I am probably in the minority by saying this but I really like advertising. Always have since I was a kid. Commercials from the 80s are still ingrained in my brain and some of those jingles still run through my head to this day. It was easier back then. A company may advertise on TV, radio, magazines, etc but any consumer reaction to it was limited to the water cooler. Even if a consumer had a negative reaction, their only recourse was to write a letter or make a phone call. Today the traditional components of TV, radio, and magazines are still part of that mix, but ultimately companies tie everything together using the web and social media. Using these tools, companies can gain real feedback and insights into the sentiment and reactions from potential consumers, whether it is positive or negative. How a company reacts to negative feedback on the open social web can ultimately make or break a campaign, as well as strengthen or damage a brand.
I want to highlight two recent campaigns from brands that I have an affinity for.
The first is Chapstick. Yes, I have an affinity for Chapstick. Not to the level of Napoleon Dynamite, but when I'm making my lip balm purchase decisions, I always go with the classic black label. They recently launched essentially a print ad for their Facebook page. The ad featured a woman in jeans and t-shirt bent over a couch looking for her Chapstick. The copy on the ad reads "Where do lost Chapsticks go? - Be Heard on Facebook." Valid question. However, some took offense, including a blogger with a sizeable following, saying the ad was sexist and took Chapstick up on their offer of being heard on Facebook. The problem is Chapstick deleted all of the negative comments citing Facebook's Terms of Service regarding spam. Chapstick has since taken down the post with the ad and issued a mea culpa of sorts. They have also reiterated their stance about reserving the right to remove content and have also posted their own Terms and Conditions on their Facebook page. They have also added a new ad as part of the campaign which is very mundane in comparison to the other ad, ("Snow or Sand") and is sure not to create any controversy what so ever.
The second is Dr. Pepper. They have a new TV spot that is integrated into their Facebook page as well. The ad is for a new drink Dr. Pepper 10 (10 for 10 "manly" calories). The whole premise of the ad is that it is for men only. The tagline even goes so far as to say "It's Not for Women" (maybe this is karmic payback since men are not allowed to use Secret deodorant, even though it's clearly strong enough for us). Anyways, it's definitely a calculated risk designed to generate a buzz. It seems that Dr. Pepper has assumed that risk and has allowed people to post both positive and negative comments to their page. At this time, they do not appear to be deleting any of the negative comments. They also have an app on their page where you can tag your friends for violating 10 social media "Man-ments" (you know, like commandments), which include things like posting your daily horoscope or creating a page for your dog. Sort of humorous, but not really, much like the ad itself.
So what can we learn from this?
It's ok for companies to produce bold ads and content that is designed to get a reaction and generate conversation with opposing viewpoints. However, organizations must have a strategy for handling the feedback, both positive and negative. Please note, that a caveat to this is that it should not be in such bad taste as the recent missteps where, in a couple of examples, companies tried to take advantage and make light of trending conversations happening around wars/uprisings and tragic events to promote their products on Twitter (Feel free to Google: Kenneth Cole and Cairo; Entenmann's and Casey Anthony).
In the examples discussed here, both companies had designed a campaign to get people talking about their products by creating ads that are somewhat bold and potentially controversial. The difference is that Chapstick over-reacted by deleting all the negative comments as well as the ad, while Dr. Pepper is letting it happen in plain sight and is not backing away from the ad. What is interesting about the Chapstick ad is that if you look at a sampling of mentions of the keyword "chapstick" on Twitter even before the ad, most of them are real people venting that they had indeed lost their Chapstick. So their initial ad was completely on point. It's unfortunate that Chapstick did not use this data to support the ad and instead succumbed to the pressure of the negative feedback.
Meanwhile, on the Dr. Pepper Facebook page (and on Twitter), some people continue to post that the ad is sexist and some call for a boycott on their products. I believe that the intent of the ad is that it is so silly and over the top, that they are not taking the negative feedback too seriously at this time. The lax attitude may come back to bite them if they really aren't paying attention to what is being said. In addition to some of the negative feedback, I also noticed some personal attacks on users by other users and instances of trolling on their page which certainly would warrant deletion.
Maybe there is no such thing as bad press. You could certainly argue the overall number of brand mentions associated with these campaigns could be used to measure the success of these campaigns. However one would really need to consider the sentiment associated with the mentions. Since the Dr. Pepper 10 TV spot continues to air (instead of just a one-time ad posted on Facebook) and they are not deleting any posts, it's a little easier to do some quick analysis on this via a listening platform. For example, I was able to run a query on ("Dr Pepper" or "DrPepper") AND ("Its Not for Women" OR "commercial") across Facebook and Twitter (public available accounts and updates only) from 10-15-2011 through 11-4-2011. The results: 2616 total posts, 83% Neutral, 10% Negative, 7% Positive. It should be noted that automated sentiment is still very much a work in progress and even some of the posts listed as neutral were really negative. While it appears that they may have accomplished their goal of creating an ad that gets people talking, it remains to be seen how they are going to use this feedback.
Does your organization have a strategy for handling negative feedback?
Will you be listening?
Will you use the feedback to improve?
Feel free to discuss in the comments. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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