The Scoop on PromotionsProject Support Team Blog

July 19th, 2009

No Small Blunders in Cyberspace

Gone are the days where a local PR event gone awry would cause local bad buzz and in a few days’ time, be forgotten.  Local newspapers would pick up the story; the faulted company would spend an afternoon preparing a statement to coincide with the drop of the negative article in tomorrow’s paper.  If the company was lucky, the bad news would spread as far as the paper route.

With the expansion of online and social media, there is no longer such a thing as local.  Nor is there such a thing as having an afternoon to prepare.  Pepsi’s recent NY Yankees ticket giveaway in NYC comes to mind – a miscommunication over the number of tickets, the type of tickets, and the location of the ticket giveaway led to some (to say the least) angry fans creating a mob-scene in Times Square.  It was only a matter of minutes before online news, social media sites, and blogs ran rapid with the news of the program-gone-bad.  Shortly thereafter, videos of the jilted Pepsi consumers were posted on YouTube, showing them pouring their drinks in the streets and shouting “Pepsi sucks!”  Immediately, Pepsi was making a statement.  Not to the local area effected by the fiasco, but countrywide.

Social media is a marketer’s dream tool, but at the same time it quickly can become its worst nightmare if there is any bad news to be shared. It’s a fantastic reminder for all of us to be extra vigilant in planning our promotions – through a solid promotion framework, clear communication, and sound execution. Think through potential problems to eliminate them on the upfront; and if, even against the best laid plans, something does go amiss, have back up plans at the ready since post-preparation is quickly becoming a thing of the past.