CNN Money has a list of the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business.
My favorites so far–
In August, McDonald’s runs a promotional contest in Japan in which it gives away 10,000 Mickey D’s-branded MP3 players.
The gadgets come preloaded with 10 songs – and, in some cases, a version of the QQPass family of Trojan horse viruses, which, when uploaded to a PC, seeks to capture passwords, user names, and other data and then forward them to hackers.
“Help us find Hoffa … and enjoy fares from just $39 each way.”
– Marketing copy for Spirit Airlines’s “Hunt for Hoffa” game, in which visitors to the carrier’s Web site are asked to dig for the remains of the missing union leader. Besieged by complaints, the airline drops the promotion.
Los Angeles-based Fiji Water runs magazine ads for its bottled water with the headline “The Label Says Fiji Because It’s Not Bottled in Cleveland.”
Cleveland officials retaliate by running tests revealing that Fiji bottled water contains 6.3 micrograms of arsenic per liter, while the city’s tap water has none.
Fiji counters by saying its own tests found less than 2 micrograms per liter.
I haven’t finished reading all of them, but what fun.