AREEFAH SAHEB & JOHN WINKLER

The Failures

Wal-mart beings Social Media Failures

In 2006, Laura and Jim began a journey from Las Vegas Georgia, parking for free in Wal-Mart's parking lots

They took pictures and highlighted the positive things about the company through blogging

Many people believed they were using their own money for the trip and were doing the blog on their own

The Truth

BusinessWeek discovered that Wal-Mart’s PR agent actually set up the entire campaign

The first rule of Internet Friending was broken: authenticity Wal-Mart never explained they paid for the trip and paid the

couple for each entryThe blogging site was forced down by all the

negative reactions

Companies can suffer a great deal from failures such as these

Skittles’ Twitter Campaign

Skittles featured a live display of their twitter feed on their website in order to reach the young audience

People were using profanity on their statuses, therefore the family-friendly image Skittles wanted was gone

User began slamming the company for fun, to just see the negative feed on the website

“Skittles causes cancer and is the cause of all evil things”

What went wrong?

Skittles rushed into the campaign without much though

There was no interaction between customer and brand

Instead, Skittles should have selected a number of moderate Twitter comments to their homepage entitled “Today’s Skittles Buzz”

General Motor’s Viral Marketing Campaign

GM encouraged the public to create their own video ads for 2006 Chevy Tahoe using video and audio footage on the web

Environmentalists began creating negative video ads for lacking green-friendly products

Chevy Tahoe Commercial Parody: Global warming and oil war- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oNedC3j0e4

Nightline picked up the controversy and featured one of the ad creators who said, “Why is an American company acting as a pusher to an addiction to Middle Eastern Oil? This thing’s a mini tank.”

Research and Communication

GM could have avoided this incident from occurring if more research was done prior to the marketing campaign

This can be further avoided if GM made more effort to communicate with critics when the negative ads came rolling out

Wal-mart’s Facebook Campaign

When created a Facebook page, Wal-mart promoted “stylish” dorm room products however, they’re not known for being stylish product – Wal-Mart is known for being “cheap”

Negative feedback from Facebook fans came flooding in, such as… “Do people realize why prices are so low at Wal-Mart? Because they do

not pay living wages to employees in America and their Chinese factories are basically slavery. Wal-mart is hateful and is a blight on America. Facebook should cut all its ties to Wal-mart. GET WALMART OFF FACBEOOK!”

Wal-Mart keeps missing the point of social media in terms of communication. They need to connect with consumers on social media and find out ways to improve their organization Create conversations of positive and negative feedbacks and respond

accordingly

Bringpopcorn.com’s Spamming Digg Campaign

Alex Hunter, owner of bringpopcorn.com reached out to 10 top Diggers (users of Digg.com) and offered $500 if they get his website listed on Digg’s homepage Digg = social news website

Digg users rank site urls depending on whether or not they like or recommend them. The content with most positive votes moves up to the homepage, where most people will see it Not authentic

Spamming Consumers

Alex Hunter and his get fast traffic was exposed and blacklisted pretty fast

He was also banned from Netscape after he created 20 fake accounts to promote his website

Consumers do not respond well to spam and companies need to use authentic ways to promote and expand their business

The social media community is filled with scams like those of Alex Hunter

Pizza Hut’s Twitter Campaign

2009- Pizza Hut decides it wants to get in on the social media frenzy.

Put out Ad for a “Twintern” Young, hip, intern, who “speaks fluent LOL” Would mange a Twitter account for the company

Issues Suggestions

A) Belittled people who used the service. (e.g.) the cutesy request for

someone who “speaks fluent LOL”

B) General users couldn’t understand hiring an intern who knew nothing about the company. giving them the responsibility

of handling the largest and most direct link between their business and their consumers.

A) Try market-testing your companies ideas in front of the audience you’re reaching out to before you go live.

B)While attempting to boost your broad online, hire someone with some social media experience and some experience in your industry.

Pizza Hut’s Twitter Campaign

Pizza Hut’s Twitter Campaign

“Would any company be crazy enough to let an intern who doesn’t know the inner workings of their global brand plan, prepare, run and speak at the international press event that launches your brand on an international stage.”

Fortunately,Pizza Hut found real

success with it’s plan and even got a lot of publicity with it’s creative hiring approach.

Molson Canadian Facebook Photo Contest Campaign

“The Molson Canadian National Campus Challenge” 2007- one of the worlds largest brewing companies

launches social media campaign Targeting 19-24 year olds (19 is legal age in most of

Canada) Ad:

Called for students to post photos of their campus demonstrating how they use Molson beer at their parties

Winner’s university would be declared the #1 party school in Canada and the winner would win a trip to Cancun with four of their friends

Molson Canadian Facebook Photo Contest Campaign

Contest Pulled Before Prizes Could Be Handed Out Campaign was said to promote irresponsible

drinking Offended schools and parents Dangerous for participating students

Jobs

In trying to create brand awareness the company over looked the line between responsible and irresponsible behavior.

PSP FLOGResident Evil Viral Marketing Campaign

“All I Want For Xmas is a PSP.” Blog written by Charlie, a boy who

was trying to persuade his friend Jeremy’s parents to buy Jeremy a PSP for Christmas.

Sony Outed Blog was fake, and they were caught.

Sony Denied Sony denied allegations “Charlie,” denied the truth in his youth

lingo complete with intentional spelling errors and trendy slang.

“We started clowning around with sum not-to-subtle hints to j’s parents that a psp would be the perfect gift. We created this site to spread the luv to those like j who want a psp! Consider us your own personal psp hype machine, here to help you wage holiday assault on your parents, girl, granny, boss- whoever- so they know what you really want.”

2004- promotional campaign for the game “Resident Evil” Messages sent to mobile

phones with notes like: “I’m infecting you with a t-

virus.) Although, they were not

really infecting with virus, and sent follow up message that told people to forward message for chance to win prizes.

People panicked

Sony’s Blunders

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G0LlXv-nyI

PSP Video by: Jeremy’s cousin “PETE.”

Target Rounders Facebook Campaign

“Target Rounders” Site where members, mostly college students, got

product discounts, CD’s, and other prizes for providing target with valuable consumer feedback.

Target asks members to lie Target asked members to join Target’s Facebook group

and promote it.People became offended

Would not mislead their friends by lying to them Authenticity is more important than anything else,

especially among their personal networks

Something that many companies don’t understand is that the online consumer has many more platforms to express his or her unhappiness with a business, thanks to social media sites.

Increasing a business's fan base should always be an authentic endeavor, especially when using social media in your marketing strategy.

With a following based on trust, you can communicate more easily with your costumers and eventually turn them into real friends of your brand.