I try to stay positive. I think most people would describe me as a positive person too.

As the pendulum swings, in the last few weeks I have found myself being outwardly negative on my chosen profession. It’s become a frequent topic in my conversations.

I tweeted my distain towards the work product, or lack thereof, of the Twitter leadership team leading up to, and daily since, the Elon Musk buyout (give or take “April 27”). For one, I asked where was the corporate communications presence? The company actually has a chief marketing officer role. Filled.
What.A.Mess.

But today, a new corporate communications team is, well deservingly, joining my “worst of” list. Even TMZ reported on it. Not that they focus often on positive news though.

What Happened: On Sunday, May 1, 2022, a marketing genius on publicly traded Ulta Beauty’s comms team, sent an email saying,

“The NYC It Girl is Back, come hang with Kate Spade”

promoting the “sparkle” fragrance launch. The Kate Spade brand, including the product, sparkle, is currently owned by Coach’s parent company, Tapestry, Inc.

Where it Went Wrong: Kate Spade, the entrepreneurial preppy handbag designer of the 90s, took her own life in her Manhattan apartment in 2018.
Back to the campaign, I’ll let further deduct on your own why the headline is in such bad taste.

Sent on May 1, the first day of mental health awareness month too. Timely.

I will review the Ulta numbers and corporate statement when the next quarterly report is released, but until then, let’s take a trip down memory lane with some other big corporate communications blunders.

Remember in 2006 when an Alitalia employee incorrectly entered $33 as the consumer-facing cost of a business-class airline ticket from Toronto to Cyprus, erroneously omitting the last two zeros? Obviously $33.00 is a very different price point than $3300.00 per seat, the going rate at the time. Oops.

In my “corporate communications wins” column (not many have been making the list lately), Alitalia honored the 509 tickets sold at the lower price point before the decimal place was fixed.

My accolades are, perhaps, too little too late, the Italian airline brand ceased operations the end of last year.

Or remember when a branding executive somehow got the beloved middle-America breakfast giant, International House of Pancakes, or IHOP, to change it’s name to IHOB? The brand initiative promoting “burgers,” vs “pancakes,” seemingly flopped.

Well, the joke is on me. The campaign generated 1.2 million tweets, quadrupled in-store burger sales and same store sales growth for the first time in almost three years.

Fortunately for some of my communications colleagues out there, customers are fickle, with short memories. If anything, Ulta probably got a lot more clicks today than they usually do.

What marketing or communications metrics should brands care about?