14 Times Companies Backtracked After Customer Backlash
Though large corporations may do their damndest to get us on board with things like buying 10 different streaming subscriptions or spending $35 dollars for a burger to be delivered to our doorsteps, not all pricing initiatives end in a “fine, I guess” fro
Published 1 year ago in Ftw
Though large corporations may do their damndest to get us on board with things like buying 10 different streaming subscriptions or spending $35 dollars for a burger to be delivered to our doorsteps, not all pricing initiatives end in a “fine, I guess” from customers.
Just last week, Wendy’s was forced to clarify their recently unveiled plans for a “dynamic pricing” model, explaining (or more likely, CYA-ing) that contrary to the memes of buying, selling, and trading Baconators, they were not going to increase the price of their burgers to reflect market the business of their restaurants.
“To clarify, Wendy’s will not implement surge pricing, which is the practice of raising prices when demand is highest,” a spokesperson for the fast food chain told NBC News, noting that they “didn’t use” the term surge pricing … even though “dynamic pricing” basically means the same thing.
But Wendy’s is far from alone in having to walk back their latest money grab. From fixing Sonic’s design to OnlyFans' decision to keep their platform porn friendly, here are 15 times companies walked back their plans in light of backlash.
2
San Francisco 49ers
“The San Francisco 49ers tried to introduce a new logo in the early 90’s and it was honestly pretty ugly and bad. A ‘what were you trying to accomplish?’ decision and this was in the years when they were winning like every other Super Bowl so people had grown attached to the look the team had worn to great success. Pre internet so the fans flooded the team with letters and calls and picket lines outside the office and the team said ‘fine we won’t use the new logo.’” u/Navyblazers2000
6
Cadbury
“Cadbury announced they were going to change their formula to include palm oil in their chocolate manufacturing process, and there was a huge uproar. Lots of people boycotted them or threatened to boycott them if palm oil was used as it's incredibly environmentally damaging. Cadbury's walked it back shortly after and never mentioned switching the formula again.” — u/TheSnowBunny
7
BMW
“BMW had plans to charge a monthly subscription fee for heated seats and adaptive cruise control. When you would order the car you could opt to pay for those to be installed or not not. But they would installed them anyway and then you could pay a monthly fee afterwards if you changed your mind.” — u/lolzbolz42
8
Playboy
“In March, 2016, Playboy magazine stopped having nude pictures. Subscriptions fell 23% and it was actually through the efforts of Cooper Hefner, Hugh's son, that brought those back, saving the magazine from a likely-fatal wrong turn. (It may have been a publicity stunt. We will never know).” — u/milescowperthwaite
9
Apple
“In 2014, Apple automatically added U2's new Songs of Innocence album to the libraries of every iTunes customer for free -- more than 500 million customers. If you had an auto-downloads enabled on your iTunes, the album was automatically downloaded to your devices. People hated this. As a result, Apple created a webpage dedicated to deleting the album from people's accounts.” —u/MaterialPace8831
14
Maker’s Mark
“At one point when bourbon exploded in popularity (largely due to growth in the SE Asian market), Maker's Mark was faced with not having enough product to meet projected demand, since it takes quite a while to produce. They announced they were going to slightly lower the alcohol percentage of their flagship product to ‘stretch’ the supply. This idea went over like a lead balloon and was crushed almost immediately.” —u/mickipedic
15
Denver, Colorado
“When the Covid lockdowns started hitting, the city of Denver announced that all liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries would be shuttered for the duration. Hordes of people scrambled to these shops and formed huge lines to stock up. Two hours later, the city announced that NO, those shops would not be forced to close, that they were deemed essential services.” — u/The_Ombudsman
Most Popular
