Time for a bit of fun! We are not making fun of people in this article. We are having fun with people.
Let’s face it; nobody is perfect, and that includes us here at Afford A Print! Even the best visionaries, designers, proof-readers, and the like make mistakes. The great inventor Thomas Edison was once asked about the many times he failed to create a working lightbulb. He said, “I have not failed. I just found 1,000 ways that won’t work.”
In this article, we will look at several failed attempts to print business cards, mailers, and the like. We hope this article will put a smile on your face.
- The Stretching Business Card. One innovative person thought it would be a good idea to develop a stretching business card to advertise his personal training business. The problem: it took two hands to stretch the business card, in order to read the business contact information. The obvious problem: with two hands stretching the card, a person could not write down or dial the phone number.
- An Insincere Offer of Help? One company decided to help those who struggle with addiction to alcohol by offering a business card with a phone number alcoholics could call for assistance. The problem: The bottom of the business card read: “For Liquor Home Delivery, call 0776…..”
- Costume Jewelry Prices. In 2013, a Macy’s store in the USA decided to offer a considerable discount on a necklace—reducing the price from $1,500 to $497. Excited to pass along the savings to their customers, Macy’s printed and distributed a bulk mailer. The problem: a typo in the mailer listed the price as $47 per necklace, not $497. Macy’s has not disclosed the number of necklaces sold at the costume jewelry price before the typo was caught.
- Racist and Cannibalistic Cookbook. In 2010, Penguin of Australia published “The Pasta Bible.” One recipe called for “salt and freshly ground black pepper.” Unfortunately, the publisher was rightly horrified to learn that the word “pepper” was inadvertently replaced with the word “people.” When made aware of the epic typo, the publisher quickly destroyed the 7,000 copies of the cookbook remaining in stock, at a cost of $20,000!
- Everyone’s a Winner! A car dealership in New Mexico, USA, printed and mailed 50,000 scratch-off ads, promising that one person would win a $1,000 Grand Prize. The problem: an error at the printer resulted in every scratcher being a winner! It cost the dealership $250,000 in $5 store gift cards to appease all of the people who claimed to be the Grand Prize winner.
Here at Afford A Print, we are committed to error-free printing. We never want to see your project on a list like this. Contact us and let’s get your project started.