Seek to Misconstrue + a
Failure: The Blog 
August 2018
- When This Executive Was Fired, He Took Charge
- Obeying The Speed Limit Has Never Been More Fun
- London Black Cabs Helped Uber Grow
- Bette Graham Created A Product To Fix Her Mistakes
- Flamin' Hot Cheetos Had An Interesting Start
July 2018
- Fear This Instead Of Failure
- Re-Releasing Songs Created Success
- A CEO's Purposeful Mistake
- The Tardy Student And The Unsolvable Problem
- Fixing Potholes Through Graffiti
June 2018
- A Surprising Mistake In The Oxford English Dictionary
- US Army Embraces Mistakes
- Blocking A Hymn
- Eddie Shore Was Truly A Tough Guy
- [Video] Elon Musk Didn't "Pivot" He Failed
May 2018
- 8 Examples of Mental Toughness Part 2
- Necessity Turned Accessory: Allen Iverson's Sleeve
- This Doctor Has Continued To Fail
- 8 Examples of Mental Toughness
- MIT Accidentally Creates New Smelting Process
April 2018
- Johnny Cash Quit Singing Lessons
- Cruise Control Came Out of Frustration
- Time Spent Gaming Pays Off In The Navy
- Rock Around The Clock Was a Commercial Failure
- Sigmund Freud Should Have Been Discouraged
March 2018
Offensive Advertising, Increased Sales?
A gym in the megacity of Dubai recently ran a horrifyingly offensive advertisement. They realized the error of their ways and canned their creative director, but now the exercise facility is more popular than ever.
The story is covered in a blog post from DietsInReview.com. They write:
What do a gym and the Holocaust have in common? According to at the Circuit Factory, a gym in Dubai, they are both a great place to burn calories.
Whoa, wait a second! That’s incredibly insensitive and not funny. However, that did not stop the company’s marketing team from posting pictures of Auschwitz, a famous Nazi death camp in Poland, with the words “Kiss your calories goodbye” on their Facebook page. Around 3,000,000 people died at Auschwitz during World War II.
Let’s take a look at that advertisement:
That is truly terrible. The company pulled the ad, fired the person responsible, and apologized in full. But what happened next is the real shocker:
It seems that a negative advertising campaign like this would be the downfall of a young company like the Circuit Factory, which has only been in business for about seven months. However, in an unexpected turn of events, the Circuit Factory has reported that it has had an increase in bookings and visits to its social media websites after the images were released.
“A huge number [of] people have researched or Googled [it],” said [gym manager] Phil Parkinson. “Our YouTube channel has shot up, our [Facebook] group page has got an hundred extra members in minutes and we have had about five times as many inquiries as before. It has got to the point I am nervous that I can’t cater for demand.
So let’s be clear here: Failure is the secret to success. Yes, they never should have run this ad. Everyone agrees that it’s insensitive and inappropriate.
Yet, the popularity has also been good for business. So why you probably should not run a shock campaign, sometimes doing the wrong thing turns out for the best! Failure often leads right to success, and it’s often unexpected.
Thanks to reader Brooke Randolph for this story.
