Six biggest marketing fails of 2012

2) Facebook's IPO Suffers From Overhype

Why it failed: Facebook's post-IPO share price plunged from $38 to around the mid- $20's, far lower than so much hype would have made most people anticipate. Not to mention investors saw a huge loss, too. The lesson here is that if there's going to be a ton of hype around something your company does -- whether it's self-generated hype or external -- you better live up to it whenever that event actually takes place.

3) Twitter Managers Use Company Accounts for Personal Tweets

Why it failed: Unfortunately, we've all seen this faux pas far too many times. Social media is ubiquitous, for both personal and business uses. So it makes sense that a personal tweet might come through when a social media manager thinks they're tweeting for their personal account, but actually send it out through their business account. But you know what? We have to pay closer attention to detail to alleviate
this problem. And on top of that, we can prevent epic fails like this by making sure whatever it is we tweet, it's something no one will be o_ ended by, whether it's personal or business.

4) Bing Learns Not Every Company Can Be a Verb

Why it failed: You know how when you perform a Google search, you just say you're "Googling" something? Microsoft tried to do the same thing, turning "Bing" into a verb. Needless to say, it didn't take off. To make it worse, they wouldn't drop the fact that their campaign was a bust, and rationalized their failed efforts at marketing. Ultimately, they closed it out by saying they don't really care if people use "Bing" as a verb, as long as they use Bing as a search engine. But this campaign stunk of a sub-bar, unoriginal copycat campaign of a competitor.

5) Apple Replaces Google Maps

Why it failed: Some of you might remember the uproar around "Mapples," or the Apple maps iPhone users were using instead of their favourite (and functional) Google maps. The problem peaked when a user, following Apple Map directions to a very small town called Mildura, was led into the middle of Australia's second largest natural park. The climate was, needless to say, not one you'd want to be exposed to without preparation. The moral of the story? Don't force your product upon people, especially if it's not nearly as good to the alternative to which they've become accustomed.

6) Oprah Tweets About the Surface From Her iPad

Why it failed: While Oprah is a fantastic celebrity to have behind your brand, it's not so fantastic when she's promoting your product - the Surface - using a competitor's product, i.e. the iPad. With a reach as big as Oprah's you better believe it was called out far and wide, and all this campaign succeeded in doing is giving the iPad more positive coverage; straight from their competitor.