When Saturday Night Live devotes an entire sketch to lampooning your new ad, it's a sign that you've messed up in a pretty heinous way. That was the fate that befell Diet Pepsi in April, when the company attracted widespread derision for an ad depicting supermodel and reality TV star Kendall Jenner joining an absurdly comprehensive line-up of diversely beautiful young people in a fake protest event.

The point of the march is vague; we see only slogans like "Join the conversation" and stylized CND symbols, but many saw in it unfavourable echoes of Black Lives Matter. And the ad ends with Jenner defusing tensions by offering a Diet Pepsi to a dishy police officer who, you know, just can't help enjoying the taste. Cut to cheering young people, and harmony among all nations, creeds, and genders. Slogan: "Live bolder."

The uproar of criticism and ridicule can perhaps be best encapsulated in a single tweet, written by the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., and accompanied by a photo of her father in a scene that's disturbingly similar to the Pepsi payoff. Bernice A. King tweeted: "If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi."

Disastrous, no? Embarrassing? Tone-deaf? Insensitive? On social media, it was hard to find anyone with a good word to say about the ad. So did sales plummet? Was the Pepsi reputation ruined? Was there an immediate hit where brands hurt most—in the bottom line?

Er, no. It's more likely the ad had a positive impact on brand awareness and purchase preference, according to Morning Consult: "In contrast to the social media furor, 44% of poll respondents said they had a more favorable view of Pepsi after watching the video, compared to a quarter who said it gave them a less favorable view. And 32% of Americans said the ad made them more likely to buy Pepsi products, versus 20% who were less likely."

Another recent so-called brand fail was the Burger Kind ad that triggered voice-activated Google Home devices to read out the Wikipedia entry about the Whopper. The Whopper's ingredient list was rapidly doctored in less than wholesome ways, and Google ended up blocking the ad. Another brand fail? Apparently not, as Burger King launched more versions of the ad, and in the process made itself the focus of lots of conversation, both online and offline, about the Internet of Things.

There aren't that many Google Home-enabled households out there yet. And maybe getting banned by Google got Burger King some cachet that tipped the sympathy vote its way. But the main thing was that the whole campaign gained lots of publicity.

Let's take one more so-called brand fiasco—the role of PwC in the mix-up of the Best Film announcement at this year's Oscars. "Experts say the lasting brand damage for the New York-based firm, the world's second largest by revenue, could be severe for a company that has built its reputation on accuracy," AdAge reported.

Mark Ritson, the outspoken Marketing Week columnist, thought otherwise: "Are you telling me that [the morning after Oscar night] all over London there are clients sitting in large corporate offices having urgent meetings because some bloke from accounting got a bit dizzy and picked up the wrong envelope and now, well, we are just not sure that we want to continue with that audit from PwC?"

Success From Failure: Virtue-Signaling and Cinnamon Buns

How, then, are we to account for the fact that those so-called fails are likely to have had little or no effect on the businesses attached to those brands?

For one thing, outrage is easy, but these days it may not last long or go very deep.

Brand-shaming has become a widespread behavior on social media. Someone points out that a new ad is tacky or exploitative or insensitive in some way—Cinnabon's witty tribute to Carrie Fisher is a good example—and there will always be a cohort of people who are ready to jump on to the virtue-signaling bandwagon. But there's just so much content to browse these days, and another juicy brand fail is no doubt right around the corner.

Today's waves of outrage are often mere faddish displays of social compliance.

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Is There Such a Thing as a 'Brand Fail' Anymore?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Dan Brotzel

Dan Brotzel is content director and a co-founder of Sticky Content, a UK-based marketing content and creative agency. In 2013, it was acquired by the Press Association, the UK's national press agency, and operates as an autonomous brand within the PA family of companies.

LinkedIn: Dan Brotzel

Twitter: @danbrotzel