It’s been a while, but I’m back with a quick post. It’s cheating a little as I am repurposing a topic that I was asked about a few months back. However, it’s new to you (my three followers). The question was around showing examples of campaigns on Twitter and one I thought was great and one I thought was not so great. The answer was actually pretty easy for me. I had recently seen two campaigns that fit each category.
Here is my disclaimer: I did not work on either and all the opinions are mine. In this case the opinions were formed seeing the campaigns in action, reading the press releases and good ol’ fashioned free thinking.
First up is the good. Honda’s Orchestrated “Attack”
In this twitter execution, Honda set out to engage brands that may fall victim to the new vacuum that comes standard in their Odyssey. They created personalized messages and sent them to over 60 brands. I assume the brands were carefully selected based on their activity on Twitter, their playful tone, as well as their relevancy to the product feature. These messages took time and resources to create and weren’t a spam blast. And brands engaged. Oreo, Chips Ahoy and Yoplait are among the brands that didn’t just engage in a two-way conversation, they spent time responding with a customized image, increasing engagement. The impact was more than just a smile and a high five amongst the community managers, this effort impacted the numbers. The campaign generated 10.6 million impressions, said Honda, in excess of the 500,000 they typically get in a day.
Next up is the not so good.
It pains me to say something negative about this brand. It always seems so happy and only wishing smiles upon everyone. I just think they got a little too ambitious with this one. Sorry, JELL-O. Similar to the good, JELL-O attempted to get involved in a conversation. In this case, one that already existed. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. This was the latter.
Why this didn’t live up the strategy that I imagined played well to clients in the pitch is simple; too big, disconnect from consumer behavior and the F in FML.
1. Shockingly, there are on average over 50,000 #FML tweets a day. A brand can’t keep up with that, especially when they weren’t invited to the conversation. It would be impossible for JELL-O to make a big enough impact in enough #FMLs to make it worth it. Equally as impossible would be to find a way to measure the J-ELLO impact in a conversation with that much volume.
2. Not so shockingly, there are a lot of things that can ruin a day and warrant an #FML. Many are not of the cute, brand friendly “aw shucks, I locked myself out of the house” variety. They are deep. They include cancer, death, crippling financial debt, cheating, divorce, and other things far to risque for a brand and quite frankly, not where a brand like J-ELLO belongs. A few cups of J-ELLO pudding is not the answer for any of the previous scenarios.
3. Then there is that whole F part of FML. We all know F stands for–Fuck. Fuck My Life. J-ELLO attempted to change it into Fun. Fun My Life. That seems like something the team (wrongly) convinced themselves was doable, probably without testing that thought beyond their brainstorm. Just how did they intend to Fun their lives? Cute pictures and coupons.
All of that leads to my biggest question–what would have proven this a success? People now using FML in a new way and posting Fun events? Mentions of J-ELLO saving the previously terrible day? An iMedia write-up? How did they intend to dig into the 1MM+ #FML tweets that already existed?
But the real travesty and why I think it falls in the bad column, they did not need to hi-jack #FML. They could have just used sentiment and collected the relevant stories to extend their campaign. They could have added fun to the lives of Twitter users without trying to change #FML. In a series of “what ifs” this shouldn’t have passed the sniff test. In an effort to bring a moment of joy to negative tweets, they could have done it. They could have created their own campaign and even their own hashtag. The fact that this campaign lasted less than a month, I think we can all agree; good in idea, bad in execution.
So there you have it. One good, one not so good. Did I get it right? Disagree?
the world according to schmogel. 