It was just a matter of time before some tone-deaf brand used today, the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, as a social media marketing ploy. Amazingly, the guilty party was the Golf Channel.
This morning, as @jyarow pointed out, the Golf Channel tweeted:
MLK was most likely not talking about hitting the links when he said he had a dream. The Golf Channel has since deleted the tweet.
The Golf Channel is a property of NBC, which is running the broader “DreamDay” hashtag. But something about mixing golf programming and historic civil rights events struck many online as a catastrophic duff.
This isn’t the first time a brand has attempted to glom onto the historical and social importance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s groundbreaking speech. Last year Taco Bell shamelessly plugged itself in this dream-themed tweet.
Not to be outdone, Staples similarly used MLK Day as an excuse for this silly tweet earlier this year.
Image via Flickr
More in Marketing
Future of Marketing Briefing: CMOs are still haunted by hard questions about value of ad creative
While interest in AI-enabled media and creative effectiveness measurement is rising, 49% of senior marketers say they can’t back up their ad creative with hard data.
Nike versus Adidas: Who’s winning the World Cup’s brand head to head?
Both Adidas and Nike are gunning to dominate the World Cup. We examine campaign performance data to see who’s out in front.
Cannes Briefing: Creativity is moving beyond the agency model
For the first time, a growing number of CMOs are thinking about creative more broadly than creative agencies.