Marketing #Fail: Who Designed Urban Outfitters' Bloody Kent State Mess?

In marketing, there are #fails and there are #epicfails.

Urban Outfitters’ vintage Kent State sweatshirt – which appeared to have blood stains that appeared to almost everyone except, it seems, except Urban Outfitters to exploit a turbulent chapter in American history – qualifies as the latter.

Oops, never mind, says Urban Outfitters, apologizing in a do’h, facepalm, gee-whiz-we-never-realized kind of way. Who knew people might think the fake blood stains were intended to represent the actual blood stains left by four Kent State University students killed by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970?

Oh, good grief, no.

“It was never our intention to allude to the tragic events that took place at Kent State in 1970, and we are extremely saddened that this item was perceived as such,” the company said in a statement, asking customers to believe the company is a victim in a tragic misunderstanding.

It’s like this, you see:

The shirt was part of the retailer’s sun-faded collection.“There is no blood on this shirt. … The red stains are discoloration from the original shade of the shirt and the holes are from natural wear and fray.”

Way to turn it on the consumers, say a chorus of voices, including the Sacramento Bee, which skewered California-based Urban Outfitters in an editorial Tuesday:

“Urban Outfitters, with $3 billion in sales, hadn’t been extremely saddened when other sickening clothing items the company marketed were offered. Portrayals of drunken Irish on tees and caps, prescription bottle-shaped shot glasses, and a sleeveless tee with the words ‘Eat Less’ worn by a waif-like girl are some of the other things they weren’t extremely saddened by after offering them for sale.

“What’s next from Urban Outfitters? A Dealey Plaza T-shirt? A Pearl Harbor swimsuit? A 9/11 hoodie? …”

Boom.

Matt Friedman, co-founder of the Farmington Hills-based Tanner Friedeman Strategic Communications, told WXYZ, Channel 7, Urban Outfitters’ big mistake was miscalculating customers’ intelligence

“If you treat customers like they’re stupid, they will prove to you very quickly in this s0cial media aage that they are not,” Friedeman said, citing a “pattern of behavior” by the company, which has more than $3 billion in annual sales.

“This company is trying way too hard to be cool, to try to be edgy and try to get attention,” he said. “ … Their customers and potential customers said, ‘No way, you’ve gone too far.’ ”

The company said it will destroy remaining shirts, which were going for $129 a pop and were reportedly sold out, but the damage may haunt Urban Outfitters.

Friedman thinks the day of reckoning – the day he warns always comes for companies “if you’re not authentic, and you’re not real and you’re not honest” – may have arrived for Urban Outfitters.

Of course, if you’re following the chatter on Twitter, you may not buy Urban Outfitters’ mea culpa.

Twitter user Rick Wilson – @TheRickWilson – declared:

“The @UrbanOutfitters bloody-Kent-State-shirt gaffe isn’t a gaffe. It’s marketing, which is infinitely worse.”

Tell Us:

• What do you think about all of this? Do a company’s shock-and-awe advertising campaigns make you more or less likely to spend your money there?