Marketing mistakes — such as typos, messages that miss the mark and image errors — can be costly, embarrassing and damaging to brand reputation. That’s why creative quality assurance is so important. It serves as a safety net that prevents all-too-human errors from reaching the public eye.
Even the biggest brands, with their multimillion-dollar budgets and armies of professionals, aren’t immune to the occasional spectacular fail. While some of these mishaps might give us a chuckle, they also serve as sobering reminders of how a simple oversight can spiral into a PR nightmare — or a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.
Let’s explore a few branding missteps that had executives wishing they’d invested more time in quality assurance, shall we?
A wicked wrong URL.
Even in 2024, erroneous website links can still derail marketing campaigns. Just recently, Universal Pictures and Mattel learned this lesson the hard way with their “Wicked” movie merchandise. While the official movie site lived at wickedmovie.com, the URL printed on packaging for “Wicked” dolls dropped the word “movie” — directing unsuspecting fans to an NSFW website instead.
This error led to legal action against Mattel. It also demonstrates how a simple oversight in creative quality assurance can turn a magical marketing moment into a PR nightmare.
FCK! When the Colonel ran out of chicken.
In February 2018, KFC faced a crisis when it ran out of chicken in the U.K. due to delivery issues. The situation went from bad to worse when KFC’s automated marketing systems continued sending promotional emails advertising “fresh chicken daily!” to customers.
The disconnect between KFC’s marketing and reality led to widespread ridicule on social media. But the fast food chain later turned this mistake around with its clever “FCK” apology campaign, showing how good marketing can sometimes salvage a mishap. And yes, the agency credited with this masterstroke is named Mother.
A tale of 2 liberties.
In what might be one of the most expensive image mix-ups in marketing history, the U.S. Postal Service in 2010 issued a Statue of Liberty stamp that didn’t actually feature the iconic New York monument. Instead, the government agency accidentally used an image of the replica statue from the New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
The error wasn’t discovered until months after the stamps went into circulation. The mix-up led to a copyright lawsuit that cost the USPS $3.5 million in settlement fees — a stark reminder that even the smallest details matter in creative assets.
‘Dord’ have mercy.
While this final example comes from publishing rather than marketing, it perfectly illustrates how even the most respected institutions can fall victim to quality assurance oversights.
In 1934, Webster’s New International Dictionary published a peculiar new word: “dord,” supposedly a physics term meaning density. Five years passed before an editor discovered the truth: There was no such word.
The error originated when “D or d” (a notation for density) was misinterpreted as a single word by typesetters. Despite the discovery, “dord” haunted the dictionary’s pages until 1947 and appeared in other reference works for years afterward.
If the guardians of the English language can make such a mistake, it’s a humbling reminder that no one is immune to quality assurance mishaps.
The hidden cost of rushing.
Behind each of these public failures lies a common thread: the false economy of skipping proper quality assurance. Some branding teams view QA as a bottleneck, an unnecessary delay in the race to market. But rushing past quality checks to save time is like skipping insurance to save money — the potential cost of a mistake far outweighs the minimal investment in prevention.
Remember: Quality assurance doesn’t have to be cumbersome; it just needs to be deliberate, thorough and woven into your creative process from the start.
The power of fresh eyes.
Any creative professional knows the feeling: You’ve spent hours crafting the perfect piece, scrutinizing every word and fine-tuning every visual detail. Yet somehow, the moment after you hit “publish,” that glaring mistake suddenly becomes visible — the one you missed during your previous dozen reviews.
This phenomenon is a quirk of human psychology. When we work intensively on a project, our brains begin to autocorrect errors, filling in gaps and smoothing over inconsistencies. That’s why effective creative quality assurance requires multiple reviewers and deliberate time buffers between revisions.
But fresh eyes do more than catch typos; they also provide a new perspective on your creative work. A campaign that seemed brilliant at midnight might feel off brand in the morning. A social post that appeared clever during creation might suddenly reveal itself as potentially problematic. Time and space give us the objectivity we need to evaluate our work not just for accuracy but also for impact and appropriateness.
Building a culture of creative quality.
The most successful marketing teams have woven quality assurance into their DNA, making it an integral part of their creative process rather than a last-minute checkpoint. They understand that QA isn’t just about catching errors; it’s about protecting and elevating brand integrity at every touchpoint.
In these organizations, creative work follows a structured journey from concept to publication, with clear processes for review and approval. Key stakeholders are engaged at specific milestones, creative teams build in time for revisions and fresh-eye reviews, and every team member feels empowered to raise potential issues before they become public mishaps.
The danger of last-minute creative changes.
Every marketer knows this scenario: Minutes before launch, someone suggests “just one small tweak.” It seems harmless — changing a headline, swapping an image or adjusting some copy. But last-minute changes are where critical errors often occur, bypassing established quality assurance processes in the rush to launch.
Some of us speak from experience here. (Turns out, the word “business” does, in fact, require two S’s at the end, especially in a prominent headline.) Treat every change, no matter how small, as significant enough to warrant a fresh round of QA. If there isn’t time for proper review, there isn’t time for change.
Getting ahead of a blunder.
Still, in marketing, as in life, mistakes are inevitable. No matter how many fail-safes you have in place, stuff happens. In these instances, it’s how brands handle these mistakes that often determines their lasting impact (as with the KFC example above).
The key to effective damage control lies in speed and sincerity. The approach of “acknowledge, apologize and act” helps maintain trust even when things go wrong. Tell your boss and other stakeholders what happened as soon as you discover an issue, and come in with a plan to mitigate the damage.
A swift, honest response might feel uncomfortable in the moment, but it’s far better than letting speculation and screenshots shape the narrative. Even worse, trying to hide marketing mistakes could result in the Streisand effect, where attempts to suppress information only make it spread faster.
The ROI of nothing.
When done right, quality assurance becomes invisible. Its success is measured in what doesn’t happen rather than what does. You won’t see headlines about the catastrophic typo that never made it to print or the pricing error that was caught before publication. Instead, you’ll see the true value of creative quality assurance over time: sustained brand trust, consistent messaging and campaigns that achieve their objectives without any unintended drama.
Looking to keep your brand polished, with quality assured? Our creative team can help. Let’s start the conversation.
