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When I saw the Tweet from @pepsico, I was puzzled. “when sailors go on shore leave, they don’t use e-harmony #frothornot #pepsicostage” When I checked the Twitter profile and found that @pepsico was the official, verified voice of a major, multi-national corporation, I was doubly puzzled. Did someone compromise their account? Was this some part of a marketing campaign? Were they having a Chrysler moment?
Shortly after I Tweeted my confusion, @pepsico responded dismissively that it was a funny quote from a panel discussion. I’m not entirely sure why, but that really got under my skin.
Understand that I’m not a flag waving, right wing sort of guy, but I do respect the women and men who put their lives on the line so that I can sleep in peace, comfort, and freedom. To stereotype them as carousing on shore leave seemed like a stupid comment to be made at the water cooler and a particularly dumb sentiment to be expressed by a huge company.
Not being present for the entire discussion, I’m going to cut them some slack. Perhaps in the context of the larger exchange this was some sort of nuanced, ironic, metaphor. Just the same, I think it was wildly inappropriate to throw out in the context of 140 characters of social media.
@pepsico, no worries; I take no personal offense. I just wonder how much of your product the US Department of the Navy purchases? Might be a good time for the Coke representative to call on them, don’t you think?
Hey Paul:
ReplyDeleteI am not sure I agree with you 100%...While speaking in general terms is a sure fire way to offend someone, I think people who do in fact put their lives on the line for our country every day have bigger things to worry about than what is being posted on the Pepsi Twitter feed.
That being said, I think this issue raises a larger question, and that is what to do about the loss of brand control through the pervasiveness of social media.
In many instances, when dealing with the power of social media, a brand message goes through the marketing equivalent of a game of telephone, where a finely crafted, well thought out, strategic message can be bantered about and kicked around without any control over what comes out the other side...It is like playing craps with your brands identity.
The solution to this problem exists in a good, fully integrated marketing automation solution that allows marketers to give recipients the ability to post to social, and then monitor the effectiveness of campaigns in the social media space.
Simple A B testing in the case of Pepsi should have picked up on any negative buzz associated with this post and may have prevented it from getting onto their twitter feed.
Anyhow, it certainly makes for interesting conversation.
Hi Forest,
ReplyDeleteThank you for responding. You make a good point--this is a very minor thing in the grand scheme. I think you are correct in that most people in harm's way are not overly concerned with their image on Twitter!
In this case, Pepsi was in a tough spot. A B testing might well have caught this (or shown that my reaction was an anomaly) but they were trying to be topical and post on a fast breaking discussion at a conference.
My suggestion to them would be to not make a half-hearted apology, but to immediately offer a brief explanation (which they did) and then a link to a longer, more in depth discussion of the context of the quote.
Companies need to realize how a seemingly minor blip can cause them big trouble and they should react accordingly. If one person was annoyed enough to post, the chances are good that there were others who felt the same way.
Paul
Hey Paul:
ReplyDeleteI guess you are right in that A/B could have actually be the cause of this. I think this could be a case of chalking one up to the law of unintended consequences...