The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business
Our third annual send-up of the most ill-conceived, embarrassing, and downright appalling developments of the past year.
By Mark Athitakis, April 2003 Issue
1 Whiffed pitch No. 1: naked grannies.
Six months after Midas (MDS) hires marketing firm Cliff Freeman & Partners, lauding its "strategic insight into our business," that insight shows itself in the form of a TV ad featuring an elderly woman in a Midas shop. Told of the company's lifetime guarantee, the woman rips open her blouse and asks, "So what can you do with these?" Strategically and insightfully, the ad is quickly pulled.
2 Law-sooooooooooot!
Wylie Gustafson, better known as the yodeler featured in Yahoo ads, sues the company for $5 million, saying he was paid only for limited use. Yahoo (YHOO) settles for an undisclosed sum.
3 What the hell. It worked with that Chaucer term paper they "wrote" in college.
After hyping its new disposable cell phone as "innovative" and "technologically advanced," Hop-On (HPON) sends a sample to a San Francisco Chronicle reporter, who cracks open the casing to uncover the phone's "revolutionary" secret: Nokia parts. The company explains that it had run into glitches and had missed its deadline.
4 As for what's in it, we're guessing Nokia parts.
In an attempt to show that, no, really, they're serious about this cloning thing, Clonaid sells the RMX 2010, a $9,220 contraption that ... well, nobody's quite sure what it does. To help clarify the matter, Clonaid lends one to a British science museum -- under strict orders not to open it to find out what's inside.
5 Celebrating the can-do spirit that continues to make American capitalism the envy of the world.
At a developers conference in September, Microsoft (MSFT) senior vice president Brian Valentine describes the state of the art in OS security: "Every operating system out there is about equal.... We all suck."
6 Timmy can have his juice box when Timmy starts hitting his productivity targets.
Soon after a summer stock plunge, Chris Whittle, CEO of Edison Schools (EDSN), suggests a unique solution to stanch his company's bleeding: Have Edison students put in an hour of free work per day.
- Tell us your pick for the Dumbest Moment of 2002 -
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