the phrase’s common usage referred to wanting intimate relations with someone.
Bangkok Tourism
The Tourism Authority of Thailand once promoted Bangkok with the tagline ‘Good Girls Go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go to Bangkok’. The slogan reinforced negative stereotypes about Thailand’s struggles with inappropriate tourism and was quickly recognized as damaging to the country’s image.
Officials pulled the campaign after public outcry.
Las Vegas Pandemic Response
When planning to reopen after COVID-19 shutdowns, Las Vegas considered the tone-deaf tagline ‘What happens here, only happens here’. As thousands were dying daily from the virus, the adaptation of their famous slogan seemed to suggest Las Vegas was somehow exempt from pandemic concerns.
Public criticism led to the campaign being delayed and reworked.
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Looking Beyond the Blunder
These marketing disasters remind us that words carry power beyond their intended meanings. When taglines fail, they don’t just waste marketing dollars—they can permanently alter brand perception and consumer trust.
The most successful companies learn from these missteps, understanding that authentic communication resonates far more effectively than forced cleverness or shock value. The next time you see a cringe-worthy slogan, remember it might just end up on a future list of marketing fails.
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