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Corporations Do Not Understand Social Media

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I just wrote last week about the Frito-Lay Sun Chips packaging debacle here. I was aghast then, and I’m even more agog today about the Gap logo debacle that has made these two Fortune companies laughing stock.

What is happening to corporate America that permits their caving to public social media outcry about a green potato chip bag or a new corporate identity?

After four days of online whipping about its brand identity developed by an agency, Gap has pulled its brand new logo in favor of the old, archaic logo we’ve seen for decades. Blog posts, Facebook and Twitter accounts have been in an uproar about Gap’s newly designed logo. I just saw a post saying proudly, “Twitter responsible for Gap logo demise!”

I’m not doing my research to provide you with all the wonderful statistics on how long the Gap logo has been around, how much money people are wasting, what the comments have been and how many in social media circles, etc. because I don’t care, and I didn’t read the four days worth of posts on this topic. It wasn’t my business to tell Gap its new logo was ugly and stood for nothing.

Where I will spend some time making it my business is these two corporations on the heels of one another making jokes out of themselves while taking social networks for a free ride. The publicity each has garnered, while not positive, could not have been bought by advertisers. Our valuable time thinking about these mistakes was wasted, too.

What’s more shocking, is that it appears RESEARCH IS DEAD. It’s not public relations that’s dead; it’s not customer service that’s dead; it is truly research that’s dead.

Had Gap and Frito-Lay done its research in more than just the typical traditional way (focus groups?) and launched social media contests to vote on the bag or logo Facebookers liked best, then they would be assured of no backlash.

You know the People’s Choice Awards? You know American Idol and how they select the winner? Consumers VOTE – that’s the American way. We vote to garner popular consensus (although the winner doesn’t always win in politics).

So, don’t cry, corporate America, over your lost dollars to develop stupid packaging and branding campaigns if you’re not going to take your stupid packaging and branding campaigns to social media prior to going to market. It’s clear you don’t understand social media; otherwise, you would not be in this predicament, Frito-Lay and Gap, with egg on your faces.

This is an astonishing fail and does not reflect well on any of us in the world of marketing, public relations, advertising, or social media. The dynamic has shifted? Indeed.

Frito-Lay Sun Chips Social Media Biodegradable Bag Fail

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(Frito-lay/Associated Press/Washington Post)

My first reaction after purchasing Sun Chips in its new, snazzy biodegradable packaging (because I recycle EVERYTHING) upon trying to open it was “dang, that’s noisy!”

Lo, Frito-Lay, owned by PepsiCo Inc. and maker of Sun Chips, has pulled its snazzy biodegradable packaging from shelves (available since January) wasting exorbitant amounts of money in so doing because it failed at consumer test marketing (IMHO).

I’m amazed companies the likes of Pampers with its Dry-Max debacle I wrote about here and now Sun Chips have launched products (after cycling through the usual market research, focus groups, product development et al I assume) only to pull them or engage in defensive posturing due to consumer outcry AFTER the fact.

How could Sun Chips not know that bag was noisy? Have you ever heard it?

Tumbling sales and consumer-created videos on social media sites contributed to the decision by these corporate giants to return five of the six flavors back to non-compostable packaging. So much for saving the environment from potato chip bags, eh?

Here’s the fail – because social media is at the fingertips of all consumers and corporations if they regard it as more than a passing fad, all Sun Chips would’ve had to do was the following:

  • During market research, it would’ve been simple and inexpensive to produce and launch a YouTube video asking for a nation-wide vote about which bag consumers prefer – the current (non-noisy) bag or the new, biodegradable (noisy) bag. I can assure you, Frito-Lay, that video would’ve garnered tremendous word-of-mouth attention and off we go to the races.
  • On your lame attempt at a Facebook page  where one consumer calls the new Sun Chips bags “great idea, freakishly loud,” you could’ve asked for votes on which bag is preferred and then point to the YouTube video to secure hits there, too.
  • On Twitter (are you @Fritolay or @Frito-Lay?) with your confusing identity with the same avatar where one of you currently apologizes for the noisy bag and asks for another chance, you could’ve launched a campaign to engage the tier-one social media pros to ask for a Twitter strategy (because obviously your in-house public relations department or unsavvy agency did not help you in this regard).

Well, hindsight is always 20-20, right? And, no one asked me, so I’ll just keep my 26-years-in-public-relations-counsel to myself.

Build a Social Media Foundation

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Like the full-page ads in More magazine for lipstick, hair care, mascara, and bronzer, the ads collectively tell a story. They are encouraging women to add such products to their glamour foundation.

What products might you expect in a ‘zine to encourage the building of a strong social media foundation? Here are my picks; what are yours?

  • Twitter. Getting a bad rap these days, aren’t you, Twitter? The fail whale is getting the best of you, but I still believe. Every company may not wish to engage in Twitter (no, it’s not about what you’re having for dinner), but it’s THE hot spot in microblogging. And, listening is half the conversation.
  • Trending Topics/Searches on Twitter. The mighty hash tag (#) helps you search for what’s popular among Twitter’s ~75 million users (of which 17 percent are active). You can also search for key words adding your company and that of your competitors to the mix.
  • Facebook. There are ~465 million global Facebookers. Like it? Those former fan pages now “like” pages are confusing still, but companies are launching Facebook communities in droves. Many of the Fortune 100 companies are managing consumer crises on this platform and permitting audiences to comment either negatively or positively about the customer experience. Trust me on this, Facebook is NOT going away. Some say it’ll surpass Twitter and throw a major curve ball in that direction. Twitter v. Facebook? Yep.
  • Trackur. Get a tool that helps you manage online reputation. So many conversations I’m having are about “I don’t want anyone speaking negatively about my company or services.” One way to manage negative comments is to feed the pipeline with positive content. If you’re in a grudge industry where people loath hiring your services, perhaps dentists, lawyers, body shops, surgeons, tax accountants, there are bound to be high emotions around the customer experienc. Nip that in the bud with high levels of content marketing.
  • A blog. Think about this carefully. Blogging is critical, reaps benefits and requires devoted time. Ask me about the merits, and I’ll tell you…best way to boost the thought leadership potential and garner positioning for your company.
  • SEM. Search engine marketing is another critical foundational tool to pave the way to success of your blended social media program. Can’t blog without the search engines knowing about you!
  • You Tube. Many folks are jumping in to video; You Tube is a highly popular platform to grab attention. You want that video to go viral? Hold on…first things first! Develop cool content, optimize it, and post to a channel of your own, and then drive traffic accordingly using all the aforementioned methods of communication.

There are so many more to add to this mix, but for starters, you’ll do fine with these when you do them well.

Thinking Social Media

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Danny Brown’s blog post April 27 “Are you a shadow or beacon?” was my first ponder of the day yesterday. His reflective content and imagery was about choosing a social media path of leader rather than follower.

Through the day, I RT’ed  a Danny tweet, and then clicked on a link he thought important enough to RT. I was directed to Social Media Today; lo, a Danny Brown comment just ahead of mine.

It sure felt like I was Danny’s shadow yesterday, and I don’t always mind. There are leaders in social media I appreciate rubbing shoulders with as I’ve a long way to go to reach that echelon; or do I?

Mack Collier posted at Social Media Today “Want to be a social media expert? Break stuff.” With his 2500+ views and 76 tweets (at the time of this writing), he encourages social media is still new, the “rules” are meant to be broken to see what works and what doesn’t. Mastery, says Mack, is inconceivable (paraphrasing here); “when you think you’ve got it mastered, mix things up.”

According to Mack, I might be an expert already. In the name of social media:

  • I’ve broken the Headway WordPress theme (my blogging nightmare).
  • I lost a domain name once and had to pay exorbitantly to buy it back.
  • I uploaded some php files onto my shared server only to forget which are active and which ought to be deleted.

My actions yesterday bumping in to Danny Brown position me as somewhat of a follower, but not by design; Mack Collier’s post suggests I’m a jack of all trades and master of none. (That’s why I’m in public relations — blending social media with traditional public relations and marketing to positively influence business strategy — so I get to know a little about a lot.)

My attempt here is to bridge two musings, both apropos, that offer thoughts on social media engagement, leadership and mastery. Is it necessary to affix a label and define oneself? I believe human nature drives us there; case in point — the objective statement on your very own resume.

Maybe you can provide a deeper dive from your own experiences and help me spring this conversation loose?  There’s a germ of something here, I tell you.

Storytelling and Dolls

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Photo by Jamie Chung, Fast Company

A story in the April Fast Company has me thinking three ways:

When Mattel’s Barbie celebrated her 40th birthday, and my colleague and I represented the American College of Foot & Ankle Surgeons as its public relations firm for three years, the opportunity was too good to pass up.

My idea was to issue a press release on PR Newswire blasting Barbie for still wearing high heels every day through her fourth decade. The podiatric surgeons were none too pleased the media preferred to invite comments about Barbie’s footgear over their technologically advanced titanium implants.

Because my daughter was an early adopter of all things Bratz (those too sexy dolls that rivaled Barbie), and I followed progress of the legal battle between the two companies for intellectual property rights (Mattel won), I was eager to learn more about the new Liv dolls by Spin Master Toys.

I tore the Fast Company story for future reference. Upon a second glance at the headline, I was struck — “Watch Your Back, Barbie!!! How Spin Master Toys created the hit Liv dolls, a thoroughly modern marriage of tech, storytelling and 21st-century marketing that has industry giant Mattel looking over its shoulder.” (And, that’s just the headline.)

Storytelling! Forget about Barbie’s high heels and Bratz. Storytelling!

Spin Master Toys offers a perfect example of the role storytelling plays in brand development prior to product launch.

The new team hired by Spin Master developed a narrative for the four dolls in the collection BEFORE the dolls had a name. The team created an imaginary high school, and characteristics for each girl doll were inspired from teen behavior observed at surf shops, malls and frozen yogurt stands. Diversity was added to the story (rather than just in the skin tone and facial features of the dolls themselves) which directly aligned with toy industry trends about how little girls play. The back story for each Liv doll was a critical component of the go-to-market strategy.

Enter media relations.

With storytelling on the marketing and brand side of things aimed at the end user, public relations can pick up and add that rich flavor to content we develop to tell a story to a middle gatekeeper of news (in essence, we’re selling the story with a pitch).

Seeing this reference to storytelling prominently in the headline of a major business publication is a thoughtful exercise in looking at products differently. While public relations may not engage in consumer storytelling when pitching the media, you can bet we will engage in consumer storytelling within the realm of social media.

What examples might you have about how storytelling impacted a product launch, media relations situation, or social media opportunity? While you’re thinking, I’m going to take another look at Liv dolls at Target today.