The Strangest Foods Companies Have Ever Made

[Music] in a competitive everchanging market having a successful brand means setting yourself apart from the competition to achieve that goal Brands occasionally have to step outside the boundaries of traditional advertising to try and create Buzz which has led to some pretty bizarre and nearly unbelievable stunts So today we're going to take a look at some of the strangest food marketing campaigns in recent history before we get started be sure to subscribe to the weird history Food Channel after that please leave a comment and let us know what other forgotten publicity stunts you would like to hear about okay time to head to Market in an ambitious attempt to surpass the Guinness world record for the largest popsicle ever created everyone's favorite trivia delivering beverage Snapple delivered 17.5 tons of their newest flavor to the streets of New York City the kiwi strawberry snap cicle was so large a crane was called in to help lift the monolith but scheduling a giant popsicle delivery for the middle of summer turned out to be an equally giant mistake the oppressive heat melted the mega popsicle before it could be pulled out of the truck creating a small wave of slush that flowed down 17th Street onlookers fled the scene but not before their shoes were covered in the sticky substance like a Looney Tunes firefighters and police quarantined the scene and the stunt was regarded as a bust although is that really fair it did get Snapple in the news today's audiences have grown accustomed to movies and TV shows not so subtly shoving products in our faces as a way to pay the bills it's like people only do things because they get paid and that's just really sad we've come to accept that if we want to watch the Super Bowl for free we're going to have to sit through some Pepsi commercials but the 1988 film Mac and Me crossed that delicate line into truly Shameless territory the movie is about a boy befriending a lost alien and helping the creature get back home what if he is dangerous what if he's got a disease or something he doesn't have any diseases it's a fairly blatant knockoff of the 1982 Steven Spielberg classic ET except that instead of Reese's Pieces the alien eats nothing but Coca-Cola and McDonald's that's because the movie was funded by McDonald's one of the world's wealthiest corporations and they were more interested in depicting the film's characters guzzling soda and Fries than they were in making a movie not only were products aggressively advertised they were also Central to the plot drinking Coca-Cola saves Max's life and the plot convenes at a McDonald's where Ronald McDonald makes a guest appearance during an extended dance sequence Mac and me's fawning Adoration of McDonald's cheeseburgers didn't translate into box office success and today it's still considered to be one of the worst movies ever made that being said it did give future friend star Jennifer andison her first big break and it was the subject of a solid episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 although that's probably not what Mickey de had in mind [Music] the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are known for saving the world from the shredder and they're incredibly catchy theme song ninja Turin turttle which will now probably be stuck in your head for days but arguably the turtle's most famous Pastime is scarfing down box after box of delicious pizza the favorite food of all Mutant Ninjas it was only a matter of time before one of America's pizza chains tried to ride those coattails coat shells and that chain was Pizza Hut capitalizing on the radical reptiles obsession with all things Pizza Pizza Hut made the obvious choice they transformed the turtles into a rhinestone bedazzled glam rock band and sent them on a 40 City live tour the coming out of their shells tour was part music concert and part live theater with a little bit of puppet show thrown into the mix the concert featured nearly a dozen glamrock and rap songs including bangers like pizza power and cow Bunga Pizza Hut invested $20 million into selling the album on cassette tape at Pizza Huts all across America sure it would have been cheaper to do a Happy Meal or something but it would have been way less awesome in a vast everchanging Marketplace companies are constantly coming up with innovative ways to one up the competition and stay fresh in the Public's mind like Amazon which went from an online bookstore to one of the most powerful retailers in the world and playdoh who pivoted from using their clay as a cleaning product to a colorful children's toy that's apparently edible you did say cleaning product right Colgate the toothpaste company was hoping for a similar shift when they decided to get in on the Frozen TV dinner market for some reason if the idea of buying food from a toothpaste company doesn't exactly fill you with the warm and fuzzies well you're not alone Colgate TV dinners were one of the biggest bombs in Supermarket history in fact they were such a failure today the company refuses to acknowledge the product ever existed before the year 2000 people had a lot of expectations about what might happen in the year 2000 but turns out 2000 was just a year of watching Survivor listening to Destiny's Child and obsessing over Brad Pitt's relationship with Mac and Me star Jennifer Aniston it was also the year Hines introduced green and purple ketchup to the masses it changed everything and not just ketchup everything Hines easy squirt came with a k friendly nozzle and wacky colors to make food fun which apparently was a thing people wanted at least at first after an initial boom in popularity hindes added orange teal blue and pink to their lineup but their success didn't last once the novelty wore off and parents realized the recipe had so many additives it could no longer actually be referred to as tomato ketchup s stopped and Blasting green funky purple and passion pink were taken off the shelves at some point in every person's life we all wish we could smell like a Burger King in 2015 the fast food giant partnered with Mark by Marc Jacobs and entered the beauty Market with a Whopper scented perfume with subtle hints of ground beef and ketchup the flame grilled fragrance made a person smell like they had just been attacked by the hamburglar's legally distant cousin Whopper perfume which probably had the upside of making a person extremely popular with dogs was an exclusive scent sold in Japan and only for one day as an added perk the fragrance also came with the Whopper presumably so you could smear it on yourself once the bottle ran out ordering food is hard you have to choose where you want to go and then pick something to order from the menu let me have a double burger luckily the Paranormal Sciences division at Domino's Pizza has found a way to cut through ordering paralysis using an app that can read your mind straight out of something like stranger things Domino's allows test subjects which which is apparently what they call their customers to channel their inner 11 and use telekinesis to order pizza with just the blank of an eye Skeptics claim that the app which is part of a partnership with Netflix actually uses facial recognition and eye tracking technology to allow test subjects to order pizza by making certain facial expressions and head movements but it could also be the telekinesis thing just make sure not to frown or you might up with pineapple on there brands are always trying to tickle people feelings of nostalgia to sell their products which is precisely what Gerber was going for when it launched singles by Gerber instead of mushy peas and carrots found in its line of baby food Gerber marketed complete mushy dinners for hip young singles because hey who doesn't like to Baby themselves sometimes Gerber tried to lure in this new demographic by using the little glass jars they recognized from childhood unfortunately the flavors which included textureless beef burgundy ham casserole beef with mushroom gravy and sweet and sour pork didn't do much for people while Nostalgia is a powerful thing not many people are nostalgic for baby food long story short singles by Gerber was pulled after only one year on the market brand awareness is critical for building recognition and trust with the public for example Las Vegas restaurant Heart Attack Grill built brand awareness around the idea that its food May kill you and that you should trust them on that calories and cholesterol take center stage on menu that features triple bypass burgers and the health conscious need not apply patrons are invited to wear hospital gowns while servers and nurse and Doctor uniforms push them around in wheelchairs and spank those who don't finish their Entre with all of these quirky gimmicks championing gluttony you might wonder how they can tell if someone is actually having a medical emergency and the answer is they can't not even a little in 2012 an unidentified man was making his way through a triple bypass Burger when he started Ed complaining about chest pains sweating and slurring his words customers and restaurant owner John basso assumed the heart attack was a joke until it became evident the man was in distress baso may have been wearing a doctor's uniform but he was Ill prepared to handle a genuine emergency an ambulance was called and the Mysterious Patron recovered in a nearby hospital aren't you glorifying obesity which obviously kills absolutely I think it would be immoral to stop at this point explain that to me we're past the point of no return at the Heart Attack Grill we have blood on our hands at this point Gamers over a certain age may remember Hotel 626 as one of the most frightening computer games of 2008 the horror title trapped players in a haunted hotel and used PCS cell phones and webcams to create an unforgettably immersive experience the mysterious game left people screaming and wanting more and hopefully wanting chips you see The Mastermind behind Hotel 626 wasn't a prominent video game developer but the popular chip brand Doritos Doritos created The Escape based horror game to promote two flavors recently brought back from the dead smok and cheddar barbecue and black pepper yeah those sound like flavors ghostlike Arby's is all about the meat and not taking itself too seriously at a time when most other businesses were focused on maintaining professional public images Arby's went for Laughs for example they tweeted for John Stewart to apply for a job when he retired from The Daily Show and asked Grammy nominated musician Fel to give them their hat back we hear the hat is still in a custody battle between Arby's and Dudley dght the witty banter actually worked it generated Buzz with a young demographic that had written the restaurant off as a place where old people went to eat brisket a look of elderly blood lust spread across her wrinkled face and it made me dare to think perhaps this was no accident per chance she was compelled compelled to steer her beige battering ram into the house that beef built Arby's controversial marketing continued with a hotline for tempted vegetarians The Cheeky promotion followed the launch of their brown sugar glazed pepper bacon which they claimed was so good it could lure the meatless to the dark side vegetarians probably weren't too big on Arby's in the first place so it likely didn't affect the bottom line too [Music] much although most people don't know it Michael C Hall star of HBO's 6 feet under and Showtime Dexter starred in a one night only production of Skittles commercial the Broadway musical even more surprising is that the show was a charity benefit with proceeds going to Broadway cares/equity fights AIDS instead of the attempt to satisfy a mob debt it appeared to be the Darkly funny take on existential dread took place in a New York City Bodega and poke fun at the manipulation of advertising brand identity and the commercialism of being a mega Corporation selling a product it also featured Hall dressed up as a cat as he swatted at cat toys and saying this might have been a bad idea so what do you think which one of these marketing campaigns did you think was the strangest let us know in the comments below and while you're at it check out some of these other videos from weird history

Channel: Weird History Food

Views: 174,346

Keywords: strangest food marketing campaigns, weirdest foods companies have made, strange foods that failed miserably, weirdest food marketing campaign fails, weird foods that failed instantly, weird history food, weird history food commercials, weird foods, food history, weird american foods, food product lines that failed, mcdonald's weird marketing campaigns, weird food marketing, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Hut, watch mojo, insider food, phantom strider, sssniperwolf, thrillist

Id: CYRv3-Se7R0

Length: 12min 12sec (732 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 16 2023