PR and Co-Branding: Be Careful Who You Get into Bed With

There’s a certain kind of mind who looks at a century-old tradition - something quaint, wholesome, and universally beloved - and thinks, “you know what this needs? A corporate logo slapped on top”. A person that sees not joy but branding opportunities. These are people that see a child’s wonder and thinks, “great engagement metrics”. It starts with a gentle nudge - a corporate logo here, a “strategic partnership” there. Nothing too intrusive, just a tasteful little watermark on history. Before long, the whole affair is neatly packaged, optimized, and ready for commercial synergy.

This is not to say that tradition and commerce have always been at odds. On the contrary, some of the world’s grandest spectacles have owed their existence to a well-placed benefactor. The Renaissance had the Medicis. The Olympics have Coca-Cola. But there is a fine line between patronage and outright appropriation, and once it’s crossed, the result is rarely dignified. Art museums auctioning off naming rights to board members with no taste. Universities reshaping curriculums to suit their wealthiest donors. Consider what might happen when artistic expression falls into the tender mercies of corporate oversight: a timeless masterpiece, but now with an energy drink tie-in; a sacred holiday, suddenly featuring a fast-food mascot. Some things, it turns out, do not improve when filtered through a boardroom.

This is how traditions - ones that for generations symbolized innocence, festivity, and a sense of national unity - become just another branding exercise. First, it’s subtle. A small logo in the corner, a friendly corporate sponsor “helping out.” Then, before anyone quite knows what’s happened, the whole event is an ad. The thing itself - be it a festival, a celebration, a cultural rite - is no longer the point. It exists only to be leveraged, optimized, and maximized for return on investment. And at some point, a five-year-old clutching an Easter basket will look up at their parents and ask, “What is a multinational investment bank, and why does it want me to be happy?”

This, of course, is nothing new. History is full of ambitious marketing ventures that, in hindsight, might have benefited from a second thought. Not every PR and co-branding partnership is a match made in heaven. Common sense dictates that you should always be careful who you get into bed with – corporate or otherwise. Some are ill-advised, others catastrophic, and a few are so spectacularly tone-deaf that one can only assume nobody in the room had the courage to say “no”. The image of Easter eggs rolling across the White House lawn, each stamped with a tiny corporate logo, got us thinking this might be a good time to appreciate some of the worst-planned marketing campaigns and co-branding misfires of all time - those moments when good intentions collided, headfirst, with the hard reality of public opinion.

Forever 21 & Atkins:

There are bad brand partnerships, and then there are the kind that make you wonder if anyone involved actually looked at a calendar and realized what year it was. The ill-fated collaboration between Forever 21 and Atkins falls squarely into the latter category. In 2019, customers who placed online orders with the fast-fashion retailer were surprised to find something extra in their package - not a discount code, not a trendy accessory, but an unsolicited Atkins diet bar. Because nothing complements a crop top quite like a not-so-subtle suggestion that you should probably be watching your carbs.

The backlash was immediate and brutal. Customers, particularly plus-sized shoppers, took to social media to blast the brand for what felt like an unsolicited jab at their bodies. In an era when fashion retailers were scrambling to embrace body positivity (or at least pretend to), Forever 21 had managed to evoke the ghosts of early-2000s diet culture in one clumsy marketing stunt. The company quickly backpedaled, issuing a public apology and insisting the bars had been included with all orders, regardless of size - but the diet bars left a very bad taste in customer’s mouths and the damage was done.

In one tone-deaf move, Forever 21 not only alienated its customers but also reminded the world why co-branding without common sense is a very, very bad idea.

DiGiorno’s Pizza # Fiasco

There’s opportunistic marketing, and then there’s whatever happened at DiGiorno’s social media department in 2014. It was the kind of blunder that makes you wonder if there was no one at the company who could Google before tweeting. The frozen pizza brand, known for its cheeky online presence, saw the hashtag #WhyIStayed trending and, without a moment’s hesitation, fired off: "#WhyIStayed You had pizza." 

A punchy little quip, except for one minor detail: the hashtag was being used by survivors of domestic violence to share their harrowing stories.

The backlash was swift, brutal, and entirely deserved. Within minutes, social media users lambasted the brand for its insensitivity, pointing out that turning stories of abuse into a marketing joke was, perhaps, not the best look. DiGiorno scrambled into damage control, deleting the tweet and issuing an apology that essentially boiled down to We didn’t know what it meant - our bad! 

While the apology was at least immediate, it did little to stem the outrage. The incident became a cautionary tale in social media marketing, a stark reminder that not every trending hashtag is an invitation for corporate participation. Some trends, believe it or not, are not about you.

The Sweet Smell of Gasoline

Harley-Davidson has always been a brand synonymous with rebellion, freedom, and the intoxicating roar of an engine on the open road. What it has never been synonymous with, however, is personal fragrance. But in the 1990s, someone in the company’s marketing department apparently looked at their leather-clad, grease-streaked customer base and thought, You know what these guys need? Perfume. And not just any perfume - Harley-Davidson-branded colognes and aftershaves designed to capture the essence of the biker lifestyle. Because nothing screams “tough outlaw” quite like a carefully curated scent profile.

Unfortunately, the idea landed about as well as a Vespa at a Hell’s Angels rally. The assumption that bikers wanted to spritz themselves with a cologne reminiscent of leather, gasoline, and road grit was flawed from the start. Harley loyalists, who prided themselves on their rough-and-tumble image, weren’t exactly clamoring for a signature scent to complement their ride. And the customers who did buy cologne weren’t particularly drawn to a fragrance associated with motor oil. The whole venture stalled out quickly, and the company quietly shelved the idea. It was a textbook case of a brand misunderstanding its audience - because if there’s one thing bikers love more than the smell of the road, it’s not smelling like they just walked out of a department store fragrance counter.

Pepsi & Kendall Jenner

Pepsi’s 2017 Kendall Jenner ad was the kind of disaster that makes you wonder if anyone involved had spoken to an actual human being before greenlighting it. The premise was a baffling mix of protest imagery and soft-drink salesmanship: Kendall Jenner, supermodel and reality TV royalty, spots a vague but diverse street demonstration that seems to be protesting… something. Inspired, she dramatically sheds her blonde wig (symbolism, perhaps?) and joins the cause, striding confidently to the frontlines, where she defuses tensions between protesters and police - not with dialogue, reform, or systemic change, but with a can of Pepsi. One sip, and the officer cracks a smile, signaling that, at last, justice has been served and all is right in the world.

The backlash was swift, merciless, and entirely justified. The ad was widely condemned for trivializing real social movements by reducing activism to a feel-good branding opportunity. Critics pointed out the glaring irony: real protesters facing police brutality didn’t have the luxury of diffusing conflicts with a well-placed soft drink. The imagery was so tone-deaf that it became an instant meme. Within 24 hours, Pepsi pulled the ad and issued a public apology, saying they had “missed the mark.”

Jenner, caught in the firestorm, later admitted she felt “really bad” about the controversy - though, notably, not bad enough to turn down the paycheck.

Toothpaste for Dinner

In 1982, Colgate made a bold, baffling leap from oral hygiene to the frozen food aisle, launching its line of Colgate Kitchen Entrees. Yes, that’s right - the brand best known for reminding you to brush your teeth after every meal decided to make the meal itself. The idea, presumably, was to create a seamless brand experience: eat your Colgate dinner, then brush with Colgate toothpaste. Unfortunately, consumers couldn’t get past the glaring disconnect between a company known for preventing food residue and one suddenly trying to sell them beef lasagna.

Predictably, the experiment flopped. Shoppers were perplexed, if not outright repulsed, by the idea of a toothpaste brand branching into cuisine. It didn’t help that the packaging proudly displayed the Colgate logo, ensuring that the mental image of brushing one’s teeth remained front and center while considering dinner options. The meals failed to gain traction, and Colgate quietly pulled the line before it could do lasting damage to its core brand. The whole debacle became a cautionary tale in marketing: just because a company can extend into a new category doesn’t mean it should - especially when that category is the exact opposite of what the brand represents.

When a Hashtag Becomes a Bashtag

In 2012, McDonald’s made the fatal mistake of assuming that the internet is a friendly, well-meaning place. Eager to highlight heartwarming customer experiences, the fast-food giant launched the #McDStories Twitter campaign,

inviting people to share their best memories of dining under the golden arches. The company likely envisioned nostalgic tales of Happy Meals, childhood birthdays, and maybe even the occasional engagement story over a box of McNuggets. Instead, what they got was a digital roast session of epic proportions.

Within hours, Twitter users hijacked the hashtag, flooding it with horror stories about everything from food poisoning and mystery meat to questionable encounters with McDonald’s employees. People gleefully recounted finding moldy burgers, getting violently ill from undercooked chicken, and witnessing incidents in McDonald’s bathrooms that could not be unseen.

Rather than inspiring warm and fuzzy brand loyalty, #McDStories became a cautionary tale in corporate social media strategy. The campaign was pulled almost immediately, but the damage was done - McDonald’s had effectively handed the public a microphone and watched, helplessly, as they used it to burn the brand to the ground.

Know Your Market

In the 1970s, Gerber made an unfortunate oversight when expanding into African markets, proving that a little cultural awareness goes a long way. The baby food giant, whose signature packaging prominently features an illustration of a cherubic baby, used the same label design when launching its products in regions where many consumers couldn’t read English.

There was just one problem: in many of these countries, packaging conventions dictated that labels should display an image of what’s inside the jar. The result? Some locals took one look at the Gerber jars and came to a horrifying conclusion - that the contents were, quite literally, ground-up babies.

This was not the wholesome, nutritious image Gerber had hoped to cultivate. Understandably, sales didn’t take off as expected, and the company quickly realized its mistake. The fiasco became a textbook case of why brands need to adapt their marketing to local customs, rather than assuming what works at home will translate seamlessly abroad. While Gerber eventually corrected course,

the initial blunder remains one of the more infamous examples of marketing gone wrong - because if there’s one thing guaranteed to kill consumer appetite, it’s the vague suspicion that dinner might contain a member of the family.

Like We Said Before – Know Your Market!

In the early 2000s, Japanese electronics giant Panasonic decided to take on the consumer PC market with a new touch-screen device. To give it a fun, family-friendly appeal, they struck a licensing deal with Universal Studios to use the classic cartoon character Woody Woodpecker as their brand mascot.

On paper, it seemed like a solid plan - Woody was recognizable, playful, and carried a sense of nostalgia. But then Panasonic made a series of branding choices that suggested no one in the room had ever consulted an English slang dictionary.

The device itself was named The Woody, which was unfortunate enough. But things took a disastrous turn when Panasonic unveiled its touch-screen feature, proudly dubbed Touch Woody - a name that sounded less like cutting-edge technology and more like a Pornhub category.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the company also introduced an automatic web-browsing feature, christened (we kid you not) The Internet Pecker. By this point, it was clear that something had gone terribly, hilariously wrong. The double entendres were so blatant that English-speaking audiences immediately ridiculed the product. Panasonic, realizing its mistake only after the mockery had begun, hastily rebranded the device before it ever hit international shelves. But the damage was done - the tale of Touch Woody and The Internet Pecker remains one of the most infamous examples of what happens when companies fail to think things through before exposing their goods to the public.

When A Gift Is Not A Gift

In 2014, Apple made the bold - and, in hindsight, deeply misguided - decision to gift every iTunes user a free copy of U2’s new album, Songs of Innocence. On paper, this might have seemed like a generous gesture: an exclusive release from one of the world’s biggest bands, freely available to millions of iPhone users.

But there was a catch - Apple didn’t offer the album as a free download. Instead, they force-installed it onto every iTunes account, meaning that one morning, users across the globe woke up to find Bono and company had quietly invaded their music libraries. Forcing U2’s new album onto every iPhone felt less like a gift and more like a home invasion.

The backlash was immediate and merciless. Many iPhone users - especially those who had no interest in U2 - were furious that Apple had essentially treated their devices like billboards for an unsolicited album. It wasn’t just a question of taste; it was the unsettling realization that Apple could push content onto personal devices without consent. The company was forced to roll out a special tool to help users remove the album,

while Bono himself eventually apologized, admitting in an interview that the band had been caught up in the excitement and failed to consider how intrusive the move would feel. The debacle became a case study in digital overreach, proving that even free gifts can feel invasive when people don’t get a say in whether they want them.

A Picture is Worth….A Thousand Words?

In 2018, Heineken managed to turn a seemingly harmless beer commercial into an unintentional masterclass in racial insensitivity. The company set out to promote its low-calorie beer with a sleek new ad, the kind of effortlessly cool marketing that beer companies love - minimal dialogue, smooth visuals, and a satisfying final shot. The setup was simple: a bartender slides a bottle of Heineken Light down the bar, past a few patrons, until it reaches its intended recipient. Unfortunately, those patrons happened to be Black, the recipient happened to be a lighter-skinned woman, and the tagline that followed happened to be “Sometimes, lighter is better.” It was at this precise moment that Heineken’s marketing team learned that words - and, as it turns out, visuals - still have meanings.

The backlash was fast and furious, with many pointing out that a global brand should probably know better than to casually suggest that lighter is inherently better - especially when their ad plays like a slow-motion metaphor for colorism. Chance the Rapper even chimed in, calling the campaign “terribly racist” and questioning whether brands deliberately push offensive material just for the free outrage-fueled publicity. Heineken, caught completely off guard, yanked the ad and issued the standard corporate apology, insisting that the unfortunate implications were entirely unintentional.

Perhaps they were. Or perhaps this was a teachable moment in why, when crafting a slogan, one should always take a moment to read it out loud - and then, crucially, picture it on a billboard next to the worst possible imagery. Because “lighter” isn’t always better, especially when it comes to marketing judgement.

One Line Too Many

In 2015, Bud Light decided to double down on its Up for Whatever campaign, a marketing effort aimed at positioning the beer as the ultimate companion for spontaneous, carefree fun. The idea was simple: Bud Light wasn’t just a beverage, it was an experience - one that encouraged drinkers to let loose, embrace adventure, and say “yes” to the moment. Unfortunately, someone in Bud Light’s marketing department took that message a little too literally, resulting in a promotional tagline that would have been better suited for a courtroom transcript than a beer bottle. Printed on select bottles was the phrase: "The perfect beer for removing 'No' from your vocabulary for the night."

The backlash was immediate, and for good reason. At best, the slogan was wildly irresponsible; at worst, it sounded like a clumsy endorsement of non-consensual behavior. Critics, advocacy groups, and pretty much anyone with a functioning sense of awareness pointed out the disturbing implications - especially in an era when conversations about consent and alcohol-fueled misconduct were at the forefront of public discourse. Bud Light scrambled to do damage control, issuing a swift apology and pulling the bottles, insisting that the message was meant to encourage an “up-for-anything” attitude, not, you know, a felony.

But the damage was done, and the incident became a cautionary tale in why, before signing off on a slogan, one should always pause and ask, “Could this be misinterpreted as an endorsement of crime?”

Just Say No – To The McWhopper

In 2015, Burger King made what seemed like a bold, feel-good proposal: a temporary ceasefire in the decades-long burger war. The idea was to team up with longtime rival McDonald’s for a one-day-only collaboration, merging the Big Mac and the Whopper into a single hybrid sandwich - the McWhopper - with all proceeds going to Peace One Day, a nonprofit focused on promoting global peace. It was the kind of quirky, PR-friendly stunt that could generate viral buzz while making both brands look magnanimous. Burger King even went so far as to publish an open letter to McDonald’s in The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune, publicly inviting them to set aside their differences in the name of charity.

Unfortunately for Burger King, McDonald’s was having none of it. Instead of playing along, McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook shut down the idea with a coolly dismissive Facebook post, noting that the two companies could “do something bigger” to help charity without resorting to a publicity stunt. He even took a subtle dig at Burger King by adding, “A simple phone call would do next time.”

Burger King’s attempt at a one-day truce to make the McWhopper was a rare moment of corporate peace - or would have been, had McDonald’s not decided they’d rather be ‘lovin’ it’ alone. The result? Burger King looked a little desperate, like the overeager ex trying to orchestrate a grand reunion, while McDonald’s came off as smug and uncooperative. The campaign did generate buzz - but mostly at Burger King’s expense. Turns out, nothing ruins the spirit of world peace faster than the phrase “I’ll have to check with corporate.”

At the end of the day, a bad branding deal is just that - a regrettable decision, a corporate blunder that becomes a cautionary tale taught in university marketing classes for years to come. A fast-food chain will survive a failed truce with its biggest rival. A beer company will move on from an ad campaign that inadvertently endorses questionable behavior. And a tech giant will recover from the embarrassment of forcing its users to listen to Bono. Mistakes happen. The damage, in the grand scheme, is usually temporary.

But every now and then, a brand oversteps. It stops merely slapping a logo on an event and starts reshaping both the event, and itself, entirely. A holiday turns into a product launch. A tradition morphs into a corporate showcase. The thing that once belonged to the people - messy, joyful, imperfect - becomes something else: polished, optimized, and, above all, profitable. And if you squint, you might notice it happening in places where it absolutely, definitively does not belong.

Because the trick of it is this: nobody ever sells the whole thing outright. Not at first. It starts small - a “tasteful” sponsorship, a simple little logo placement, a bit of "mutually beneficial partnership." But before long, the banners are up, the messaging is aligned, the cars are on display on the lawn, and the event itself, the thing that once mattered, is an afterthought. The question isn’t if it’s for sale. The question is how much - and whether anyone will notice before the bidding’s over.

That’s the part to watch. Not the cringeworthy marketing disasters, not the instantly regrettable tweets, but the moment when the buy-in becomes the sell-out. Because if an institution can turn a beloved holiday into an ad, if it can take something innocent and repackage it as a sales pitch - well, imagine what it could do with something even bigger. By then, we’ll be wishing the worst we had to worry about was a frozen Colgate lasagna.

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