Think you’ve got the world’s worst PR nightmare? England’s tabloid the Daily Mirror just released its list of the world’s worst PR disasters spurred on by Lego recently describing a new toy listed on its website as a “window licker.” You may be saying to yourself… “The Daily Mirror. Come on. This can’t be real.” But I checked up on every single case and they’re all legit.
Here’s an excerpt from the Daily Mirror for the above mentioned Lego mishap:
The latest example is Lego, who’ve just released a character called Turg, which they described as: “Part frog, part chicken, part back-of-the-bus window-licker.”
The term ‘window-licker’ is a highly offensive one often used to refer to people with learning disabilities, and sparked fury among disability charities.
And what about Krispy Kreme? They’ve made a whoops at least once. The Daily Mirror delved into that mistake that occurred when one of their franchisees created a special club with a not-so-cute alliteration… the Krispy Kreme Klub or KKK.
Ahhh, and then there’s the infamous Ghettopoly mishap of the early 2000s. Yes, someone actually created a board game that took a new spin on good old Monopoly. The four railroad properties were replaced by liquor stores, and other new properties included a massage parlor, a peep show and a pawn shop.The original big retailer to sell the board game, Urban Outfitters, eventually pulled the game from its shelves after a public outcry that the game stereotyped African Americans.
These are just a few of the mishaps called out in the article, but I bet there are a couple thousand others. Here at Voxus, we try to avoid such PR brouhahas. But every once in a while, unfortunately, something erupts that is beyond our control and our job is to help extinguish those flames.