Revisiting Four Forgotten, Ill-Conceived Ad Campaigns

For every popular “Think Different” or “Just Do It” corporate ad campaign, there are hundreds of marketing slogans and advertising gimmicks that have run off the tracks. These missteps are generally pulled from circulation and disappear from the public’s consciousness. The companies behind the four ad campaigns below are happy that most people don’t remember these embarrassing miscues.

Lick the Waffle
On the heels of Wendy’s successful “Where’s the Beef?” campaign of the mid-1980s, many fast-food companies rolled out their own would-be ‘edgy’ slogans. Among the least-remembered of these is Denny’s wildly unsuccessful “Lick the Waffle” campaign of 1985. To promote their new line of international waffles, Denny’s signed Stephen Pearcy, lead singer of the pop metal band Ratt. He starred in a series of TV commercials, ogling stacks of waffles as the band’s middling hit “Back for More” played in the background. While the specifics of each commercial differed, they all ended with Pearcy looking into the camera, whispering “lick the waffle,” then proceeding to run his tongue along the whipped cream or shaved coconut topping. The ad confused many viewers, who were unsure why they should listen to a c-list musician telling them how to eat waffles. The ad seemed to be striving for a sexy double-entendre vibe, but no one could be quite sure what the phrase “lick the waffle” was supposed to imply. Others were simply offended. Jerry Falwell condemned the ads as “promoting a Satanic vision of waffle consumption wildly at odds with any Christian way of eating,” while Pat Robertson claimed that licking waffles could lead to botulism or teen pregnancy. Denny’s pulled the ads after only a few weeks.

The Little Dick
One of the biggest-budget branding missteps occurred in the mid-1980s, when McDonald’s launched a series of regional ad campaigns focused on local sports stars. Playing off their signature sandwich the Big Mac, the company introduced smaller versions named after athletes. In New York, Knicks fans could order a Little Walt, in honor of Hall of Famer Walt Frazier. Folks in Houston could scarf down a Little Earl, named for Oilers favorite Earl Campbell. Their marketing team went awry in Chicago, though, when they opted for Bears legend Dick Butkus as their local pitchman. No one seems to have thought about the resistance customers might have to ordering a Little Dick with their large fries. The TV ad didn’t help matters, with its instantly infamous “Put a Little Dick in Your Mouth!” tagline. After just a few days of widespread mockery, McDonald’s pulled the ads and shelved the entire campaign. Promo posters distributed to the Chicago area blaring the salty tagline have been known to sell for hundreds of dollars at auction.

Chunk Nuggets
Arby’s is another fast-food giant with an embarrassing ad campaign in their 80s vault. Inspired by the runaway success of McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets, the roast beef-based chain decided to dip their toes in the boiling oil of “nugget”-style dining. They rolled out Chunk Nuggets, small cubes of beef rolled in Arby’s proprietary Onion Crunch Batter, then deep-fried. Chunk Nuggets came in boxes of 4 or 18, with a choice of regional tartar sauces on the side. They proved surprisingly successful in parts of the midwest near smelting plants, but Chunk Nuggets never broke through to mainstream success coast-to-coast. Most health-conscious consumers didn’t find the concept or the name of Chunk Nuggets to be especially compelling. Despite a $40 million advertising blitz aimed at hip 80s teens, Arby’s nugget-sized gamble never paid off. An interesting side note is that when a former Arby’s employee formed a band in Seattle several years later, he named the band Chunk Nuggets. That employee’s name was Kurt Cobain, and the band soon changed their name to the New Originals. Then they went with Nirvana. The rest is rock and roll history.

Buy a Razor, Get a Razor
The tragic roll-out of the original Razor scooter is the most recent, and certainly most dangerous, of these misbegotten ad campaigns. When the first Razor scooters were unveiled in the early 2000s, the manufacturers were searching for any way to boost the company’s name recognition. They decided to run with a campaign based on their name: Buy a Razor, Get a Razor! In a joint promotion with Gillette, Razor sent every person who bought a Razor scooter a professional-grade straight razor. While the company clearly thought they’d be appealing to ironic millennial hipsters, they forgot that the main market for their product was children. Within a few months of the campaign’s rollout, elementary school razor slashings shot up over 14,000 percent in the United States. PTA groups across the country began to loudly call for the promotion to end, and within a few months the campaign was dead. Researchers estimate that over 1,200 fingers and toes were lost to the school-kid razor glut, with about $2.8 million dollars in damage to car tires, rugs, and textbooks. The company transitioned to a new campaign: Buy a Razor, Get a Reznor! The market for 3/4-size Trent Reznor mannequins wasn’t that great, either, so that campaign also died a swift death. Sharp-eyed movie fans can spot one of the Reznor mannequins in Avengers: Endgame, playing the role of Hawkeye.