What Marketers Worry

I don’t remember the last time I picked up a copy of Cracked magazine. But then again, what me worry that I barely recall Cracked nemesis Alfred E. Neuman (at least until our 43rd president assumed his persona).

I was tooling around today on the PopUrls site and came across this pertinent-to-PR-peeps post via Cracked.com:

“9 Corporate Attempts At “Edgy” That Failed (Hilariously)”

In it, the beta site highlights nine case studies that some of the world’s most vaunted consumer brands probably wished had never made it out of the creative session. They include:

• The fake viral fan video SONY created for its PSP.
• Reebok’s use of Fiddy as a role model for youth.
• Pepsi Max’s suicide ad (from Germany).
• Mattel’s consumer-driven effort to remake “Ken” as cool.
• McDonald’s (failed) inducement to rappers to feature Mickey D in their videos.

Having a presence in the social sphere means diddly squat without that little extra to create tension, edge. I mean isn’t controversy the elusive ingredient that can propel a campaign to viral nirvana? With this in mind, one has to give these marketers some credit for pushing the envelope — even though the envelope they pushed was in truly bad taste.