DailyDirt: Be Careful What You Ask For

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, Jan 29th 2014 5:00pm — Michael Ho

The internet can be a rather dangerous place to ask people for suggestions. This is especially true for big brands and pop singers (eg. Taylor Swift's promotional contest that voted for her to play at the Horace Mann school for the deaf) who have a significant number of haters just waiting for an opportunity to troll. Marketing folks have been trying out some experiments in gathering "user generated content" from the internet, and here are a few of cases that didn't go quite as well as planned.

Coca Cola has apologized for its "Share A Coke" website in South Africa that apparently didn't limit user input to people's names. Filtering user input is a lesson that seems to be re-taught again and again. [url]
McDonald's asked people to share stories of their favorite memories of the burger chain giant, but not everyone had cheerful, glowing things to say. The #McDStories hashtag was pulled from promotion after just a couple hours. "#McDStories: McDialysis? I'm loving it!" [url]
Back in 2009, Skittles turned over their main website to anyone on Twitter who simply mentioned "skittles" in their tweets. Was that campaign a success or a failure? Tell us in the comments below.... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: advertising, brands, campaigns, coke, crowdsourcing, marketing, share a coke, skittles, ugc, user generated content
Companies: coca cola, mcdonald's, twitter

8 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous, 29 Jan 2014 @ 5:34pm

Be careful, indeed.
Now people in South Africa can design cans that say COKE IS GAY.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Jan 2014 @ 6:48pm

Skittles is pretty clever.

It's like those self-serving cashiers Tesco has. Why do the work that your customers can do for you?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Jan 2014 @ 7:26pm

Let's not forget the time Pitbull was sent to a Walmart in Alaska.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2012/07/internet-votes-to-send-rapper-pitbull-to-al aska-walmart/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Jan 2014 @ 9:12pm

Dumbasses
When the marketing tools learn that hashtags are not what you use when you want shills. You have no control over it and they'll insult you on principle alone for trying to get them to provide free advertising.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
vruz, 29 Jan 2014 @ 10:05pm

JP Morgan
#ASKJPMorgan was something to see.

It was a serious clusterfsck, widely reported:

After Twitter #Fail, JPMorgan Calls Off Q. and A.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/after-twitter-fail-jpmorgan-calls-off-q-and-a/

JP Morgan shows exactly how to not use Twitter
http://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewzeitlin/jpmorgan-shows-exactly-how-to-not-use-twitter

Best of JP Morgan Twitter Fiasco
http://www.outsiderclub.com/the-best-of-the-ask-jp-morgan-twitter-fiasco/609

JPMorgan Chase's Twitter initiative backfires
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/11/jpmorgan-chase-bank-twitter-askjpmorga n.html
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 30 Jan 2014 @ 6:08am
  
  Re: JP Morgan
  Yes, I think they took the cake on that one.
  What a laugh fest.
  
  Let's not be too rough on these sensitive job creators though - they just might leave or something ... lol
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ninja (profile), 30 Jan 2014 @ 1:40am

I tend to believe that if the brand is generally well seen by the public it should be ok to go social like that. However if you are Eletronic Arts or in their league you should be very wary.

I guess the failures are exactly companies that have distanced themselves from doing stuff that's good for the customers to abusing their dominant position in the market.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
q.cells, 23 Feb 2014 @ 8:51am

q.cells solar panel
I have read your post carefully.this post is so nice and helpfull.When the marketing tools learn that hashtags are not what you use when you want shills. You have no control over it.So thanks for your posting and I hope you will continue your posting in future.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]