In last week’s Top Ten post, we talked about a few of the biggest blunders a business could possibly make when attempting to break into social media. Today, we’re going to look at a few of those blunders in action. These aren’t tiny, no-name businesses here, either. These are big brands who’ve been around the block a few times – they should honestly know better.
Through examining the fallout, perhaps we can learn something about their failures. At the very least, we’ll be able to construct a comprehensive road-map of what not to do when it comes to social media, right?
1. The Ocean Marketing Self-Destruct
Towards the end of last year, there was a company known as N-Control. They produced something known as the Avenger Controller, a custom-made video game input device. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a dedicated PR guy. That’s where Christoforo, and Ocean Marketing came in. That turned out to be a mistake.
The debacle started out with Mr. Christoforo talking to an (understandably) frustrated customer about the fact that he’d been waiting several months for his order, which had yet to come. It didn’t take long for things to go straight downhill.
Christoforo ended up getting called out by Penny Arcade (the largest video game webcomic on the Internet), and after throwing a tantrum and trying to withhold N-Control’s own resources from them, he backed down, having been forever etched into the Internet’s collective memory as the pinnacle of how not to do PR.
What’s the Lesson Here?
There are several. First, watch what you say on the Internet, even in a private email. Anything you say and do on here can be made public. Second, do a background check (a thorough one, preferably) on the person you’re hiring to manage your public face before you ink their contract. Thankfully, Ocean Marketing took all the backlash for this one, but N-Control could have just as easily ended up under the bus.
2. The Whopper Sacrifice
The Whopper Sacrifice was probably one of the most baffling social media campaigns of all time – chiefly because there was absolutely nothing social about it. The whole idea was that if you un-friended ten of your Facebook friends with the application installed, you’d get a free whopper. Not only did it completely violate Facebook’s TOS (it notified people when they were un-friended and told them about the promotion), it totally missed that the point of social media was to be…well, social.
What’s The Lesson Here?
Easy: If you’re going to go social, but you still believe the Internet to be a series of tubes…don’t go social. Burger King demonstrated with the force of a freight train that they have absolutely no idea how social media works or what makes a social marketing campaign a success. They didn’t even understand the platform they were running the campaign on, and the whole debacle did more harm to their brand than anything.
3. Cursing Qwikster
You all remember the whirlwind of controversy surrounding the short-lived Qwikster service from Netflix? For those of you who don’t, I’ll give you a brief refresher: some time ago, Netflix made the decision to cut its DVD-by-mail service out of the picture, and launch a separate service, known as Qwikster. This was a wall-banger in and of itself, and Netflix is still recovering from the flak they received for it, almost a year later (even though they had a moment of clarity and never actually launched the service). What’s worse is that they didn’t even consider the social side of things. See, there was already a fellow on Twitter who had the name of “Qwikster” reserved…
And he wasn’t exactly the best spokesperson in the world. He was a foul-mouthed drug head with incredibly poor grammar and spelling. See for yourself. Not exactly the guy you want representing an already controversial product launch, is it? Understandably, this exacerbated an already troublesome situation. Long story short, it was an unmitigated brand disaster.
But hey, at least Qwikster’s doing alright. He’s up to almost 7,000 followers now.
What’s The Lesson Here?
This one’s simple: Don’t be lazy. Before deciding on a brand name, at least deign to search for it on Google. Oh, also, don’t launch terrible products that disregard your demographic. But that’s not really related to social media, is it?
4. Kenneth Cole’s Controversy
Kenneth Cole got egg all over his face as he demonstrated that he cared less about governmental and military oppression, mass-murder and nation-wide riots than he did about his piles of money, and the fact that they weren’t as big as he wanted them to be. I’ll quote his tweet more or less verbatim:
“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor has it they’ve heard our new Spring collection is available online – KC.”
This wasn’t just some schmuck hired to operate a Twitter page…this was the owner of the brand. What’s even worse is that he didn’t even learn from his mistake the first time. In April, he did it again, this time completely misrepresenting an incredibly complex issue in an effort to “promote social change.”
What’s The Lesson Here?
If you’re representing an entire organization online, try thinking before you shoot your mouth off. Ask yourself if it’s possible anyone might be offended by what you’re saying – then ask some of your co-workers or employees. Failing that, don’t try to cheapen real-world tragedies in order to sell your product. You only come off looking at best like an ignorant, out-of-touch fool, and at worst like a complete sociopath.
5. McDonald’s Anti-Fans Tell us a Story
McDonald’s decided that they wanted to get into the social media game, after seeing Burger King go up in flames. They figured they could do better (they figured wrong). They started with a hashtag campaign titled #MeettheFarmers. That one ended up as a crash-and-burn, as users started tweeting tales of animal cruelty and stomach problems. Rather than take a hint from that failure, they immediately dove into a second hashtag campaign, #McDstories.
It went about as well as one might expect.
What’s The Lesson Here?
Aside from fixing the problems with your brand before going social? This one’s a prime example of the fact that, if you’re going to start up a social marketing campaign, you should have a contingency plan if your campaign turns into a catastrophe. Plus, it seems as though they could have planned things better – perhaps a hashtag that doesn’t lend itself so well to negative stories.
6. The Camry Effect
Toyota decided during the Superbowl campaign this year that, in addition to shelling out for a Superbowl ad, they’d take their promotion to Twitter. They attempted to engage potential customers directly by creating a massive army of Twitter accounts and tweeting to users. Unfortunately, their content was bland, salesy, and overly self-aggrandizing. Users felt they were being sold to,and became irritated by the continual stream of unsolicited, pointless messages. Toyota quickly took down the Twitter accounts, at which point it presumably sent its marketing team to the corner to think about what they’d done.
What’s The Lesson Here?
Engaging content. That’s it. Treat social media as a digital billboard, and you’re going to fail. People don’t like getting spammed with ads (it’s why most people use ad-blockers these days), so unless you’re setting out to make them hate your brand, try a creative approach.
7. Pizza Hut Doesn’t Get It
Continuing the trend of fast food giants dropping the ball off a cliff in the social arena, Pizza Hut decided it wanted to get into the social marketing game back in 2009 – shortly after the Whopper Sacrifice failure. Their first instinct – to seek out someone who actually knew social media, after realizing that they didn’t – was right on the money. How they went about seeking their Twitter Intern, or “Twintern” (they actually called it this), however, was completely idiotic, and demonstrated just how ignorant they were. And I quote:
“The successful applicant will speak fluent OMG and LOL and correctly use the terms DM(direct message), RT(retweet), and #(hashtag).”
I think that speaks for itself.
What’s The Lesson Here?
As I’ve said, Pizza Hut was right to seek out a social media guru…but completely wrong in trying to appear ‘hip’ and knowledgeable while they did so. If you don’t know social media, own up to it: don’t try to act as though you know what you’re doing, because you’ll just end up looking like a clod.
8. Searching For Skittles
It’s the same story as the Mcdonald’s hashtag disaster, turned up to eleven. Mars Incorporated decided that they’d let Twitter users to all the work for them in advertising their product. That’s the core of social marketing, so they started out on the right track…then they did a swan dive off the side of the road. They decided they would simply turn the Skittles homepage into a list of tweets with “skittles” in them.
You can already see where this is going, right?
What’s The Lesson Here?
Aside from planning every facet of your social marketing campaign, and preparing for when something goes wrong? Maybe it’s that one should stay away from hashtag and search term-based marketing unless they’re absolutely positive they can get away with it.
9. Where Do Lost Comments Go?
I’ll give you the quick version: Chapstick put together an ad which, while it had a witty idea behind it (inspiring a discussion on where lost sticks of lip balm disappeared to), was admittedly in somewhat bad taste. Someone took offense, and said as much. Like-minded individuals took to Chapstick’s Facebook page. Instead of simply allowing the negative comments to remain and having them foster discussion, Chapstick started deleting them. Then, in a move which can only be described as throwing Nitroglycerin on a house fire, they issued a flippant, insincere apology which blamed everything on Facebook’s terms of use.
What’s The Lesson Here?
It’s twofold. First, don’t ever try to muzzle your users. If they feel like their comments are being deleted and their voices aren’t being heard, you’ve probably lost yourself several customers, and gained a whole heap of bad publicity in the process. Second, don’t be sleazy: own up to your mistakes, and if you’re going to apologize, don’t try to shift the blame or toss an underhanded insult at the injured party.
It’s basic common sense.
10. Nannerpuss
Denny’s struck gold with it’s Nannerpuss superbowl ad. They did everything right: it was amusing, unique, and just baffling enough that people kept talking about it well after it aired. Plus, Nannerpuss was a pretty endearing mascot, all told. Unfortunately, Denny’s decided to take things a bit too far. Rather than admitting they’d made a good ad and moving on, they tried to turn Nannerpuss into a social media phenomenon. They tried to create a following for Nannerpuss on several social networking sites…and failed miserably. While they certainly didn’t suffer as much negative fallout as the other organizations on the list, the Nannerpuss fiasco was still enough of a blunder to land them a spot here.
What’s The Lesson Here?
To put it simply: social marketing and traditional advertising are two completely different beasts. Don’t try to insert an old-school ad into new media, because you can’t force something to go viral, and unless you’re a complete master of social networking, you’re going to fail. That’s all there is to it.
Know of any other social marketing blunders that come to mind? Share them with us in the comments below.
