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One of the panels I attended at SXSW Interactive 2008 was entitled The Suxors and it turned out to be the most interesting one I saw. It was basically a run-down of the panelists’ choices for the worst social marketing campaign. The campaigns were explained in groups of 4 with a total of 12 in all, with the audience selecting their choice for the worst. Then the audience voted between the top 3. So here are the offenders:
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Molson - These guys used a Facebook campaign to promote their booze by asking customers to send in their best photos of them using Molson’s product. This was compared to being something akin to encouraging Girls Gone Wild behavior and consequently, wasn’t deemed the best idea.
- Carlton Beer – This was a really fun and cool mini-movie ad. It had lots of color-coded guys running across a field, chanting about the beer, and when an aerial view is shown, they form a bottle of Carlton’s and a person drinking it. Really cool concept, but sadly, no one could ever get the name of the product right.
- Hewlett Packard - HP had a campaign where it used Payperpost to get people to blog about products for money. One woman posted a Youtube video of her two young sons smashing a Fuji digital camera, simply because it wasn’t an HP. Get real, kids don’t care about product brands. This one irked me the most and the rest of the audience agreed.
- Walmart - Walmart had a campaign called Walmarting Across America. It was a fake blog about a married couple RVing across the US and shopping at various Walmarts. I actually think this one is kind of cute, but customers weren’t so amused, especially when they found out the “couple” promoting squeaky clean all-American Walmart wasn’t even married.
- Whole Foods - The CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, was posting negative comments about OATS, a competitor. What did he do to say he was sorry? He reduced his salary to $1 per year, among other things. Props to John for being a cool dude and making things right, even though he made a mistake.
- CISCO - CISCO created the Human Network and then corrupted Wikipedia and the blogosphere in general by adding their own info in the hopes that the Human Network would catch on among bloggers. But they got found out and it didn’t work so well.
- Mentos/Diet Coke – Two brothers created a video where they mixed Mentos and Diet Coke and the video because a bit of a sensation. So Coke hired the brothers to perform at Coke headquarters and tried to take the credit for it. How tacky.
- Vespa – This was an authentic blog, originally, where people would blog about their love for their Vespas. Eventually, Vespa corporate lost interest with the blog and quit responding to the blog owners. Then the blog turned negative towards Vespa and sadly, it remained on the web for several years after it had become inactive and negative. Oops.
- Agency.com – Agency.com did a really funny viral video where they “re-enacted” getting the call about pitching to Subway. The video involved “actual” meetings and someof the corporate higher ups going to work for Subway. It was really funny stuff, but since they didn’t consult with Subway prior to releasing the video, it backfired and they became laughing stocks in the ad industry. Personally, I think sending the Creative Director to be a sandwich artist and having her diamonds flash while she tries to make sandwiches with finely manicured nails is funny stuff. Subway didn’t think so.
- Target – Target had a Facebook group called the Target Rounders where they tried to get their members to secretly push Target to their friends, but to “make it like a secret.” By doing so, they’d get discounts and such. A student at the University of Georgia outed them, however, and of course, they blamed their ad agency, who took the fall for it.
- Rudy Giuliani Campaign – This is pretty hysterical. His campaign asked folks to “join Rudy!” but yet his Myspace page was closed to anyone new. Imagine having a President who isn’t scared of terrorists, but is scared of the internet. Sadly, Rudy was defeated by his lack of tech savvy.
- PSP – Sony put up a fake blog called “All I Want for Christmas is a PSP” but it backfired on them. They got 550 negative comments on the blog. The moral of this story? Don’t lie.
- Marie Digby – Lovely Marie was more of an honorable mention. She touted herself on Youtube as an amateur singer, but yet she was already signed with a record company who had professional cameramen comes shoot the “amateur” video. She was outed by the Wall Street Journal. It’s a shame because the girl is quite talented and didn’t need to do that, but alas she did.
The favorites that formed the finalists were HP, CISCO Agency.com and Marie Digby, with HP winning the lion’s share of the votes. I have to agree that’s a pretty low ad campaign. All I can say is I Love Bees. Now, there’s a cool viral campaign.
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