One of the greatest marketing disasters of all time.

1. THE HOOVER
FREE FLIGHTS
FIASCO
ONE OF THE GREATEST MARKETING
DISASTERS OF ALL TIME

2. THE PROMOTION
• Launched in 1992 with the aim of
selling excess stock from Hoover’s
warehouses.
• Enticed customers to spend £100 on
any Hoover product such as vacuum
cleaners or washing machines in
order to get two free return flights.
• Promoted via television adverts and
in-store marketing materials.

3. TWO RETURN SEATS:
UNBELIEVABLE
• Original promotion promised
customers who spent just £100 two
free return flights to Europe.
• Before the emergence of budget air
travel like easyJet so the promotion
amazed customers due to how much
the free flights were worth.
• Hoover’s sales shot up and managers
deemed the promotion a success.

4. TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
• Hoover bosses decided to extend
the promotion to offer free return
flights to the US.
• Sales increased even higher with
Hoover claiming 50% market share
at the height of the promotion.
• The offer seemed too good to be
true as the plane tickets were worth
hundreds of pounds.
• Many customers discovered it was.

5. OVERWHELMING RESPONSE
• The flights to America cost around
£500, but Hoover thought only a minor
percentage of customers would
actually redeem their free tickets.
• The new TV advert inadvertently
reminded customers to submit their
claims for their free flight tickets.
• Consumers were buying Hoover
products just to get the free flights as
the plane tickets were worth so much
more.
• Hoover’s travel agents struggled with
the amount of application forms
coming in.

6. NEGATIVE PUBLICITY
• Hoover’s travel agents used small
print to make claiming the free
flights difficult for consumers.
• The press began picking up on how
Hoover’s customers were not
receiving the flight tickets they
were promised.
• The negative publicity boosted the
promotion even further.
• Consumers created an action
group to put pressure on the
Hoover company.

7. THE HOOVER VAN KIDNAP
• An outraged Hoover
customer blocked in one of
the company’s vans when an
engineer visited his house.
• The kidnapping of the van
lasted 13 days and
embarrassed the company
even further in national
media.

8. THE RESULT
• Multiple court cases against Hoover
went on until 1998.
• Hoover were forced to pay tens of
thousands to charter entire planes to
fly people to America.
• The marketing campaign ended up
costing the company £50million.
• A number of Hoover executives were
sacked including the Managing
Director of Hoover Europe.
• The British division of the company
was sold to Italian manufacturer
Candy.

9. WHY DID IT HAPPEN?
• Hoover underestimated the demand
that giving away expensive flights
would have.
• Bosses were slow to realise that the
promotion was going downhill.
• Even when they did realise the
situation, they attempted to stop
customers from claiming the free
flights and made things worse for
themselves.

10. WHAT SHOULD THEY HAVE
DONE DIFFERENTLY?
• Hoover should have researched key
questions such as how many people
would buy into the promotion and is
the offer just too good.
• The company should not have based
their research and planning on
assumptions – they assumed only a
small percentage of customers would
get round to redeeming the flight
tickets.
• The company should have researched
how much people wanted to fly.
• Consumers were more intelligent than
Hoover assumed.