Call for Most Embarrassing Marketing Stories

Ami Arad

I can't share what this will be used for yet, but I'm confident you'll love it when you see it. We're looking for a half-dozen or so of the most embarrassing, TRUE, marketing stories. For example, there was the time, years ago, when we (6sense) sent out an email to every contact in our database offering free swag (we did not mean to!). A typo on a billboard. A logo design you didn't realize might have other meanings. A screen share gone wrong. A social media faux pas.

The story DOES NOT need to relate to 6sense, but it does need to be a B2B marketing example. It will be shared publicly but to a relatively small audience (won't be shared on a Times Square billboard).

Need submissions no later than Friday, February 14th. Please email your story to ami.arad@6sense.com or post it in the thread if you want to share it early to inspire others.

Jana_Marketing_Maven

Alright, I can kick this off here. AGES ago we hosted a roadshow event. 12 cities, biggest event roadshow of the year. We made postcards to send out to ensure as many people were aware of it as possible.

We neglected to put the website on the postcard.

To add insult to injury - the phone # on the postcard was wrong.

On the upside, the people who owned the phone # were kind enough to redirect to us, and we were already using email at the time but… honestly, that suuuucked. We had printed & sent over 10K postcards that were basically useless outside of being coasters and recycling material.