On to the next question in our quest to help advertisers understand online marketing and social media a little bit better.
Are there examples of 2.0 initiatives made by traditional brands that went totally out of hand?
Oh yeah. There are a lot of examples. Here are some, please click on over and read:
Fake blogs accounts
Vichy (via Global Neighbourhoods), Coke (via Adrants), Wal-Mart (via Kevin O’Keefe), Sony (via Adrants), Diageo (NevOn)
The reason these initiatives have all gone bad boils down to one thing: they??re fakes. Stories that aren??t true. Characters created to sell, instead of real people talking to real people. And the backbone of these mistakes is arrogance, people thinking they could ??pull one over? on their audience.
Well, it doesn??t happen that way. You can’t fake out your audience any more. They jump on inconsistencies, research and analyze until they find you out. And when they do, they can make life for your brand miserable.
So, when planning a new 2.0 marketing initiative, start your strategy here: authenticity, reality, truth. Anything less and you??re only fooling yourself.
For a guide of what not to do, check out chapter 10 from Naked Conversations, written by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble. Or, better yet, buy the book.
Other questions:
- How far should I go in the dialogue with the users? Can I accept controversy on my website? What moderation level is acceptable?
- Does online advertising make sense without a decent website?
- Are there examples of 2.0 initiatives made by traditional brands that went totally out of hand?
- How can impressions be compared to television GRPs?
- How intrusive should I be? (expandable formats, videos with sound on by default)
- What does interaction rate (only available for rich media formats) tell me about the impact of my campaign?
- Does the long tail change anything to the way I should communicate with my target group?
- Why on earth do people use sites like Second Life?
April 17th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Mark — Nice post and examples here. You’re dead on the money. It’s all about being real. No amount of PR trickery can shield the lies and cover ups here. We have to learn from these mistakes and move on to better things.
April 17th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Thanks, Matt. I think this is such an important point ?? the examples speak for themselves. What I find interesting is how people still think they can get away with it. If only they were to Google “Fake Blog” before they tried, maybe they’d see the light.
And agencies responsible for recommending a fake blog should be fired, plain and simple.
April 17th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Mark - I discovered the sony and the diageo cases thanks to your post.
I saw a case on Kris’ blog: http://crossthebreeze.com/2007/03/31/what-if-i-could-actually-find-it/
It’s not really something that went wrong but it’s something that didn’t went at all :)
I also wonder if the chevy tahoe example has to be regarded as a negative example: http://digital-lifestyles.info/2006/04/07/when-corporate-mashups-go-wrong-chevy-tahoe/
April 17th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Philippe: Glad to point you to some cases you hadn’t seen before. As for Kris’ post: wow, how could something be called viral and not be found. Crazy. When I visited the Tahoe site, the links to the videos had been removed ?? which I would regard as a no-no as well. Why not let the campaign live past its “expiration” date? If it’s worthy, that is.