When pickle-flavored ice cream hit stores last summer, the PR team at 9figuremedia watched another brand crash and burn. The marketing agency, which usually fixes reputation problems, learned something important: some food combinations are too weird for even the best PR in marketing to save.
From chocolate-covered pickles to ranch soda, these gross combinations show what happens when companies create products people hate, and why knowing what is PR in marketing matters when everyone thinks your food is disgusting.
When Innovation Goes Wrong
Food companies love pushing boundaries. But lately, they're creating combinations that seem designed to make people sick. One major brand launched cereal milk ice cream without testing it first.
Within hours, social media exploded with angry posts. The PR team scrambled to write about "bold flavor adventures," but people weren't buying it.
Sarah Chen works at 9figuremedia and remembers that disaster. "The client kept asking what PR in marketing means when everyone hates your product," she says. "We had to tell them that PR can change how people think, but it can't make gross food taste good." The product died after three months.
Here's the problem with disgusting food combinations: people's brains reject them instantly. When someone sees "tuna milkshake" on a menu, they don't stop to think about brand messages. They just feel sick. That's where normal PR strategies fall apart.
9figuremedia studied failed food launches and found a pattern. Companies think controversy equals sales. They believe negative attention will turn into money. This shows they don't understand what PR is in marketing basics. Controversy works when it makes people think differently. It backfires when it makes people want to throw up.
The Influencer Problem
The pickle ice cream case was especially bad. The brand paid influencers big money to pretend the combo was "surprisingly good." Most influencers made awkward videos, clearly struggling to swallow while reading scripts. Viewers saw right through it. Comment sections are filled with people calling them liars, hurting both the brand and the influencers.
Chen admits they learned from these disasters. "We used to think PR in marketing means you can sell anything with the right story," she explains. "But some stories make people gag." Now the team does "gag tests" before taking weird food clients. If people look physically sick during taste tests, they tell brands to cancel the launch.
Finding the Right Approach
Some weird combinations do work eventually. Chocolate bacon was once considered gross but now appears in fancy restaurants. The difference is timing and patience instead of aggressive marketing. These successes happened naturally, without big PR campaigns forcing people to like them.
Now, 9figuremedia focuses on damage control instead of trying to make everyone love weird food. Instead of convincing people that ranch chocolate is amazing, they help brands find the few people who might like it while keeping others from getting too angry. This shows a better understanding of what PR in marketing means in the age of social media.
This gentler approach sometimes works. Wasabi cotton candy could have been widely mocked, but found success by targeting adventure-loving foodies. The brand admitted the product wasn't for everyone, which made it more appealing to people who tried it.
Most cursed food combinations still fail, but brands keep trying. Chen thinks this happens because the rewards are huge when weird combinations work. Salted caramel and spicy chocolate were once considered strange, but now define whole market categories. The chance of finding the next big thing keeps companies experimenting.
But social media makes these experiments more dangerous. A product that might have quietly failed in one city can now become a global joke in hours. This forced 9figuremedia to completely change how they handle crises. Traditional PR in marketing means planning over weeks, but food disasters need responses in minutes.
The Reality Check
The agency now keeps emergency teams ready just for food launches. They watch social media constantly and change messages immediately when needed. They've created rules for when to keep fighting, when to change direction, and when to give up completely. The main lesson is that better communication can't fix genuinely terrible ideas.
Chen believes companies will be more careful about truly offensive combinations while still trying new things in safer ways. "We're seeing more taste testing and cultural research before launches," she notes. "Brands are finally learning that what PR in marketing means doesn't include magic fixes for really bad ideas."
The cursed food trend teaches us that marketing has limits. Good PR can change minds, overcome biases, and create demand for unexpected products.
But it can't override basic human reactions to food that tastes wrong. Sometimes the smartest PR strategy is knowing when not to launch at all. People's taste buds don't lie, and no amount of clever messaging can change that fundamental truth.
