24/06/2025
10 GREATEST MARKETING MISTAKES EVER MADE
1. YAHOO!
• 1998: Yahoo refused to buy Google for $1 million.
• 2002: Yahoo tried to buy Google for $3 billion, but Google wanted $5 billion and Yahoo refused.
• 2006-2008: Microsoft offered $44 billion to buy Yahoo, but Yahoo refused.
• 2005: Yahoo owned 30% of Alibaba.
• 2012: Yahoo sold half its Alibaba stake for $13 per share, making $7.6 billion.
• 2014: Alibaba went public, with shares rising to $68.
• Today: Alibaba shares are worth $150.
• 2017: Yahoo sold its internet business to Verizon for $4.8 billion.
2. PAYPAL
PayPal once accidentally credited a man $92 quadrillion! $92,233,720,368,547,800.
Chris Reynolds from Pennsylvania once checked his email statement and found that he has been credited an amount that would make him the richest man in the world. So he logged online and reality bit back. His account balance read $0. The correct amount. PayPal admitted the error and offered to donate an unspecified amount of money to a cause of Reynolds' choice.
3. ANDREAS ESCOBAR
A Colombian defender who represented his country in 1994 world cup was reportedly kí11ëd by Mafias of Meddelin cartel in 1994 after he scored an own goal in the group stages against United states of America which later got his country ëlïmïnätëd
One of the kï11ërs, as per the witnesses was heard saying “thanks for the own goal”. The kï11ërs shot him a total of 12 times and shouted ‘gollll’ after piercing every bullet into his body.
4. SODA CLASH
Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, known as Ronaldinho, cost himself a Coke sponsorship worth $750,000 for drinking a can of Pepsi at a press conference.
Ronaldinho stunned Coke chiefs by turning up at a press conference and sipping nonchalantly from a can of their arch-rivals' fizzy pop. Furious bosses at the Coca-Cola Firm immediately demanded that the plug be pulled on his huge endorsement deal.
5. VICTORIA'S SECRET
Roy Raymond wanted to buy his wife some lingerie but he was too embarrassed to shop for it at a department store. He then comes up with an idea. He gets a $40,000 bank loan, borrows another $40,000 from his in-laws, opens a store, and calls it
6. ALASKA
Alexander II of the Russian Empire thought Alaska is üsëlëss with a lot of ice, so he sold it to the USA for $7.2 Million, approximately 1 billion Dollars in today's money but now Alaska one of the most important areas in the world with price above $50 billion.
7. LASZLO HENYECZ :
On May 22nd, 2010 a programmer on a Bitcoin Talk forum by the name of Laszlo Hanyecz paid another user 10,000 bitcoin to buy two Papa John’s pizzas. When Laszlo purchased the pizzas, his 10,000 BTC were quoted at roughly $41 At the current price of Bitcoin, Laszlo’s 10,000 BTC would be worth $1 billion today
8. APPLE
Ronald Wayne, the 3rd founding member of Apple, met Steve at Atari, and co-founded the company, owning a 10% stake. Unfortunately, his prior experiences served him wrong, and he got spööked about the prospects of starting a business. He sold his 10% shares for $800 million. If he hadn’t done so, his shares will be worth $345 billion today
9. SONY
In 1998, Sony had the chance to buy the rights to almost every Marvel character for $25 million. They chose to only buy the rights to Spider-Man for just 7 million. Sony said "Nobody gives a damn about the other Marvel characters." Avengers End Game changed the history of money making in movie industry
10. NETFLIX
Back in 2000, Reed Hastings, who started Netflix, offered to sell the company to Blockbuster for $50 million. The CEO of Blockbuster, John Antioco, turned down the deal, saying Netflix was just a small, unimportant business that wouldn’t make money in the long run.
Fast forward to 2018, Blockbuster went out of business, shutting down 1,000 of its stores. Meanwhile, Netflix had a huge success, making $8.83 billion in revenue and gaining 220.6 million subscribers.
What an incredible turn of events, right? Antioco’s decision to decline that offer really changed the game!