Urban Legends

Urban legends have been around for a long time. Most are benign and good for a laugh, but some have affected corporate identities and sales in very real ways. In some cases, a convincing rumor might force a company to combat the false perception with a product recall or full-page denial. In others, it's a boon to the bottom line.

The following is a collection of various urban legends with quantifiable marketplace consequences.

1. Bubble Yum Claim: Spider eggs! Soon after Bubble Yum's successful 1976 launch, sales began to dip in the New York area due to schoolyard rumors that the gum contained spider eggs. The gum's parent company, Life Saver (WWY), was forced to take out $100,000 worth of full-page ads in 50 newspapers to combat the rumor. Eventually, the campaign was effective, the spider talk died down and Bubble Yum returned to being a schoolkid staple.
2. Cell Phones Claim: Leading cause of gas station mushroom clouds. A widely circulated email cited 3 instances of Shell Oil (RDS.A) customers receiving severe burns to their bodies due to an ill-timed mobile phone call. One of those cases even had it that the entire car and pump went up in flames. Turns out, none of those calamities ever happened, as evidenced by Shell's denial and the lack of any news report officially linking a cell phone to a fire. Still, warning signs remain up, perpetuating the myth.
3. Tom Bihn Bags Claim: Product tags contain anti-Bush message in French. In April 2004 the washing instructions tag in a Tom Bihn bag was purported to feature an anti-Bush message in French. When translated, the message reads: "We're sorry our president is an idiot. We didn't vote for him." Interestingly, the bags became an instant hit. Tom Bihn denied the message had anything to do with Bush and was instead a joke his employees slipped in to expose his sub-par French skills.
4. Goldschläger Claim: Internal lacerations by gold flakes induce quicker, better buzz. Already popular in bars and college dorms, the Swiss-made cinnamon schnapps gained undue attention when rumors circulated that its swimming gold flakes contain sharp edges that, when consumed, produce tiny lacerations in the throat and stomach, thereby intensifying the alcohol's effect. However, given gold's soft and malleable properties, the flakes aren't actually wee razor blades. Anyone who ever scraped the gold leaf off baseball cards knows this already.
5. Marilyn Manson Claim: To hear him live, you have to kill some puppies. The more kids loved Marilyn Manson in the mid-90s, the more parents feared for their safety. The cultural split intensified when stories emerged of Manson tossing live puppies into the crowd before a show and refusing to perform until those puppies were dead. Parents and religious activists began protesting every concert and demanded venues cancel his performances (successfully, in Virginia and South Carolina). The stories were eventually debunked, but the fabrication only contributed to Manson's fame.