Just ask Motrin, pain management specialists. In 2008, Motrin launched a print and video viral campaign that, I assume, was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek solution for the headaches and back pain that plagues many mothers. Unfortunately, the ad was in incredibly bad taste, it alleged that babies are fashion accessories, and claimed that carrying babies may be bonding but that while babies cried less, mom’s cried more. In my opinion, the most damage was done at the end, when the mommy narrator said that carrying her baby was bearable because it was a ‘good’ pain and that it made her look like an official mom, and that when she looks tired and crazy ‘people will understand why’. (see the video here)

Motrin Print Ad

The reasons why the campaign bombed are as numerous as they obvious. In fact, it was obviously doomed to fail from the start, which makes you wonder how it got passed the approval board. For a start, Motrin had no clue about their target audience. If they did they would have known never to refer to mothering styles as fashionable and that there is no such thing as an ‘official looking mom’. In fact, to allege that by not following mom fashion trends mom run the risk of appearing ‘unofficial’ is so insulting as to border on blasphemy.

Not surprisingly, the campaign elicited a barrage of complaints and retaliatory videos on YouTube, not to mention the Twitter backlash. One mother summed it up accurately:

“You know, you’d think that a big company like Motrin, would, I don’t know do some research before launching a new ad campaign. You’d think that with all the money they have that they would actually put some of it into finding out what their target market is and not piss off the Mommies that they disrespected so.” Prarie Momma

The video even had the dubious distinction of being spoofed – boob implants and associated back pain leaving you looking nothing like a mom (it’s pretty funny). Not surprisingly, Motrin pulled the ad and apologised for their crass insensitivity, although they didn’t phrase it quite like that.

Mozilla, who really should have known better, also managed to muck up a campaign that was supposed to set Firefox up as preferable to Internet Explorer. Called “Firefox Users against Boredom”, the video campaign is saturated with bad taste, starting with the spoofy sing-along on the lines of the save-the-world-save-the-children campaigns by collective musos to the statistics that crawl at the bottom of the screen. Some stats were relatively harmless: firefox users are 67% more likely to go mountain biking and 21% less likely to fish. But others are plain insulting: firefox users are 51% less likely to be accountants and 16% less likely to have fungal infections. And then there are the insensitive stats: firefox users are 40% less likely to be widowed, 23% less likely to have cancer and 20% less likely to live with cancer sufferers.

Apparently the campaign was released before it was approved, which at best means that Mozilla is as careless as it is dumb. Mozilla’s vice-president of marketing, Paul Kim, apologised for the campaign saying that they hadn’t reviewed the stats before they were accidentally published and that they recognised that some of the stats were in poor taste and humour and didn’t reflect Mozilla’s views.

In an article on computerworld.com, Kim is cited as saying, “Something went seriously wrong with our content development process, and I’m working to clean this up now.” Kim said that the site and the list were supposed to be locked behind a password until they had been checked and approved. He added, “Regardless of these issues on our end, the main thing is to say that I take responsibility for the situation, and again, apologize to anyone who was upset by this.”

Except that not everyone is happy with the apology, as this comment on TechCrunch shows:

“Frankly, the excuse doesn’t even make sense. Saying that it was not meant to be ‘publicly available’ makes it seem as if these comments are only acceptable as a private joke at Mozilla. Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion, and if something like this came from Microsoft, you’d go absolutely crazy.”

Lastly, we have Toyota’s YourOtherYou viral campaign which was designed to let consumers prank their friends. Unfortunately the prank involved convincing unsuspecting victims that they were being stalked and, as we all know, stalking is subject to be taken lightly. Toyota used details provided by pranksters to subject victims to “a series of dynamically personalised phone calls, texts, emails and videos.”

First, if you have a friend that would do this to you, cross them off your Christmas list and alert the police – seriously. Then put all thoughts of ever buying a Toyota out of your mind, because a company that treats your psyche so callously is hardly likely to give your physical safety much thought.

There is a school of thought, and it’s quite popular, that there is no such thing as a bad viral campaign as the purpose of viral is to draw attention to brand and get people talking. In that sense, all the campaigns above are a resounding success, as for me, I’d rather have my campaign go unnoticed that cause innocent people sleepless nights as they anticipate coming home to a boiled rabbit and enraged psychopath.

Related posts:

1. Big brands approach to viral marketing video’s: don’t worry, be happy.
2. Why go Viral?
3. Viral copy is golden thread

Viral marketing: panacea and pain

One of the worst comments I saw reads: “Short answer: No. Long answer: No and go f*** yourself you hardfisted, smallwalleted, annoying, ignorant tightfisted f***tard.” Nice. Makes you want to run up and buy from them, doesn’t it?

A mere week later and the piece ranks on page one for the brand search “Currys” and page two for “PC World”. With a cumulative brand search volume of 5 million monthly searches, this is a major issue for their holding company. But, the cost isn’t limited to the damaged public perception of the brand.

If we roll this forward and assume that the piece will soon rank above the fold we can take a reasonable guess on what the impact on sales revenues could be.

If 5% of the 5 million decide not to purchase after Googling the brand, and we assume the conversion rate from brand traffic is about 5% and the average sale is around is £150, the resultant loss of revenue through the web channel would be £1.87 million for EVERY month that the piece continues to rank well.

In a recent post on SearchCowboys, I wrote about a typical route of a SERM crisis and the first step is usually inaction. In this case it’s the inaction of the corporate communications team / PR Agency to keep abreast of the digital PR trends and initiate a good online reputation management strategy.

The cost of such a strategy is far less than the cost of a crisis.

Related posts:

1. Search Engine Reputation Management – (SERM) – A presentation
2. HR SEO a new weapon in reducing cost per hire
3. Storm in a tea cup: an online reputation crisis

The potential cost of an SERM crisis

In all honesty, I can’t fault the changed curriculum too much because I quite like the new holistic approach from Sir Jim Rose (former Ofsted chief) that consists of six core learning areas:

• Understanding English
• Communication and languages
• Mathematical understanding
• Scientific and technological understanding
• Human, social and environmental understanding
• Understanding physical health
• Understanding arts and design

The purpose is to allow schools greater flexibility is what they teach, which is fantastic, especially the environmental and social bits, but very subjective and will, I imagine, make standardised exams rather difficult. I also assume that the secondary school curriculum will have to be modified to accommodate the new skill sets, as well as to accommodate children from different schools with different areas of learning.
The good and the logistical aside, let’s get to my favourite part, the part I disagree with. According to the article in the Guardian, children will become au fait with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication. To which I say, ‘excuse me?”

Forms of communication yes, sources of information not so much. I love Wikipedia and I use it a lot but I know the validity of much of its information is, um, questionable. University students have already started using Wikipedia as their sole source of information for research papers and essays, which has led me to develop ulcers as I worry about the integrity of modern education and the capability of the people who will one day lead our world. The thought that children will be taught to rely on Wikipedia from the start of their school careers will probably cause my ulcers to bleed.

The most obvious problem with using Twitter and Wikipedia is that they are subjective. Anyone can provide any information on anything. And with all of the contradictory information available on the net, verifying facts can be a time consuming and frustrating process. Will the 9 and 10 year olds be taught to filter information for truth, to ask relevant questions of the information with which they are presented? Or will they once again be taught to blindly swallow what’s in front of them, which, let’s face it, has been a failing of the education system for ages?

My other issue is that children will apparently be taught how to use a spellchecker, alongside how to spell. That doesn’t give me ulcers, it makes me laugh. I laugh because, seriously, in what world will children take the time to learn how to spell ‘mayonnaise’ when their PCs will do it for them? I know people who use their spellcheckers for everything and their vocabularies are atrocious. My biggest fear is that UK children will suddenly start spelling categorisation with a ‘z’, and colour without the ‘u’ and start talking about ‘hitting people upside the head’. My English elitist snobbery will disintegrate without a solid British foundation to stand on.

By and large, the draft plan has been well accepted by British education experts and professionals. Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers says that the new programmes are much more sensible than the previous focus on stand-alone subjects. She adds that children need to be enthused about learning, and the new plan does just that.

Teresa Cremin, president of the UK Literacy Association is also pleased with the new curriculum, but has concerns about the lack of emphasis on reading for pleasure. I hadn’t thought of that, and I would agree with her, but I don’t think that children are taught to get much pleasure from reading these days anyway, so I don’t consider that to be a new problem.

Education is one of those topics that generate a great deal of debate, especially the heated kind, as everyone has ideas on to how to improve it. Like Wikipedia and Twitter, it seems that education is by nature subjective, so perhaps all of my worrying (and bleeding ulcers) is in vain. Perhaps having education leap on the web 2.0 bandwagon is not the potential disaster that I think it will be.

Until web 3.0 comes along.

Related posts:

1. Will Twitter have a dark side?
2. Why Twitter?
3. 5 Important Twitter Tips for you and your small business

Twitter at school: It’s compulsory

Ive shared it on slideshare under LouisVenter or you can get to it via MediaVison. Will get to the sharecast next week with any luck.

In this presentation:

1. What is SERM?
2. Why is it Important? – Hitwise report on navigational search
3. Who Typically Needs SERM
4. Some Horror Stories
5. Is it only about companies that dont get SEO? :- An SEO agency with an SERM issue
6. What tactics are involved?
7. Some success stories

So here goes:

If you have any specific questions please read our services page on SERM or alternatively grab me on Twitter or in our London office on 0845 006 0709.

All feedback welcomed of course!

Related posts:

1. The basics of online reputation management
2. Got a bad reputation? Online Reputation management can clean up your mess.
3. What 2010 holds for Brand Reputation Management

Search Engine Reputation Management – (SERM) – A presentation