{"id":10796,"date":"2026-02-17T18:42:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T00:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/?p=10796"},"modified":"2026-02-17T18:42:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T00:42:39","slug":"how-to-wreck-your-brand-in-30-seconds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/?p=10796","title":{"rendered":"How to wreck your brand in 30 seconds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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People may debate which Super Bowl ad was the best, but there\u2019s no question which was the most consequential \u2014 and not in a way the brand wanted.<\/p>\n

The Ring ad \u201cSearch Party\u201d ran in the third quarter of the game, and it\u2019s easy to understand why someone thought it was a good idea: It\u2019s about finding lost dogs. Who isn\u2019t in favor of that? In general? Practically nobody. In this specific case? A whole lot of people. Because it was specifically about using Ring\u2019s networked, AI-enabled cameras to find lost dogs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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There was a giant disconnect between what the ad showed and what people understood it to show. Clearly, executives at Ring (an Amazon subsidiary) thought that images of a dog being tracked from house to house would give consumers warm fuzzies. In reality, it gave them the willies because they saw a mass surveillance device in action.<\/p>\n

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Dig deeper: ActiveCampaign\u2019s latest move signals the era of self-driving campaigns<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The ad did in 30 seconds what security and civil rights experts had been trying to do for years: Educate the public about the real problem with Ring. And the public reacted quickly. Here are some headlines from the next day:\u00a0<\/p>\n