Volkswagen's hilarious Instagram branding fail goes viral

It's been an interesting year in the weird and wonderful world of car branding. From Audi's flat new logo to the controversy over the illegible new Kia symbol (Google searches for 'KN cars' are through the roof), we've seen some clangers. And with just a few days left of the year, we've seen perhaps the most hilarious automotive atrocity yet. 

Social media users are only just discovering that Volkswagen Italy has fallen prey to that most modern of branding fails – the username-that-accidentally-spells-something-rude. Like the infamous #susanalbumparty before it, @volkswagenitalia is going viral. What a sentence. (Need a laugh? Check out the best design fails of all time.)

Yep, plonk the words 'Volkswagen' and 'Italia' next to each other, take away the space and make it all lower case, and what are you left with? A mental image that the  brand definitely wasn't going for, that's what. Suddenly, KN cars doesn't seem quite so unfortunate.

It seems most of the internet is hoping Volkswagen Italia doesn't change the username. And judging by the lack of response (although seriously, how does a brand respond to this?), @volkswagenitalia isn't going anywhere. Instead, the username looks set to join the world's most offensive logo (and, er, Anal Malaysia), in the marketing cock-ups hall of fame.

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