Being creative is crucial when you are creating a marketing campaign. However, sometimes creativity is taken too far, or campaigns are not checked as thoroughly as they should be. These are four of our favourite examples:

Cartoon Network causes panic in Boston:

In 2007, two men were paid by representatives of Cartoon Network to put up over 30 battery-powered LED lights around hotspots in Boston, depicting characters from the show Aqua Teen Hunger Force flipping the middle finger. The signs were supposed to promote the upcoming ATHF film.

The people of Boston thought these signs were “improvised bombs.” People started calling in reporting the ads as bombs to police, who were equally clueless as to what they actually were. The two men who put the signs up were arrested, and faced charges of placing a hoax device to cause panic. Turner Broadcasting also was forced to pay $2 million to make up for money spent responding to the imaginary bomb scare.

Amazon billboard spoilers:

In April 2012, Amazon decided to publicise their Kindle e-book by setting up a billboard in Washington. It showed the first page of Mockingjay, the final book (released in 2010) in Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy. The problem was the page revealed key plot points of the previous two books, spoiling them for potential readers.

Bic’s sexist pen:

In 2011, stationary manufacturer Bic decided to launch a new series of pastel-coloured pens developed especially for ladies, called Bic for Her. They were "designed to fit comfortably in a woman's hand" with an "attractive barrel design available in pink and purple."   Unsurprisingly, the pens soon became the most sarcastically reviewed item on Amazon, with customers saying:

“They dot every "i" with a little heart.”

 “The whole world looks different. I cannot recommend this pen enough. It won't just change your handwriting. It will change your life.”

“These pens actually make me feel liberated! At last my delicate feminine needs and tastes are being considered!”

“These are absolutely rubbish at hair removal. Would not buy again. Now my legs and pits are really overgrown and I'm worried everyone will think I'm a feminist.”

Nokia

In 2011, Nokia tried to demonstrate the Lumia 920's optical image stabilization (OIS) feature for the video camera on its mobile phone. However, the brand shot a video with a professional camera and then tried to pass it off as OIS technology.

The misleading video was first spotted by a blog, which caught the fake simply by picking up the reflection of the professional camera crew in the video.

Nokia had to issue a formal apology.