Miracle Mattress: Makes a Joke of 9/11

Can one marketing flop really close the doors of a successful business? Watch this ad and I'll let you know...

The woman in the ad is the company owner's daughter who I really don't want to name as I'm sure she wishes to repair her reputation and my goal isn't to further harm it.

As you saw , the ad is a low-price promotion where any sized mattress is the same price of a twin mattress. This was to take place all on September 11, 2016.

It was apparently coined the "Twin Tower" sale, and the end of the ad has the female's arms swinging back to knock over 2 employees who subsequently knock over 2 stacks of mattresses with an American flag at the top.

The female then screams several times in shock, while ending the ad with, "We'll never forget" which has become the tagline to honor the victims of the 9/11 attack. However, the female says it with a seemingly sarcastic tone and glib smile which further makes the ad more disturbing, like an evil villain smirking at the end of some heinous crime.

This ad was clearly meant to capitalize from the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on American soil that killed over 3,000 Americans in 2001.

The backlash from this video was sharp and swift. Within hours, the company's Facebook page received several thousand negative reviews from people who had obviously seen the video on YouTube through some Social Media channel.

For example:

However, a stream of Facebook users came forward to voice support and empathy for the store, and it's unfortunate mistake while condemning those who took to Social Media for retribution:

Overall, I'd say negative reviews won in spades:

Following the backlash of the ad from news networks such as Fox News, the owner of Miracle Mattress issued an apology for the ad in this letter that was posted to the company's Facebook page:

The letter also exclaimed that the popular store was closing "indefinitely."

The biggest mistake that was made here was a total apparent lack of communication between the marketing team of the company (most likely headed by the daughter featured in the ad), and the owner of the company.

One of the many reasons marketing concepts spend so much time going thorough committees and approval stages is to ensure nothing this obviously offensive ever sees the light of day.

I imagine the principals of Miracle Mattress will stay in the industry, but do business under another name to avoid any connection to this marketing disaster.

If that is the game-plan, they might have been better-off trying to repair the original company's image, instead of starting from scratch. After all, sometimes bad credit is better than no credit, and people tend to despise people who hide their mistakes, versus attempting to make up for them.

This could have been a big-win for the company in several months time, but instead they took the easy way out. Either way, we ALL make mistakes, so I wish them the best moving forward.

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