Okay, everyone stop laughing at Hershey’s new logo!
I know it strongly resembles a poo emoji to some of you, but really it’s not that bad.
At least the average, more mature adult can also turn around and look at it and say, “Oh sure, it’s one of those kisses!”
As embarrassing as this situation may seem to be for the chocolate company, there are others who have done FAR worse over the years.
To put this into perspective, let’s take a look at some truly terrible company marketing decisions through the years.
Mr. Bucket Game: Balls Go WHERE?
Hershey may have an ambiguous little icon at the end of their company logo, but at least they don’t have a jingle that could possibly double as a theme for sexually assaulting your children.
This was the accusation hurled at an otherwise innocent commercial about the Mr. Bucket toy.
During the 90s commercial what was “put your balls in my top” was somehow misheard as “in my mouth”.
The Milton Bradley toy was discontinued for a time, but then brought back after 2007. That’s a good thing because it’s a wonderful toy for children with special needs.
Next time make sure those lyrics are clearer, please!
The Gap Loses Its Iconic Blue Square
Sometimes a design is so simple that someone mistakenly believes there’s something wrong with it.
All that happens is that they ruin a perfectly good brand logo and make what is already an iconic product look anything but.
This is what happened to the Gap when they attempted to change their logo back in 2010.
The makeover proved to be uninspiring to the point of puzzling.
Luckily for Gap, customers loved the company enough to inform them just how how badly they’d screwed up. Otherwise, the Gap would still have that bland mess as a representation of their brand.
Coca Cola Formula Change Up (?)
Back during the 80s, Coca Cola was losing the soda wars to Pepsi and feeling that a change was needed to come out on top (or so they say).
This resulted in New Coke™.
Now here’s where it gets controversial.
After a huge outcry from the public for the return of the original Coca Cola or Coke Classic™, the brand’s popularity soared with the return of the old formula. In fact, the new version didn’t make it three months!
The decision to change the formula should represent one of the worst decisions made by a company in modern history.
However the response was such that some have gone as far as to say it was a publicity stunt, and a pretty good one at that.