Having worked in marketing and communications for many years, I've been looking at some of the media today and it's interesting to see how some companies / organizations are choosing to use MLK Day as a sales tool.
There are some fairly dumb ones that try to leverage the name with a pun ('mixed' drinks, geddit?) of dubious value, like Hennessy
Keep Hope Alive: Hennessy Commits Epic PR Fail - Digest - Los Angeles magazine
And some like Gap, who are just treating it like any other holiday as a means to turn a buck by marketing a 50% off MLK Event that doesn't mention civil rights or Dr King, but does feature white chicks in jeans and chinos.
You Probably Won?t Like The Gap?s ?MLK Event? - COLORLINES
Numerous other major brands are climbing on the opportunistic but distasteful bandwagon as well (like Samsonite, and Honda), but the winner has to be an MLK Day 'Freedom to Twerk' party, complete with a photoshopped Dr King with gold medallion and gang hand sign.
Twerking Party Canceled Over Use Of Martin Luther King, Jr. Image In Promo Material | The Smoking Gun
OK, so this last one doesn't have a major brand associated with it, but it doesn't appear to have a brain associated with it either.
Maybe I'm in the minority but I find this almost as distasteful as I find the feeding frenzy that takes place on Memorial Day.
There are some fairly dumb ones that try to leverage the name with a pun ('mixed' drinks, geddit?) of dubious value, like Hennessy
Keep Hope Alive: Hennessy Commits Epic PR Fail - Digest - Los Angeles magazine
And some like Gap, who are just treating it like any other holiday as a means to turn a buck by marketing a 50% off MLK Event that doesn't mention civil rights or Dr King, but does feature white chicks in jeans and chinos.
You Probably Won?t Like The Gap?s ?MLK Event? - COLORLINES
Numerous other major brands are climbing on the opportunistic but distasteful bandwagon as well (like Samsonite, and Honda), but the winner has to be an MLK Day 'Freedom to Twerk' party, complete with a photoshopped Dr King with gold medallion and gang hand sign.
Twerking Party Canceled Over Use Of Martin Luther King, Jr. Image In Promo Material | The Smoking Gun
OK, so this last one doesn't have a major brand associated with it, but it doesn't appear to have a brain associated with it either.
Maybe I'm in the minority but I find this almost as distasteful as I find the feeding frenzy that takes place on Memorial Day.