Expedia and the Challenger Mission: Attention To Detail

Post-pandemic, many of us have been eager to get back to traveling, seeking to make up for lost time and missed experiences while we were socially distanced and most borders were closed. In this context, it’s easy to see why Expedia used their 2022 Super Bowl commercial to promote a wide world of unique experiences over physical possessions:

Narrated by Ewan McGregor, the commercial was widely lauded after it first aired, and went into national TV circulation thereafter. Unfortunately, one detail caught the eye of a few social media commentators - the astronauts in the commercial were wearing space suits emblazoned with the patch from Mission 51L of the space shuttle Challenger, on which seven crew members lost their lives in 1986.

Those who noted this detail took to channels like Twitter to ask Expedia how this could happen. While most felt it was accidental, they found the ignorance of the mission’s significance inexcusable.

Expedia took quite a bit of time to resolve the issue, and as of this writing, never addressed it directly on their social media channels with an apology or notice of change.We found Tweets as late as the end of February that were still tagging Expedia with screenshots of the patch to ask why the commercial was still running. It appears to have been edited in early March - currently airing versions of the commercial, the patch has been removed. 

We reached out to Expedia to ask if they had any additional comment on the inclusion of the patch, extended response time and subsequent editing of the commercial. Sarah Gavin, the head of communications at Expedia Group, referred us to a reply Tweet she posted on her personal account on March 1, stating that it was unintentional, unfortunate and would be addressed:

We are pleased to see that the patch has been removed. Our team, internally, had a few theories about how this could have happened, ranging from reuse of space suits from a Challenger movie to someone ordering the patches by Googling for something common rather than consulting with anyone at NASA. But in any regard, we were surprised it made it past the attention of so many:  the costume department and others on set, the video editors, the marketing teams and more. 

For all brands, this should serve as a simple lesson that any logos or branding included in your advertising should be done with specific intent, and fully researched if you don’t have personal knowledge of their history, and significance (or, while not applicable in this case, other symbolism for which they might be mistaken). It’s also a lesson in responding; always take responsibility when you need to make a change, and tell everyone what you’ve learned from it. It’s possible they may have pursued non-public activities like sending DMs to those who posted about the patch, but we saw no public address of it on their main accounts.  

If you’d like to learn more about processes you can put in place to review your marketing communications to help identify issues like these before they make it to the public, contact us to learn more.

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