Brand Joke Backfires: Martha Stewart's Halloween Candle Post

Every year somebody proves that a brand joke backfires hardest when it punches down, and this Halloween the somebody was Martha Stewart. Over the holiday weekend she posted an Instagram carousel selling her QVC candles. One of the photos showed her dressed as a homeless person, dirt on her face, holding a sign that said "I AM HUNGRY HELP ME!" The caption, according to TMZ, read "My QVC candles are perfect for Halloween!!!"

The post came down fast. It still got screenshotted, landed on Reddit, and kicked off a week of statements, a second statement, a story about a chocolate spill, and finally an on-air apology on Today.

I've told jokes for a living for more than 20 years, and these days a good chunk of my work is teaching companies how to be funny without ending up in a news cycle like this one. I like Martha. I also think she just handed every marketing team in America a free case study, and it would be a shame to waste it.

What happened with Martha Stewart's Halloween costume?

Slate's J. Bryan Lowder reports the post went up on her personal account on Saturday, as a carousel promoting her QVC line of spooky candles. The third image was the costume: ripped jeans, a ratty cardigan, a beanie, dirt smeared on her face, two of her dogs, and the sign. Lowder suspects the photo was uploaded by accident, since her personal account is known for loose, typo-filled posts.

On Sunday her team put out a statement. Per Slate, it said she was "distressed" that the costume "offended people, which was never my intention," and that it was meant to "bring more awareness to the very serious subject of homelessness."

That didn't land, so a second note followed on Instagram: "My earlier statement didn't go far enough. Wearing a costume like I did was insensitive and not funny. I am very sorry."

Then it got worse before it got better. According to Page Six, via Yahoo, at a Florida event on Nov. 3 she said she'd only worn the costume because Today host Craig Melvin had spilled chocolate on her during a live segment, which forced a last-minute outfit change. She told the crowd it was a joke. People heard it as blaming Melvin.

On Nov. 6 she went back on Today and cleaned it up. "It wasn't your fault about the chocolate," she told Melvin. "I made a mistake. I was stupid. What else can I say?" She also said that when she sent the photo to her grandson, his review was two words: "Tone deaf." Best creative director in the whole story, and he wasn't even on the payroll.

Why do brand jokes backfire?

I teach a short list of rules for corporate humor in my workshops, and this one post broke most of them in a single swipe.

The first rule is punch up, never down. A joke needs a target, and the safe ones are the powerful, the situation, or yourself. This costume's target was people with nowhere to live. HUD counted roughly 745,652 people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2025, as the National Low Income Housing Coalition summarized it. When a woman TMZ estimates is worth $400 million dresses up as them, nobody in the audience sees a joke. They see a costume made out of somebody else's worst day.

Second, humor can't sit on top of a sales pitch for something serious. Maybe the costume alone could have been a quick, regretted misstep. Then the caption put a product next to it, and now the hunger sign is selling candles. That's what moved this from celebrity gossip to a marketing fail.

Third, if you need a lawyer to explain why it's fine, it's not fine. Same goes for a publicist. The first statement said awareness, the second said not funny, and then came the chocolate story. When the explanations keep changing, the audience stops listening to any of them.

And fourth, test it on someone who isn't like you. She did, eventually. She sent it to her grandson after it was already out there. Flip that order and none of us are writing about it.

What does a good corporate apology after a joke look like?

The Nov. 6 apology was pretty good, honestly. Short words. "I was stupid." No "if anyone was offended." That's the one that should have gone out on Sunday.

When a joke bombs in a club, the worst thing a comic can do is explain it. The audience already decided. You acknowledge it, maybe make fun of yourself for it, and keep going. The second-worst move is blaming the crowd, or the sound guy, or in this case the guy who spilled the chocolate. I've watched comics do both from the back of the room for two decades.

Brands make the same two mistakes, just with more meetings. First comes the "what we meant was" statement, then the "circumstances" statement, and then, if they're lucky, the real apology. You can skip straight to the real one. It's cheaper.

How to use humor in marketing without becoming the case study

I'd hate for a story like this to scare brands out of being funny. Humor in marketing works when it's aimed right, and fear is a big reason so much corporate content reads like a terms-of-service page. If I were talking to a social team tomorrow morning, I'd hand them this:

• Say out loud who the joke is about before you post. If the answer is "people with less money or power than us," kill it.
• Keep the product away from anything sensitive. A heavy subject plus a sales link reads as exploiting the subject, whatever you meant.
• Run it past one person outside the team who doesn't share your age, income or zip code, and make it easy for them to say no.
• Draft your one-line apology before you need it. If you can't write it in one plain sentence, you aren't ready to post anything risky.
• Let the customer be the smart one in the joke. They should never be the punchline.

If your team wants to be funnier and safer at the same time, this is exactly what we work on in our corporate humor workshops, including a session that runs a marketing team like a comedy writers room. And if you'd rather have the jokes written and tested by people who do this for a living, that's what our corporate comedy video production is for.

For more on getting humor right at work, read Harnessing Humor: A Leadership Workshop or Team Building Tool?, check out Bond Your Team with Comedy, or browse every corporate humor fail I've broken down.

Every brand could use a grandson in the review meeting, and I'm happy to play him.