Major Pumping Required

When it comes to marketing failures nothing can possibly be worse than Hasbro's marketing addition to its popular Supersoaker line, the Oozinator. The following video can only be described as a complete and udder marketing failure that should have never left the advertising womb.

Steve Hall from AdRANTS.com perhaps said it best:
"The people who created this ad are either living in a land far removed from current day culture, are completely clueless or, conversely, have a seriously twisted sense of humor. This ad for the Hasbro Super Soaker Oozinator features a gun that when pumped a few times shoots a white globular substance all over the faces and bodies of those in the ad. Sound familiar? We thought so. While we're sure it's fun to pump something until it shoots a bunch of gooey stuff, we can't help but imagine how this thing got created, reviewed and approved without a lot of snickering."WARNING: Viewer Discretion Is Advised.

Not exactly kid friendly, right? Even if your mind isn't in the gutter there is something clearly disturbing about this ad. The Oozinator and its advertisements were quickly pulled, most likely after several thousand calls from outraged parents.

I wonder what the storyboard looked like for this ad.

The biggest failure was not that this was a terrible product idea but rather, that the marketing team couldn't anticipate their target audience's reaction to this product and ad campaign. Parents buy kid's toys for kids. So not only does the ad have to appeal and be understood by children but it also has to be viewed through the adult consumer's perspective. The sad thing is this product idea could fly simply because it is a kid's toy and kid's toys are sometimes slimy/gooey/gross. A successful ad campaign may rename the product, the Galactic Slime Blaster. Instead of shooting unarmed children in the chest in the ad they could make it a space themed ad where the slime blasters blast evil aliens and stick them to the walls with goo in a comic fashion. This product was so bad that the few Oozinators that are in existence sell for hundreds of dollars as gag gifts. Maybe this would sell better as an adult toy. That idea is on the house. Your welcome, Hasbro.

Save the Whales

Sea Shepherd is a highly visible and well branded nature conservation group that focuses on protecting sea life around the world.

Sea Shepherd Logo/Flag:


They have often been criticized for the extreme and sometimes militant tactics they use against Japanese whaling vessels. Leader of the Sea Shepherd fleet Paul Watson was a former Greenpeace member and left because he felt Greenpeace's tactics were too passive. There is even a show on Animal Planet documenting the antarctic battles between Sea Shepherd and their sworn enemies the Japanese whalers. This militant dramatic style also plays out in their advertising which aims to be shocking and move you to act on those emotions.


"Predatory fishing also threatens life outside the oceans."

This ad is photo manipulated in order to show the effects of fishing on wildlife in a violent, shocking way. This is a slightly more uplifting and inspirational ad yet it doesn't stray from Sea Shepherds militant routes:





 
"Until they can defend themselves, we will do it for them."

This next ad raises an interesting point that really gets at the heart of Sea Shepherds specific mission:
To help protect our oceans.
And in the ad below they point out the simple fact that we treat some animals, especially cute, furry, hard to eat animals better than ugly, delicious, scaly animals. Perhaps because we don't live in the water we feel as though we are removed from the oceans and therefore we don't care about its inhabitants. Sea Shepherd's advertising mission is to make you think about your relationship with the ocean, and I believe their ads have done that successfully.

"Why do we treasure one species but slaughter another?"