10 Movie Marketing Stunts That Backfired HARD
4. Calling Out Actual Sarah Marshalls - Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Forgetting Sarah Marshall may have been the big Hollywood breakout hit for Jason Segel, but it nevertheless left a certain group of people less-than-amused - particularly anyone called Sarah Marshall.
Marketing for the film took the unconventional approach of featuring angry notes from Segel's protagonist Peter Bretter to his ex-girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), which would be plastered on large billboards and bus stops in major cities.
The ads featured put-downs such as "You suck, Sarah Marshall" and "My mom always hated you, Sarah Marshall," which real-life Sarah Marshalls found unnecessarily pointed.
One Sarah Marshall from Massachusetts especially irked by the campaign even created her own "You suck, Judd Apatow" sign in revenge.
However, another Sarah Marshall, a professor of art at The University of Alabama who owned SarahMarshall.com at the time, was happy to receive a surge of 20,000 new visitors due to the movie's release.
A minor controversy in the grand scheme of things for sure, but it's still easy to see why people took it all so personally.