Do Ya Know
Which brand famously apologized for a controversial ad by… doubling down on it?
Trending Stories
AI
🤖 AI distrust is putting humanity back in advertising.
🧠 Instagram will demote AI influencers that don’t clearly disclose they’re AI-generated.
STRATEGY
🛍️ Old Navy is rewiring its marketing strategy after a summer traffic bust.
📣 Charli XCX thinks anti-marketing is the future, and some brands are already embracing the approach.
💳 Target brings back ’90s nostalgia with dELiA*s.
💄 Target is giving its beauty business a major makeover with Beauty Studio.
CAMPAIGNS
🎮 What GTA 6’s trailers can teach us about the biggest creative launch of the decade.
🌯 Chipotle hands its campaign to 100 creators.
💰 Dr. Squatch bets $1M on experiences, not ads.
MARKETING
📊 Marketing effectiveness is becoming a question of accountability.
📱 Instagram is under investigation for deceptive design practices.
🛒 Aldi’s famous dupes are raising a tricky question: where’s the legal line?
Ep. #2.16: Dissecting the Brand Apology
A brand apology is a lot more than just a statement designed to respond to audience reaction, soothe the situation, and calm the backlash.
The best brand apologies acknowledge what went wrong, provide specifics on how the internal process broke down, and detail the corrective actions the brand is currently taking to address it.
In the new episode of The Daily Carnage Show, Shannon dissects some recent brand apologies to understand what’s working… and what’s backfiring:
- Neutrogena promises to donate to an unidentified charity after the tragic death of their long-time ambassador Hayden Panettiere, who they reportedly dropped after her public acknowledgment of post-partum depression.
- Target pulls a Halloween costume that evokes racist minstrel imagery.
- Good Good Golf and Callaway remove a co-branded campaign depicting a man shoving a female golfer to the ground.
Is there a brand apology you return to as a hall-of-fame template? Drop us a comment and let us know.
🎙️ Don’t miss “Dissecting the Brand Apology” now streaming on:
What We Learned
Monday: A strong ICP should focus on the problems a product solves and the value it delivers, rather than relying solely on firmographic traits like company size, industry, job title, or location. By studying the customers who get the most value, questioning existing assumptions, and staying open to new insights, marketers can build a more flexible and accurate profile that evolves as they learn who truly buys, uses, and succeeds with the product. Head to Fletcher PMM for more.
Tuesday: As Google Ads automates more campaign decisions, marketers need to make sure they’re feeding the platform the right signals. Tracking qualified leads, downstream outcomes, revenue, and conversion value gives Google better data to optimize against, instead of letting it chase surface-level metrics that don’t necessarily translate into business results. Dive deeper with Search Engine Journal.
Wednesday: Competitor research shouldn’t stop with brands in your own industry. Looking across categories and channels can reveal new creative ideas, audience behaviors, content formats, and opportunities that your direct competitors have overlooked. The goal isn’t to copy what others are doing, but to understand the broader landscape and find ways to stand apart. See what Buffer has to say about it.
Thursday: Community-led marketing gives audiences a more active role than simply liking or buying from a brand. By inviting people to create, contribute, share ideas, and connect with each other, brands can turn their communities into participants in the marketing itself — creating stronger relationships and more authentic ways for people to engage with the brand. Read the full breakdown at HeyOrca.
🕒 Agency Office Hours with Carney
Got a marketing problem you’re trying to solve? Need a second opinion? Wondering whether a new platform, AI tool, campaign idea, or strategy is worth pursuing?
Every Friday, we’re clocking in for Agency Office Hours sessions: 30-minute sessions for Daily Carnage readers to chat with the Carney team.
Bring your questions. We’ll bring our experience.
Whether you’re trying to improve performance, navigate industry changes, troubleshoot a campaign, or simply sanity-check an idea, we wanna hear what you’ve got going on.
No pitches. No obligations. No sales deck. Seriously.
Just a free 30-minute conversation with the team behind The Daily Carnage.
👉 Reserve your Office Hours session now.
Join The Carnage Community 🤝
Let’s take this party outside of the inbox, Carnies!
Connect and network with over 20,000 marketers to get (and give) advice, feedback, support, and LOLs.
- 💬 Join r/TheDailyCarnage on Reddit
- 👍 Join The Daily Carnage Facebook Group
😎 See ya there.
Pre-Roll Sponsorships Now Available ⭐
🎙️ The Daily Carnage Show is growing!
So, we’re excited to share a new sponsorship opportunity.
Book a Pre-Roll Ad at the top the episode with your preferred script, on-screen text, and link in description.
🎧 Podcast advertising is one of the highest-performing brand channels:
- 60%+ of listeners say they’ve searched for a product after hearing it on a podcast.
- Podcast ads consistently outperform display ads on engagement and recall.
- Pre-roll ads are among the most-heard placements, with the strongest completion rates.
🗣️ This is your opportunity to reach a highly engaged audience of marketers, creatives, and strategists when they’ve got their listening ears on.
Interested in sponsoring an upcoming episode? Reach out and let’s build something together.
Ads from The Past
Swift’s, 1950
Did Ya Know
Answer: 🥤 Pepsi
Pepsi’s 2017 Kendall Jenner ad became one of the most talked-about brand apologies of the decade after the company pulled the campaign and apologized for “missing the mark.” The interesting part? The apology itself became part of the backlash, showing just how quickly a brand can lose control of the narrative once an apology enters the conversation. Want to know why some brand apologies make things worse? We’re breaking it all down in the latest episode of The Daily Carnage Show. Go watch it!
