McFail–McDonald’s Social Media Backfire

Tags

McDonald's, social media, Twitter

McDonald’s has dedicated to all means of social media—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blog, Pinterest. At first I thought McDonald’s is doing a good job on social media because their effort on it was so obvious. Later I learned that at the beginning of this year, McDonald’s had a backfire on Twitter. And the worse thing is that people made fun of it and picked a nickname for it which is McFail. The story was that McDonald’s wanted to promote an online campaign, so it encouraged people to tweet with the hashtag of #McDStories to present a wholesome picture of McDonald’s food and image. However, it turned out that people were tweeting about their bad experience having McDonald’s (see pics). Soon after the hashtag was created, which was just 2 hours, Rick Wion, McDonald’s social media director, said the company stopped promoting #McDStories. It was totally an unexpected failure. It was good that there was a team monitoring the online feedback and they were able to pull it back soon before it could cause bigger damage.

In the future, the company should be more cautious about social media campaign. They should consider the nature of their business, which might be interpreted negatively. If they can think comprehensively, this kind of crisis can actually be prevented.

I See You Everywhere. Did You Check In Today?

Tags

Mobil app, mobil marketing

With the GPS in smartphones, the global mobile marketing is enjoying a drastic growth in revenue. The revenue is expected to reach US$10.3bn in 2015, up from $2.8bn in 2010. Half of the total revenue is generated by location based service.

However, with the obsession of checking in wherever we go, we are meanwhile losing our privacy. Stalkers can get information easily. Also the apps pushes you advertisement all the time.

Personally I am annoyed by these pushes, although I enjoy the coupons. Therefore, I have to sacrifice my privacy a littleto get cheaper meals.

KONY 2012

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kony 2012

 

Kony 2012 is no doubt a successful campaign using social media’s power to impact millions of people. I first saw this video on a Chinese website, which demonstrates that the campaign has already achieved its purpose—make Kony famous. The video is going viral because it takes the advantage of the power of social media, and the key success of this campaign is that it uses human being’s sympathy for the poor kids and the belief that that “bad guy” should be brought to justice. In today’s social network, a successful campaign has to be either interesting enough to get people involved, or it arouses people’s sense of responsibility. Kony 2012 did the later one, which has a bigger power than the first one. Aside from the social media, the founders have celebrities and politicians as a part of the campaign. This is a brilliant idea because those influential people will deliver the campaign to more people and probably achieve the final goal of the campaign—stop Kony.

Put political conspiracy theory aside, in term of social media campaign only, the campaign had been a great success before this Friday.

Just as the Kony 2012 is going viral, the founder Jason Russell’s drunken video is spreading crazily since March 16. This is a disaster for a social campaign. On Invisible Children’s Facebook page, the CEO explained Jason’s misbehavior, but it is still far from enough. People start to question the organization, and some even want their money back. Invisible Children has a PR crisis to conquer to accomplish the mission.

Presidents on President’s Day

Tags

Facebook, social media

Yesterday was President’s day. As a foreigner, I don’t really know what the day is for. In China, children don’t go to school on Children’s day. Teachers have a day off on teacher’s day. So does president of United States get to have a rest on President’s day? ^_^. Just kidding. I am just curious what President Obama was doing and what the ex-presidents were doing. And normally when you want to know what a person is doing, you Google, or you Facebook. Therefore, I facebooked. Interestingly, I found the president was busy on his day.

And of course, other presidents also have their pages.
George W. Bush has 1,710,426 fans, and he is now busy with Women’s Initiative Fellowship Program.
Bill Clinton uses his fan page to promote The Clinton Foundation.

I was amazed that although they are retired, they are still using their influence to make the society better by means of social network. I like seeing big shots interacting with normal people on Facebook. The politicians get the chance to know what people really care about, and they can find a way to solve it.

In China, big shots in politics don’t use social media that often compared to United States. Mostly, normal people only get to see them from newspaper and TV news. If only they can adopt the way that politicians do in America – a way that is more public, transparent and democratic, people will trust the government more, and the world will have an opportunity know China better.

Where is Mercedes this year?

Tags

Commercials, Super Bowl

Last week’s Super Bowl was like a party for advertisers, and of course for audiences. In spite of the huge expense — an average of $3.5 million for 30 seconds, advertisers cannot wait to air their new commercials to their audiences. Among all the commercials, car-related products dominated the break time. Totally, there are 10 car brands aired commercials. They are the most popular models in America currently. Most of them are middle-class oriented, but higher-ended cars like Lexus and Audi also participated the event.

I was curious why BMW and Mercedes-Benz didn’t join. Audi, BMW and Mercedes are direct competitors. They target the same group of customers, so why is Audi the only one who has a commercial this year?

Let’s compare the viewer/customer segment first.

	Super Bowl	High-ended cars
Audience/Buyer	18-64 years old	28-50 years old, male
Income	Household income distribute evenly	150K +

It is impossible to shoot a commercial for all the audience. Hence, target audience is not a main reason why BMW and Mercedes-Benz weren’t in.

Reviewing past few years’ Super Bowl commercials, I found many big name companies dropped out from this yearly event. Money is the reason here. Advertisers wish to see the seconds that they buy for their commercials are worth it, which is ROI—the return of investment. Consider this, when a family decides to buy a car, are they going to think about the commercial broadcasted in Super Bowl? It is much easier for a lower-involvement-purchase-decision type product to answer this question. The purpose of advertisers joining the event is nothing but to maintain the brand equity and to generate the buzz. People might like their commercials and check the video again via Youtube, and hopefully have a boost in sales. In this case, mission successfully accomplished. However, commercials don’t help in terms of selling a car. There are too many aspects to consider. So marketers should think about whether spending such a big amount money on the 30 seconds or 45 seconds is wise or not.

By the way, personally, I like Chevy’s commercial and campaign this year. Let’s do this.

Facebook Goes Public

Tags

Facebook, social media

FACE BOOK IS FILING IPO.

I am not a business person. So I want to talk about something I know about Facebook first. I know it is a cool website that commits itself to creative designs. Within ten years, Facebook has developed into the most popular social network in the world—it beats MySpace, and is also leading Twitter and G+… The spirit of the company is energetic and creative. Although personally speaking, I am not a big fan of Timeline, I don’t deny the success it has up till now—it does have many features I think is cool.

But now FB is filing IPO. This means the company is going to put greatest efforts on making money instead of developing new features. And according to the experience, a social network site doesn’t always have a prosperous future. There is always a strong competitor. Once Facebook moves its priority in developing the site, it might lose its position in the market quickly, not to mention lots of other substitutes out there and young people get bored easily.

Anyway, Facebook has to stick to its company culture. People will tolerate crappy new features once or twice, but not always.

Losing Jobs to Social Media

Tags

P&G, social media, traditional media

P&G To Lay Off 1,600 After Discovering It’s Free To Advertise On Facebook

P&G is taking a bold action that it is going to cut 10 billion budget on advertising and move its marketing workload to Facebook. CEO said the company had this decision because Facebook and Google is not only free but also more efficient than traditional media.

No doubt marketing on Facebook or using tools like SEO is a new trend. More and more companies are putting effort on social media marketing. Maybe using social media as a tool to do marketing is not new anymore. But cut budget on traditional marketing, just do social media marketing only? Is that going to work?

Today, the biggest media is no wonder still TV. So isn’t P&G’s action too bold to cut ad budget on traditional media and lay off marketing employers? Why doesn’t the CEO consider how to matrix the new media and the the traditional one? At the season of Super Bowl, companies are taking the opportunity to broadcast new commercials and expecting to see audiences reaction. At the mean time, they are also expecting a tweeting boom during the break. In my opinion, P&G should wait until the new media marketing is mature enough, which means there is steady statistics can show social media is helping the company more than traditional media can do. At that time, CEO might think about cutting the expense. It’s too early to tell now that social media is more powerful than traditional one.

Besides, as a communication student, of course I don’t wish to see lay-off in my field. I believe that the traditional media is still holding its advantage at present.