We dedicate a lot of time to fantastic marketing and advertising examples, including some fantastic twitter campaigns. So I thought it would be fun to shine the spotlight on those who don’t quite get it right. Twitter is a phenomenal social media platform that brings with it an incredible marketing potential – those customers who fit the demographic and interests of your target market will have the marketing message of your choosing beamed right to their computer or mobile device… what could be simpler?…
1) McDonalds’ followers are not loving it!
In January 2012 McDonalds created a twitter campaign that utilised sponsored tweets (positioning them on shaky ground already – Twitter users don’t generally react well to sponsored tweets as they feel too corporate). The idea was that the campaign would encourage followers to discuss their favourite things about the food chain using the hashtag ‘#McDStories’. Before long though, the hashtag was dominated by various complaints about the company, the brand customer experiences etc. I’m fairly certain that wasn’t what they were going for…
2) Snickers’ “you’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign
Another campaign from January 2012. I’m not sure if this story made it across the Atlantic or not, but to cut a long story short; Snickers is a popular chocolate bar in the UK that the Mars company has positioned as one that is particularly hunger satisfying (ironic, given how small the bar has become in recent years). Two of the UK’s most followed celebrities on Twitter began posting tweets that were incredibly out of character, before finally posting a photo of themselves holding a snickers bar and the accompanying message “you’re not you when you’re hungry #spon”. Cue thousands of angry reactions from fans, an investigation from the media watchdog, a grovelling apology and a twitter campaign that was ultimately memorable for all the wrong reasons
3) Sweden’s twitter campaign
This one is hot off the presses, happening only in the last few days. Sweden decided that they wanted to attract new tourists to their country through the country’s official tourist board twitter. But instead of using a PR or marketing agency, they handed the account over to a different resident of the country each week, so potential visitors could see what the country and its people are REALLY like. All was going swimmingly until one resident began posting a series of anti – Semitic tweets. Granted, the controversy generated 40,000 new followers, though perhaps this proves that all press is not in fact, good press
4) LA Fitness
This isn’t a twitter campaign per se as the others are, but I thought it was worthwhile including it due to the huge impact it had. A heavily pregnant woman from Essex in the UK sent a letter into a national newspaper as she was in distress that her husband had lost her job, she now lived 12 miles from the LA Fitness branch in question, was living off benefits, and was so heavily pregnant that she couldn’t use the gym even if she wanted to. She had asked LA Fitness if there was anything they could do to help, but they were unrelenting on demanding full payment on the remaining 15 months of the contract. Once twitter got hold of the story, thousands of angry tweeters let the company know just what they thought. Soon LA Fitness let her out of her contract and humbly apologised. It was too late though – the damage to their reputation was substantial, but more importantly, thousands of people cancelled their contracts with the company as part of a twitter driven boycott
5) The great Habitat Hashtag Highjack
Back in 2009, Habitat thought they’d be clever and start posting trending hashtags on the end of their unrelated tweets eg. information about competitions or special offers etc. However, when they began using the hashtags related to the ongoing violence in Iran, twitter users were furious and rightly lambasted the company. Saddest of all though was the fact that, instead of coming clean and apologising, Habitat used the old “these tweets weren’t authorised by the company” excuse, thus infuriating followers even more.
6) Starbucks’ Irish, no British, no wait… yeah Irish followers
Starbucks have long prided themselves on having good customer interaction through their social media channels, and thus it came as no surprise that they jumped at the opportunity to interact with fans during the recent diamond Jubilee celebrations in honour of Queen Elizabeth II. They got it disastrously wrong though when they asked their Irish fans if they were proud to be British. Let me put that into context for you; for the upset followers, that was the equivalent of asking Polish followers if they are proud to be Russian… yes, really!
Original Post by Matthew Kearney
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