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Back in the early 80's there was a weight loss candy whose marketing and advertising became an accidental disaster.
The brand was called Ayds—and much of its marketing material went from innocent to wildly inappropriate in a matter of moments.
You see, the candy was already on the market when the AIDS epidemic tragically struck. Suddenly every actor in their commercials sounded like the worst human being ever.
Seriously...
Ayds Candy Commercialswww.youtube.com
Ayds candy became a casualty of the AIDS epidemic, but there's no way that kind of terrible luck could strike twice, right?
Wrong. It took four decades, but it finally happened again.
Weight Watchers might have accidentally taken credit for starting World War III.
Oops.
The flub started two years ago, actually, when Weight Watchers decided to rebrand itself as WW. This Thursday they launched a social media campaign encouraging the hashtag "#ThisIsMyWW."
The hashtag was meant to encourage users to share their experiences with the customizations Weight Watchers/WW program. Sounds straightforward enough.
While Weight Watchers/WW was launching their new marketing campaign, the US government was busy launching something else—namely an incredibly controversial airstrike. The airstrike ended the life of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. Many are convinced this political assassination might trigger the start of a third world war.
People took to social media to talk about the airstrike and, as tends to happen, a trend emerged. Hashtags like #WWIII, #WW3, #WWThree, and #NotMyWW began to pick up steam.
That meant that as far as most of the world was concerned, WW stood for "world war" not "weight watchers."
Um ... well ... this is awkward.
The kind of awkward that Twitter finds delicious.
We don't know whether the company is going to drop the hashtag or not. We kind of feel like a little bit of reading the room might go a long way here.
Just sayin'.