Fail Bloomingdale's · 2015
'Spike your best friend's eggnog when they're not looking'
What happened
A holiday catalogue ran that line beside a man looking at a laughing woman. Bloomingdale's apologised after it was read as making light of drink spiking.
What went wrong
A festive-mischief tone collided with a sentence that describes a crime. The visual made the reading unavoidable.
The rule
Read every line of holiday copy as if the reader is a person who has been assaulted. In a mass audience, some of them are.
Takeaway
Consent jokes have no safe version in a retail catalogue.
More like this
- Pepsi — Pepsi hands a can to a riot line 2017
- H&M — H&M's hoodie and the word on it 2018
- Balenciaga — Balenciaga's children, bears, and court documents 2022
- Apple — Apple crushes a piano and apologises 2024
- KFC Germany — A push notification on 9 November 2022
See 01/12 in the calendar → United States calendar All fails