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
‘Intentionally being cautious’: Why the ad industry isn’t ready to let AI agents spend ad dollars
For now, LLMs are being used as accelerants, not decision makers. They compress workflows. They do not spend the ad dollars
Walmart says ‘open partnerships’ are central to its AI strategy, while Amazon goes it alone
Walmart and Google have announced a partnership that brings the retailer’s shopping experience inside Google’s AI assistant, Gemini.
The case for and against influencer-led Super Bowl ads
Inside the Super Bowl ad debate: Celebrities offer mass appeal, but creators provide better engagement.