We know the stories: Kraft gets spanked by the ranting interwebs over the ridiculous iSnack 2.0; Cotton On forced to withdraw an entire t-shirt line over a Twitter storm that lasted just one morning. These are not the only social media PR disasters of recent times and they certainly won't be the last. Yet, every time something like this happens, there will be those skeptics who remain convinced that these 'failures' were, in reality, strategic successes.
Every time I raise the Cotton On case study, someone will suggest that it was done deliberately to attract the media attention and all those lovely links. Debate still rages hard over the Kraft debacle, with a recent agency poll revealing that 77% believe it was all a massive publicity stunt. When reporting the initial #vegefail backlash for Digital Media, Willem Reyners Tay reminded us of the old adage "all publicity is good publicity".
But is it? It would take a very brave marketing agency indeed to launch a product by making it a point of ridicule. Sure, you would need to be blind and deaf to be unaware of the new cheese-enhanced spread, but mere awareness doesn't convert into sales. Neither does ridicule.
Why, whenever a social media disaster like this occurs, do some rush to apply credit to the marketing team as advertising geniuses?
Stunts or stuff-ups?
David Meerman Scott also blogged about the Cotton On case study and drew the now predictable response from one commenter that the whole thing was actually a benefit to the brand.
Some would say: "It's a publicity stunt". Regardless to the company's social media activity, it looks like they have created an emotion-evoking campaign, right or wrong is irrelevant, because the idea was to evoke a strong emotion and get people talking about the brand(in this case - Outrage).
Cotton On maybe not so good at responding to the angry mob, but what they are good at is using the social media gods (AKA @DMscott)to write about them, and put up pictures of their other products, and link to their website... you get my point.
The argument suggests that by criticising these marketing disasters, or presenting them as case studies, we are merely playing into the hands of devious and conniving marketing gurus who are deftly manipulating their audience. It takes a fantastic amount of guts to plan a strategy like this - especially when presenting it to the client. "We have a brilliant idea for your next campaign. We're going to make the social media geeks hate you!" The mere idea takes the established values of word of mouth marketing and turns them upside down.
Sure, negative WOM travels faster and further than positive WOM - this is well known. But suggesting that, therefore, bad is good is a piece of such fractured logic that it makes my brain bleed to think of it.
By that reckoning, a truly awful restaurant that causes calls of condemnation among the local community should sit back and wait for the reservations to roll in.
Accident or design?
Despite the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kraft fiasco, in their latest issue AdNews refers to sources who confirm the backlash was not planned and caught them by surprise. Yes, truth and what people say don't necessarily go hand-in-hand - especially in an industry that thrives on spin, misdirection and persuasion - but I have my own source that also supports this version quite strongly. It wasn't a stunt. It was a mistake.
The Vegefail poll demonstrates that the marketing industry is now highly cynical when it comes to online disasters, yet this throws up some interesting questions. Logically, if all these agency types believe Kraft engineered the entire affair - and by extension other recent marketing failures - then they also believe the technique works. Agencies love nothing more than emulating proven successes. Does this mean we really will see pitches to brands that start off with "Hang onto your hats - we're going to create a shitstorm!"
I hope not.
