To complete with my last blog post i thought that i would finish with something a bit funny and entertaining, but still relevant. I have compiled my 5 favourite digital marketing fails. The fails provide us with an example of what to avoid when endeavouring to grow your business as well as how not to communicate with your potential customers. They also demonstrate the ways that social media in particular can be detrimental to a brand and work against what a marketing team is working towards as it provide a platform to share negative information about the brand.
1. Avril Lavigne’s Meet and greet photos
Super excited fans were told to keep their distance at a meet and greet for the Canadian Celebrity. When the images hit social media she faced a lot of backlash about being extremely hands of and unfriendly. This quickly spread and negatively effected how many other looked at her.
2. Victoria Secret, the perfect body
Victoria secret launched its campaign promoting what they saw as the perfect body. The image which showed model thin women all in victory secret lingerie received much public scrutiny for giving an unfair depiction of what the perfect body was. It was slammed for spreading the wrong image particularly to young impressionable women of what their body image should be.
3. Shinderera, Lily James
On a promotional visit to Japan for the 2015 Movie Cinderella, Lily James who plays condoler took to social media to thank those who were present posting “Shinderera premiere in Tokyo. The final stop on tour and it was a beautiful cold night, thank you” on her instagram account. She received some negative attention but it was discovered that she was not poking fun at the Japanese accent but rather had written the romanised version of ‘Cinderella’ in Japanese.
4. MYNYPD
The New York police department created a Hashtag that was to serve as a way to get the community involved by encouraging internet users to post personal pictures of themselves with the NYPD officers. It began well with most people posting images of themselves smiling and happy with officers, but the hashtag eventually evolved into spreading images of police brutality to New Yorkers. Not quite whether had in mind…
5. Pizza Hut, Fat Pink lady
Pizza Hut received a lot of bad feed back when an image of a receipt which showed that an employee had written ‘pink fat lady’ on a recipe to describe a customer. Pizza hut Singapore where the incident took place was forced to apologise for the for what had been written on the receipt, if it had not been for social media this receipt would not have received such widespread attention.
So theres some things to be have a look at and keep in mind when using social media. It can be a powerful tool of creation and destruction. When there is such a large audience that can be reached, the message must always be managed. Social media makes brands accountable for their actions and gives individuals the opportunity to share their experiences.