A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media

Categories: Challenges, Groundswell, Industry Index, Social MediaPosted on May 2nd, 2008

A list of companies that were blind-sided by the internet, they didn’t understand the impacts of the power shift to the participants, or how fast information would spread, or were just plain ignorant.

Criteria of “Punk’d” includes a situation where the story would have not been told if social media was not available, or if social media enhanced the situation.

This doesn’t include fake blogs, companies who deliberately tried to cheat the system get their own honorable mention.

Although this punk’d list is the one to stay off, the one you want to get on is the Groundswell awards.

Update: I’ve added severity status for some of these Punk’d using the Categorization of Brand Backlash Storms)

2009

Honda Product Manager Crashes Into His Own Comments
An overzealous product manager at Honda promotes his own product but fails to disclose his own relationship with the company –till the community calls him out. Honda responds by sheepishly removing his posts, due to lack of disclosure and not being a company representative. It should be recognized that every employee is a representative of the company –official or not. What’s needed? Training, internal policies, and a safe place to practice. (Category 2)

Digerati Dooce Sends Maytag/Whirlpool to the Cleaners
Consumer activism or celebrity abuse? Popular blogger and Twitterati (over 1 million followers) had problems with her brand new Whirlpool machine and took to her social tools to discuss, complain, and suggest a boycott till her machine was fixed, read her chronicle, and what happened next as it spread to Forbes. Not sure what Whirlpool could have done to avoid this –all customer experiences good and bad are exposed on the social web, how does a brand know when they’re talking to an influencer? They don’t. (Category 3)

Property Manager Sues Over Moldy Tweet –Infecting Their Own Brand
A tenent in a Chicago apartment who had 20 followers in Twitter was sued by property manager for saying: “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s OK.” is being sued for $50k for defamation. As a result, this incident has received global attention on the Associated Press, Chicago Tribune and major news outlets. This may have caused self-damage to Horizon as prospective customers may search Google for Horizon and see how they publically sued a customer. Horizon later issued a statement regarding their intention to “sue first, ask questions later” (Category 3)

Decrescendo For United Airlines After “Breaking Guitar” Song
A musican scorned is a scary thing –add YouTube and the whole world can see. Dave Carroll claims he saw United baggage handlers toss his custom guitar, then complained with no resolution. He turned to what he knows best, and created a song and shared it with the world. More from LA times who says that after the song started to get popular, United changed their tune from minor chords to major, thanks to Mark for submitting. (Category 3)

Furniture Company Habitat Self-Evicts on Twitter
Stylish furninture maker Habitat jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, but this time, tags it’s self-promotionary tweets with popular trending topics such as the Iran election. What’s this the same as? Parasite marketing. As a result, the Twitter community strikes back, and Habitat retreats. To their defense, they’re just the ones that got called out -there’s a bunch of spammers doing this now. Thanks Mark for the submission (Category 2)

Contest for Bloggers Results in Asus Losing
Computer manufacturer Asus hosted a sponsored contest where bloggers could review their products –then the community could vote on the best review. Asus, not happy with the honest (but not that shiny review) review from one blogger, decided to shift the rules to benefit a more positive review. Backlash ensues, read comments, link via Ian Fogg (Category 2)

Dominos employees YouTube themselves to court
Millions are grossed out by two Dominos employees who uploaded a video to YouTube of them blowing snot on pizzas at a Dominos stores. Interestingly, the crowd was able to pinpoint their location, they’ve now been fired and are facing felony charges, NYTs has more. Thanks to Josh for the tip. (Category 3, and perhaps 4 if this doesn’t get cleaned up)

Scandal: Belkin pays for positive review
This scandal leaves consumers not sure if they can trust the positive reviews about Belkin products. As one employee offered to pay users of Amazon’s Mechnical Turk to write positive reviews. Once Belkin was pointed out, they issued a mea culpa suggesting this was an isolated event, but now, it’s suggested that these orders came from executives. (Category 2, yet if the Fed gets involved, it go to Category 3 or 4)

2008

Motrin gets headache from Twittering Moms
A well-intended Motrin ad launched towards baby carrying moms triggered them to revolt on twitter. On this quiet weekend it spread to blogs, YouTube, and then mainstream press. Some argue the moms were acting more like a mob, Motrin didn’t test it’s copy with the target audience up front –leaving everyone with a splitting headache. (Category 2)

CNN falls for rumor –sinking Apple stock
A rumor created by community created news site iReport that falsified CEO Steve Jobs having a heart attack spread to mainstream media website CNN, and caused a dip in stock price. User generated content will always have the risk of falsified content. (Category 4)

Exxon Mobil Brandjacked in Twitter
The twitter community (myself included) was eager to embrace “Janet” a no holds barred up front in your face corporate representative that was ready to tackle the hard issues –sometimes without grace. Unfortunately, to the Twittersphere’s surprise and Exxon, Janet, is not an official company representative she claimed to be. Read the story to unravel the multiple angles to this unique case. (Category 2)

JC Penney Brandjacked by fake “sex” Ad
We’re seeing more ads being created. In this case a ‘third party vendor’ (agency, I think) created this and submitted it to Cannes. JC Penney wasn’t happy and had it removed from YouTube. Unfortunately, blogs picked it up and it will never go away, video is here, I know you want to click. (Category 2)

Louis Vuitton gets Brandjacked in Anti-Genocide Campaign
Artist creates and sells T-shirt demonstrating how the media turns a deaf ear to real world tradgeies such as genocide in Dafur, infringing on LV logo. LV fires back, with lawsuit, a groundswell begins. Submitted by Søren Storm Hansen (Category 2)

Burger King exec trash talks using daughter’s email
Not sure why he didn’t just create a new email address, that would have been a lot safer. Submitted by Hilker. (Category 3)

Johnson and Johnson to bloggers: Hurry up and get dis-invited
Sounds like a mis-coordination, bad timing, and not a well thought through process that ended up getting scobleized, and Maryamized. (Category 2)

Anonymous Unmasks Church of Scientology
The church of Scientology has been criticized by an anonymous group, a faceless mass that has created videos, staged marches and protests, and is subvert the Church from around the internet. (Category 2)

Marvel nearly cuts of bloggers from Iron Man screening
Techcrunch (700,000 + subscribed) who intended to host a screening for loyal tech readers (perhaps a perfect audience of tech bloggers) were cut off by Marvel. Techcrunch is known for copy and pasting legal notes right onto the blog, fortunatly, things were quickly resolved. (Category 2)

Target-ed by Bloggers
A blogger complained about an indecent ad that portrayed as demeaning to women, complained and was shoved off by a Target representative. Story now on NYTimes, little things, can be big.

2007

Target’s Rounders program “This is our secret game”
Target encouraged it’s premier members in the rounders program to pump up it’s brand in a Facebook group, sadly, the covert operation ended up on blogs and then mainstream media

HD DVD Decoded by Digg, unDugg, then Dugg again
Digg users publish HD code, industry freaks out, Digg maintains stance.

Wholefoods CEO caught being a troll
Whole Foods CEO, was anonymously trashing competitors and pumping company up on Yahoo finance boards. (Category 3)

Delta holds customers hostage
What’s worse than being held prisoner on Delta’s dirty plane? (Video), watching the crew getting off da plane. Oh, and no food, crying babies, but one talented videographer. (Category 3)

Taco Bell’s infestation crawls into YouTube
A minor rat problem moved it’s way to YouTube, spreading faster and farther than expected, a total of more than one million views for all videos. Submitted by Graham Hill (Category 3)

Facebook Party with Molson ends up with Hangover
Molson invited folks to share party pics in Facebook, including with youth, which resulted in a backlash from community and parents. Molson withdrew the campaign and went home early –no more Facebook partying for this brand.

2006

Data storage blogger posts industry price lists, sales reps cry f#ck!
Robin Harris, one of the most well known of the data storage blogosphere posts price lists that were received from various customers.

Dell Laptop Explodes, news at 11 –on YouTube
More bad news for Dell, as laptops explode in Japan, all can see online.

Comcast suffers from Narcolepsy
Sleepy Techician caught on YouTube, then fired. Also see Comcast must die blog, submitted by Jeff Jarvis. (Category 3)

Hitachi Hell gets the finger
Angry customer gets bad service, writes long experience, and flips off HQ in picture, he’s also an influencer in the gaming community. (Category 2)

The naked NOKA chocolate uncovered
A premium chocolatier (Noka) had a tremendous markup ($309- $2,080 per pound) of their secretly re-packaged chocolate, was exposed as a fraud and spread on blogs. And their google results is really painful. Submitted by Whitney.

AOL gets canceled –how to get get on our nerves
This guy really bothers me, I can see why Vincent Ferrari was miffed. It’s clear, he was dealing with the customer retention department. Nothing worse than the feeling of being held hostage. Submitted by David Alston.

Airplane fiasco’s spread online: JetBlue
There are so many examples, such as a YouTube testimonial about JetBlue’s 8+ hours stranded in terminal. Related: JetBlue’s CEO responds after flights are cut months later due to storm.

Starbucks Brandjacked by YouTube Video
Who wants a tasty frappuccino when there are kids starving? This was one of the first cases of brandjacking we saw.

2005

Why we Dwell on Dell Hell
Jeff Jarvis launches blog post that sends a flurry of PR negativty at Dell’s poor service, it’s since been improved.(Category 3)

2004

Kryptonite unlocked
Locks were disabled using a simple bic pen cap, spread on forums and blogs, one of the earliest examples that got mainstream attention. (Category 3)

Wives of EA beg for spouses back on blog
Call HR? Forget it, call Livejournal. This early incident from a wife of a game developer complains on a blog –getting national attention from press and media. As a result, EA did make some changes to their work and lifestyles of their employees. (Category 3)

2003

The Barbera Streisand Effect
Singer star tries to remove content from internet, it all goes downhill from there. I actually learned about this from reading my colleagues Groundswell book (Category 2)

2001

Apple’s dirty little secret plastered over NYC
Apparently, 18 months is all the iPod will run before you’ll need to buy a new one, says this video, where street teams went around defacing ads. Submitted by David Churbuck (I got his name right this time)

Also see: 8 Groundswell Examples: News, Education, Religion, Cops, Restaurants, Music, Conferences, and Analysts

I know I’m missing others, please leave a comment, and I’ll credit you

Update: I added CNN in April 2009 to the punk’d list for their CNNbrk account, I found out later, that it indeed was not an example of a brandjacking, but instead CNN helped foster the relationship with the non-employee creator James Cox, who sent me an email and explained.

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174 Comments »

Walmart embarrasses itself with the Jim and Laura fiasco.

My little collection of corporate missteps.

Posted by Frymaster on May 2nd, 2008 at 9:30 am

Comcast at Berkman Center/FCC hearings.

Posted by Frymaster on May 2nd, 2008 at 9:32 am

2008: Burger King Exec Hides Behind Daughter’s Email Account To Trash Talk Opponents

Posted by hilker on May 2nd, 2008 at 9:38 am

What about Walmart’s fake blog?

Posted by Robin Seidner on May 2nd, 2008 at 9:43 am

I’d add Bob Garfield’s ComcastMustDie.com.

Posted by Jeff Jarvis on May 2nd, 2008 at 10:09 am

Frymaster, that’s not exactly an example of Comcast being blindsided, although it certainly isn’t a nice story.

Hilker, good find, added, and my first 2008 mention

Robin, that belongs to my ‘fake blogs’ list, which is listed at the very top of the post. That’s a special spot that gets it’s very own coverage

Jeff, So good to see you here, when I google “Dell Hell” your post no longer comes up, I suspect you forgave them and removed or renamed the post. I think it’s deserving.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on May 2nd, 2008 at 10:35 am

I’d include the Chevy Tahoe debacle on that list as a classic of not thinking a “social media” idea all the way through.

Lumping together blogging and the social media tools that allow for fast distribution, Noka Chocolates could fit as well.

The PS3 Song seems to fit, as well: it might actually act as a representative for all of the YouTube cases (Microsoft, Apple, and a host of other companies have suffered through extremely popular criticism videos spread via YouTube.

I’ve got a list of other examples filed somewhere other other, and it’s a long list…

Posted by whitneymcn on May 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 am

Didn’t find the list, but a search pulled up an old email that seems relevant to the topic at hand:

“I’ve never seen Web 2.0 destroy a marketing plan…I *have* seen plenty of cases where Web 2.0 made it painfully apparent that a marketing plan had failed, but that seems like a very different thing.

Getting off my pedantic high horse for a moment, I’d say that it’s certainly true that marketers no longer have the ability to dictate what a brand is, or stands for, unless customers agree with the marketer’s position. I’ll also say that I’m not sure that’s really a problem.

The example that I’ve been using recently is Microsoft’s launch of the Zune music player. That “welcome to the social” launch campaign defined the new brand, and it seemed to be generally well thought out.

The problem, however, was that the actual product didn’t jive with the marketing campaign, and once the product was out there in the wild it became increasingly clear that the brand was…well, just marketing.

Plenty of people talked about the Zune, and a fair number of them even liked it, but because there was a huge disconnect between the marketing-defined “brand” that Microsoft wanted and the actual product that customers were experiencing and/or interacting with, the Zune brand suffered pretty heavily.”

Posted by whitneymcn on May 2nd, 2008 at 11:08 am

The Neistat Brothers and the iPod’s dirty secret
http://www.neistat.com/movies/ipodsdirtysecret/index.htm

Posted by David Churbuck on May 2nd, 2008 at 11:17 am

ooooohhhhhhhhhhhh! This is a good one Jeremiah!

Posted by Leah McChesney on May 2nd, 2008 at 11:59 am

Whitney, the Chevy Tahoe ad was actually deemed a success, as I understand it. Not really a punk’d.

Noka chocolate, I could only read 3 of the 10 pages, what’s the summary?

Per your second comment, the examples on the post have nothing to do with marketing campaigns, some of these companies were totally blind sided. They weren’t even prepared, and yes their brand was damaged.

Do a search for “Dell support” and you’ll see Jeremy Zawody’s blog post on “What the fuck is wrong with Dell support”

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on May 2nd, 2008 at 12:18 pm

David, Good find, I’ve never even heard of that one.

Hey there –

I suppose the Chevy Tahoe/Apprentice campaign may have been deemed a success, but when the first Google result for “chevy tahoe ad” is still a link to a story entitled “Chevy’s ‘Make Your Own Tahoe Commercial’ idea not exactly going as planned” I think we might want to call it a qualified success.

Noka brands itself as an extremely high quality (and very expensive) chocolatier. A local food blog in Dallas ran an extensive story claiming (pretty convincingly) that Noka’s chocolates were just cheaper chocolate repackaged and repriced. The spread, starting from the food blog circuit, was fast and huge.

The second comment was from an email in reply to the question “have you seen Web2.0 destroy a brand’s marketing plan?” which I think applies to both specific campaigns and overall brand.

Posted by whitneymcn on May 2nd, 2008 at 1:45 pm

Whitney, thanks for the clarifications, Noka makes the cut

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on May 2nd, 2008 at 2:52 pm

Hey there Jeremiah,

Would Vincent Ferrari’s “Cancel the account” video and resulting impact on AOL be one for 2006? – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmpDSBAh6RY

Great list BTW.

Cheers David

Posted by David Alston on May 2nd, 2008 at 4:00 pm

Would Vincent Ferrari’s “Cancel the account” audio recording of him trying to cancel his AOL and the resulting hop to mainstream coverage after going viral on the internet be one for 2006? – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmpDSBAh6RY

Posted by David Alston on May 2nd, 2008 at 4:03 pm

David

That’s a classic one, thanks, can’t believe I forgot that.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on May 2nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm

Walmart’s application for college students on Facebook became a magnet for negative comments. Groundswell mentions more on this in chapter 4. Thanks for the good list.

Posted by Doug on May 2nd, 2008 at 7:40 pm

Doug

Good one, there are negative comments about Wal-Mart everywhere, (and in real life too) so I’m not sure if this is a true punk’d example.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on May 2nd, 2008 at 10:09 pm

where’s sony’s messup and walmart? both 2007 early

Posted by allen stern on May 3rd, 2008 at 5:09 am

[...] Jeremiah Owyang hat eine ganz nette Chronologie mit den bekanntesten Fällen erstellt, wie Firmen vom Social Web – im negativen Sinne – eiskalt erwischt wurden. Das sind meine Favoriten unter den Bad Practice Beispielen im Social Web: [...]

Posted by Was im Social Web so alles schief gehen kann… on May 3rd, 2008 at 5:15 am

Hi Jeremiah
This list is excellent tool for explaining companies the importance to monitoring the web.
Thank you!!!

Posted by omer rosen on May 3rd, 2008 at 5:38 am

Allen Stern

I put the Fake blogs (FLOGS) on it’s own separate list

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/10/11/list-of-flogs-astroturfing-and-fake-blogs/

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on May 3rd, 2008 at 5:43 am

Unfolding as we speak: Louis Vuitton vs. Darfur. Maybe a little early for conclusions.

On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12685622005

On Digg:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Louis_Vuitton_Sues_Darfur_Fundraiser_for_Copyright_Infringem

Posted by Søren Storm Hansen on May 4th, 2008 at 12:02 am

Soren

Great find, I read all the articles, and joined the FB group.

I need to see a little bit more traction to show this was a groundswell against LV.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on May 4th, 2008 at 6:10 am

[...] K-forum artikel i sin blogpost, men når man følger hans anden kilde – Jeremiah Owyangs blog om brands der får på puklen i de sociale medier – så ser man at Jeremiah takker Søren for tippet om Louis Vuitton og Darfur, [...]

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Posted by iJump.co.nz » Helpful Links » Helpful Links 05/05/2008 on May 4th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

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Posted by Den grimme liste: Virksomheder hængt ud på sociale medier on May 5th, 2008 at 2:54 am

This story on tasers from techdirt has all the potential to appear on this list in near future:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20080504/2213361028.shtml

Posted by José Luis on May 5th, 2008 at 8:39 am

Jeremiah

My personbal favourites are:

The Sprint 1,000
http://www.customerthink.com/blog/sprint_fires_its_unprofitable_customers
Sprint fires unprofitable customers for costs largely of Sprint’s own making

Taco Bell’s New York Rat Problem
http://www.customerthink.com/blog/more_on_rats_restaurant
The TV footage speaks for itself. Picked up off The Church of the Customer blog.

British Telecom Apologiese to Irate Customer on YouTube
http://www.customerthink.com/blog/why_customer_experience_isnt_working
The YouTube story tells it all here too.

Great post.

Graham Hill
Independent CRM Consultant
Interim CRM Manager

Posted by Graham Hill on May 5th, 2008 at 1:51 pm

Jeremiah – I would add the Engadget/T-Mobile story for 2008 as well.

http://www.visinsights.com/t-mobile-and-engadget-go-at-it-in-social-media/243/

Blake Cahill
Visible Technologies

Posted by Blake Cahill on May 5th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

Blake

I reviewed this one, I didn’t see any evidence that this was a groundswell, other than from the Engadget team. Did it explode into other areas?

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on May 6th, 2008 at 5:15 am

Graham

Taco bell, added

Thanks!

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on May 6th, 2008 at 5:16 am

A couple of items from the Linkedin Marketing 2.0 Web site:

Harry Reid’s (US House Majority Leader) brand new Website — strictly Web 1.0
http://www.marketingtwo.com/jerry-yangs-post-good-or-bad.html

Credibility of Jerry Yang’s comments on Microsoft’s withdrawal.
http://www.marketingtwo.com/jerry-yangs-post-good-or-bad.html

Posted by Hal Amens on May 6th, 2008 at 1:31 pm

Jeremiah what do you think about these two examples?

MiiVii – a honeypot for p2p users
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20070705/miivii-mediadefender/

MediaDefender emails leaked
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118998414197229169.html?mod=djemITP

Posted by Jhonka on May 6th, 2008 at 5:29 pm

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Posted by links for 2008-05-07 on May 7th, 2008 at 4:38 pm

The Church of Scientology is getting punked big time – leaks of all sorts on YouTube, the rise of Anonymous, countless Tom Cruise parodies etc.

Posted by Linda Bustos on May 8th, 2008 at 5:54 pm

Good one Linda, I’ll add this

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on May 8th, 2008 at 6:12 pm

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Posted by links for 2008-05-12 on May 12th, 2008 at 4:35 am

[...] out this link for a selection of companies that have gotten the old sucker-punch courtesy of the social [...]

Posted by W2 » Blog Archive » Sucker-punched by Social Media. on May 15th, 2008 at 2:47 pm

[...] The best example of a lot of people trying to crash the party is perhaps the frenzy that is Myspace and Facebook. The frenzy of advertisers wanting to take advantage of million and millions of customers waiting(or are they?) to be pitched. Problems can arise from people who try and crash a party that they’re not invited to. Some great examples can be found in Jeremiah Owyangs post on brands that got punked by social media [...]

Posted by Monetizing Social Networks. The simplest analogy possible! « Emerson Direct Marketing Observations on May 22nd, 2008 at 1:23 pm

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Posted by Social Media + Monitoring + Answering = Observing before moving - Fast.Fwd.Innov@tion on June 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm

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Posted by Brand Spank | The Next Engine: Beyond Campaign Thinking on June 23rd, 2008 at 2:03 pm

I think you have another Social Media disaster to add to your list.

NBC tried to control the timing of the news of Tim Russert’s passing in order to inform the family. We can all appreciate NBC intentions, but this is 2008 and their plan didn’t work. An employee of a partner organization updated Russert’s Wikipedia entry with news of his death 40 minutes before NBC announced the news. NBC, upon learning of the Wikipedia update, changed Russert’s entry back, erasing the accurate information that had been posted. NBC is now embarrassed by the incident, and the person who leaked the news has reportedly lost his job.

“It seems that NBC, much like The Associated Press and other old-media businesses, hasn’t yet grasped that news is no longer published in a top-down manner.”
http://blogs.mediapost.com/online_examiner/?p=1763

“It’s one thing for a news organization to decide to delay reporting news of a staffer’s death out of deference to his or her family (this makes sense). It’s another for the organization to expect other organizations to follow the same policy. And it is yet another thing for someone to deliberately strike accurate facts from a collective record to appease an upset client, which is what someone at IBS apparently did.”
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/nbc_scooped_on_tim_russert_death_by_wikipedia_twitter_nyt_et_al_and_wikipedia_updater_fired

“NBC, of all organizations, should know what to do with news. They have been a trusted source for decades. For them to fumble in this way – to not be able to pick up the phone to call the family immediately, to fail to keep in contact with folks who could tell them it’s OK to run the story, to have to get the news out of an reporter’s death and to presumably get the exclusive – is an egregious chain of failure that led to what can only be described as a debacle.”
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/06/23/employee-fired-for-updating-wikipedia/

Posted by Augie Ray on June 23rd, 2008 at 5:35 pm

[...] or religious about it, it’s just that this type of thinking is likely to result in getting a brand punk’d, or worse yet, no one coming resulting in complacency. I’m no ‘phrase police’ but [...]

Posted by Overheard: “Campaign to Leverage Social Media Users” on June 24th, 2008 at 5:00 am

[...] Social media is rapidly changing (even in the past week, with Google’s Friend Connect posing a challenge to the “walled garden” approach offered by Facebook and MySpace), but that doesn’t mean an organization should wait until everything shakes out. The risks associated with waiting are obvious when reviewing Jeremiah Owyang’s list of Punk’d brands. [...]

Posted by Can You Avoid A Disaster? | socialutions on June 24th, 2008 at 8:12 am

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Posted by links for 2008-06-25 | Company K Media on June 24th, 2008 at 11:31 pm

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Posted by Online PR technology trends | Sally Falkow | The Leading Edge » Blog Archive » PR Disasters:Why All Companies Need to Understand Social Media on June 27th, 2008 at 1:40 pm

[...] Businesses and business leaders aren’t deliberately setting out to be killjoys, after all. They would love to be a step ahead of the field, and to stand out in a positive way. But there’s always that real chance that they might stand out in a bad way as a result of your brilliant social media idea, and that tends to be really very off-putting. And can you blame them? Who really wants to be on the list? [...]

Posted by lingua franca « small dots on June 27th, 2008 at 9:22 pm

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Posted by The game changing technology « PR Musings Weblog on June 30th, 2008 at 6:57 am

[...] A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media Marcas que se deram mal por causa das Mídias Sociais. (tags: socialmedia marketing branding crisis social PR advertising) [...]

Posted by links for 2008-07-03 | .:The worst kind of thief:. on July 2nd, 2008 at 5:38 pm

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Posted by Jeremiah Owyang is awesome « Everybodysagenius’s Weblog on July 3rd, 2008 at 8:46 am

Posted by links for 2008-07-04 - 2punkt0.org - Fotos / Web 2.0 / Vernetztes Denken/ RheinAhrCampus on July 4th, 2008 at 3:31 am

[...] in case any bright spark out there thinks they know better and can game the system, take a look at this list of brands that tried and failed big time. If you think you are smarter and better funded than Johnson & [...]

Posted by Tried in vain to breathe the fire we were born in « Creative Is Not A Department on July 16th, 2008 at 4:22 pm

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Posted by Brands Obsess over Female Bloggers (Examining the Economics) « Social Media.Online Games.Virtual Worlds on July 20th, 2008 at 8:27 pm

[...] basically trash a given target, be it a politician, a company, a brand, an individual or whatever. (Here’s some examples.) Common swarm spots include social news sites like Digg or Reddit, social networks like Facebook, [...]

Posted by Tod Maffin on the Web Swarm « Spaghetti Testing on July 22nd, 2008 at 8:08 pm

[...] account- so you just don’t follow them. You never see a tweet again. Done. Easy. Many companies have failed at new media attempts and in turn received more negative publicity than [...]

Posted by Twitter for Businesses: Reward Outweighs Risk | Ampers & Dot on August 1st, 2008 at 4:28 am

[...] of wisdom, which I’ll share below. First of all, Exxon has been “brand jacked”, (and will now make the official punk’d list), they were caught off guard because they were not monitoring and responding to their own brand [...]

Posted by How “Janet” Fooled the Twittersphere She’s the voice of Exxon Mobil on August 1st, 2008 at 1:15 pm

Brand jacking is a big issue and not enough companies/brands are protecting themselves. I have also written about this: http://www.sociallyminded.co.uk/2008/07/stop-theif-thats-my-social-media-name/

Posted by Matthew Brazil on August 4th, 2008 at 7:53 am

[...] in a list of companies which have been brandjacked – a list of other examples can be found on Jeremiah Owyang’s blog (another Forrester analyst…boy, they are smart). Jeremiah also posted bits of his [...]

Posted by Faux Perot « 11th Hour Brilliance on August 4th, 2008 at 4:58 pm

[...] brandjacking Becoming more and more common, brands –and individuals– can easily be brandjacked as others take their user name, domains, and assert themselves as someone else. Given there are [...]

Posted by The Many Challenges of the Social Media Industry on August 7th, 2008 at 3:16 am

[...] Twitter, and a user known only as “Janet” posed as an Exxon Mobil spokesperson. This is not the first time that brand-jacking has been been identified as a problem within social [...]

Posted by Keeping a Watchful Eye: Brand Monitoring is Imperative on August 7th, 2008 at 9:54 am

[...] A Chronology of brands that got Punk’d by social media (very cool [...]

Posted by I blog therefore I… « Melissa Attree on August 8th, 2008 at 1:08 am

[...] Now, with new social networks and Web 2.0 services springing up every day, there are more and more places that a company either needs to be or to monitor in order to protect itself from “brandjacking.” [...]

Posted by MaximumCMO » Blog Archive » Will the Real ExxonMobil Please Stand Up?: branding, creative branding, strategic branding, interactive marketing on August 8th, 2008 at 6:54 pm

How bout the Aussie tourism ad that was ‘remade’ by an agency looking for some timely self-promo, Jeremy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=411ueiat2sY

Posted by Gerry on August 13th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

[...] Want to see a list of a few other sppofs, see who got Punk’d. [...]

Posted by Don’t get “Brand Jacked”! | Janet Fouts on August 14th, 2008 at 6:31 pm

[...] Punked [...]

Posted by Links de agosto. Mídias sociais. on August 20th, 2008 at 7:48 am

Jeremiah, a great example of a brand hijack is what just happened to TrustyPig, a web service that completely ripped off the UI, logo and design of SmartyPig.com (based here in Des Moines). Local tweeps, bloggers and loyal SmartyPig customers performed a brand hijack using Twitter and SEO.

More details can be found here:
http://getanewbrowser.com/2008/08/trustypig-social-brand-hijack/
http://blog.smartypig.com/read/weve-got-a-lot-to-live-up-to
http://www.lavarow.com/2008/08/14/smartypig-vs-trustypig-when-brand-enthusiasts-attack/

Posted by Nathan T. Wright on August 29th, 2008 at 6:44 am

[...] Case in point #3 One of social media’s most influential thinkers decides to devote a very large post to this [...]

Posted by How do you respond to social media technology? « Direct Marketing Observations on September 1st, 2008 at 6:04 am

[...] indifferenti. Jeremiah Owyang, esperto in materia, ne posta di tanto in tanto ottimi esempi, in una lista di worst-practice che rimangono a monito verso aziende che ignorano o malgesticono la sfera [...]

Posted by You’ve bee brandjacked!! « THE IVY LEE on September 4th, 2008 at 5:26 am

[...] messaging control. Many brands have handled this change successfully and you can learn from the mistakes of others. These questions can help articulate new and persistent problems and suggest possible actions you [...]

Posted by The Social Community Lifecycle | Shannon Swenson on September 5th, 2008 at 10:02 am

what about the coke and mentos youtube commercials. Coke got a lot of bad press when they tried to get the youtube videos pulled and later embraced the viral videos with a micro site.
http://www.whatsnextblog.com/archives/2006/06/cokementos_videos_an_important_lesson_for_every_brand.asp

Also, a similar scandal happened when Mad Men’s AMC tried to kick off several fan fiction impersonators from their show-inspired Twitter persona’s. I know this happened well after this post, but its a good addition.
http://blog.stratiusgroup.com/2008/09/04/mad-men-stuck-in-olden-days/

Posted by Social Media Marketing by the Stratius Group on September 11th, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Posted by How to Strengthen Online Communities | Shannon Swenson on September 12th, 2008 at 7:56 am

[...] emphasize the importance of brand monitoring, Jeremiah Owyang has created a “punk’d” list devoted to showcasing examples of companies that have had their brands hijacked in the social [...]

Posted by Don’t Get Brandjacked « Social Media Snippets on September 29th, 2008 at 4:09 am

[...] A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media: This is the list you want to stay off of. [...]

Posted by Jeremiah Owyang’s recommended web strategy reading « Beyond Digital Media on October 19th, 2008 at 4:29 am

[...] Posted by Vandy on October 28, 2008 If you’re a content publisher that is at all interested in the online social scene (and why wouldn’t you be?) but haven’t yet made the plunge, then take a moment to read this article posted at WebGuild that offers some sound advice on how to avoid those socially unacceptable faux pas that, unfortunately, some organizations have failed to do. [...]

Posted by Socially Acceptable « SIGNONORAMA on October 28th, 2008 at 1:54 pm

[...] since they are hired to look after the reputations of their own clients. Things only got worse as some brands got punk’d; the introduction of self-publishing tools that allowed anyone to connect to each other using [...]

Posted by Business Opportunities for the Evolved PR Agency on November 13th, 2008 at 5:27 am

And don’t forget Martin Eisenstadt, the source of “Sarah Palin doesn’t know if Africa is a country or continent.” The Republican brand was punk’d big time.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/arts/television/13hoax.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin

Posted by Mike McGrath on November 13th, 2008 at 8:20 am

[...] hope this puts things into context when we see brand backlash incidents occur. See this list of brands that were punk’d from social media, I’ll add some categorization to each of them as I can best [...]

Posted by Categorization of Brand Backlash Storms on November 17th, 2008 at 7:36 am

[...] weren’t paying attention to social media. In another post, Owyang shares a list of other brands that have been blind-sided by social media. Dave Knox, a brand manager at Proctor & Gamble, points out in his blog that the real problem [...]

Posted by Wake-up call for communicators not yet tuned in to social media | Connecting the I’s on November 17th, 2008 at 8:22 am

[...] 首先，请看被社会化媒体唱衰的品牌列表，我不久就会根据这些事件的不同为他们分级�…译言） [...]

Posted by 译文：为品牌负面影响分级 | 晓江:网络游蛇 on November 17th, 2008 at 10:43 am

[...] Det sker stadig oftere, at virksomheder kommer galt afsted. Jeremiah Owyang vedligeholder en liste over hændelserne, som er god at blive klog af: A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media. [...]

Posted by Ugens hovedpiner: Heillmann, Toyota og Motrin on November 18th, 2008 at 12:40 am

[...] In social media, the mob rules. There’s already a long list of brands that have been punk’d by social media. [...]

Posted by Motrin feels the pain of a social media mommy mob | The Responsible Marketing Blog on November 18th, 2008 at 1:25 am

[...] And lastly, Jeremiah Owyang adds Motrin to the list of brands that have been Punk’d. [...]

Posted by Tuesday’s Top 5 for 11.18.08 « Wheel on the Web on November 18th, 2008 at 8:41 am

[...] Here’s a great post from Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang on brands that have felt the wrath of negative customer feedback. Some handled things pretty well and are moving forward; others still seem to be acting like a deer caught in the headlights. [...]

Posted by If You Think Social Media Doesn’t Matter… on November 18th, 2008 at 11:14 am

As you requested via Twitter DM today, here’s a Punk’d Example unique to Canada.

Our Federal Government tabled revised legislation to our Copyright Act earlier this year. I was supposedly designed to protect both the music industry and consumers.

There was such a huge negative reaction from consumers in all social media plus numerous FaceBook Groups that the Gov’t pulled their proposed legislation and sent it back to the drawing board. It still has not re-tabled it in parliament.

@GaryFPatton

Posted by Gary Patton on November 18th, 2008 at 12:45 pm

[...] out some of the brands who got punk’d by social media (via Forrester’s Jeremy Owyang). This entry was written by Ghennipher and posted on [...]

Posted by Social Media Spin» Blog Archive » Motrin - An Avoidable Social Media Disaster on November 18th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

Understandably there’s a power shift as far as communication goes. But with this recent storm against Motrin by mommy bloggers, don’t you feel that some social media folks (or those more transparent than others) think because they ‘get’ SM mediums and transparency, that they’re just allowed to run apesh*t over anything they feel is wrong.

Sure people were offended and that’s fine but it was a helluva storm that was hit on Motrin, more than that was needed IMO.

Don’t you think that has an adverse effect on our industry and how big businesses continue to perceive us. The message is lost and all that’s remembered is the mob.

Posted by Sonny Gill on November 18th, 2008 at 5:05 pm

Posted by links for 2008-11-18 | Souter Consulting Limited on November 18th, 2008 at 5:10 pm

[...] happening. I just shake my head and wonder. First over the weekend was the Motrin debacle. Another botched marketing campaign gone bad. There are just so many articles out there on what happened to Motrin, here are a few [...]

Posted by What’s Working in Marketing » At the Speed of Tweet on November 18th, 2008 at 11:39 pm

[...] A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media A list of companies that were blind-sided by the internet, they didn’t understand the impacts of the power shift to the participants, or how fast information would spread, or were just plain ignorant. (tags: web2.0 viral socialnetworking socialmedia social social-media reputation socialsquare) [...]

Posted by links for 2008-11-19 on November 19th, 2008 at 5:01 am

[...] see this list of brands that were punk��d from social media, I��ll add some categorization to each of them as I can best gauge in coming days. [...]

Posted by Ʒ�Ƹ��Ӱ��ķּ� : My Plain on November 20th, 2008 at 7:57 pm

[...] Other: “A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media“ by Jeremiah Oywang and a “Groundswell” slideshow, with great info, here (and [...]

Posted by Minnov8 Gang Podcast - Episode 15 | Minnov8: Minnesota Innovation in Internet and Web Technology on November 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 am

[...] : A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media. [...]

Posted by Mine seneste bookmarks (17.11.08 - 23.11.08) | Morten Gade on November 23rd, 2008 at 5:09 pm

[...] recently ran across a blog posting by Jeremiah Owyang on companies that got ‘punk’d’ by social media as I was researching stories exactly on this subject matter. I was researching this based on the [...]

Posted by Companies Hit by Negative Social Media | Social Media | Core on November 25th, 2008 at 9:27 pm

[...] Beispielen davon und die Listen von Peter Kim oder Jeremiah Owyang, der auch eine sehr spannende Liste mit Negativbeispielen (”Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media”) pflegt, scheinen von Tag zu Tag [...]

Posted by Social Media Marketing in Deutschland at viralmythen on November 28th, 2008 at 4:02 am

[...] For a recap of other brands that got “punk’d”, read Jeremiah Owyang’s recap here. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]

Posted by Motrin’s Online Reputation Nightmare on November 30th, 2008 at 11:42 pm

[...] that get punk’d by social media have an opportunity to quickly respond and enable the groundswell to pirouette the [...]

Posted by How Motrin Should Respond To The Groundswell on December 4th, 2008 at 6:12 am

[...] included) were fooled by a brandjacking of “Janet” from Exxon Mobile, (see examples of others brands who were punk’d) who in reality wasn’t who she said she was. I’ve also heard from other brands that [...]

Posted by Don’t get BrandJacked: Confirming Your Corporate Twitter Account on December 4th, 2008 at 9:00 am

[...] A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media by Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang [...]

Posted by Superlist of What NOT To Do In Social Media on December 11th, 2008 at 8:31 am

[...] A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media – Because bad case studies are even more useful than good ones. [...]

Posted by Mission Creep | Neil Williams » Blog Archive » Look what I found: 2 December to 12 December on December 14th, 2008 at 3:41 am

[...] Why is this important? Think of social media as a massive global amplifier. Events that you used to be able to ignore until they went away can now become an overblown incident with a permanent record on Google. A trivial customer complaint magnified through social media can become an international embarrassment overnight. If you need graphic examples of disaster, Jeremiah Owyang offers a chronicle on his blog. [...]

Posted by Crisis Management for Social Media, An Essential Guide (Part 1) | ChrisKenton.com on December 17th, 2008 at 8:06 pm

Posted by iLibrarian » What NOT To Do In Social Media on December 22nd, 2008 at 10:31 am

[...] Strategy by Jeremiah: A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media. This is a great list of brands that where both subjected to (and threw themselves under) the social [...]

Posted by Black Hat Social Media - Naughty or Nice in 2008? on December 24th, 2008 at 1:28 pm

[...] With social media comes a shift in perception. The evolution of concepts we’ve held to for years. We are entering the age of Permission marketing and cafe shaped conversations. We the unwashed masses are beginning to expect these kinds of interactions. So why are so many companies getting punk’d by social media? [...]

Posted by Let’s all do the social media evolution on December 30th, 2008 at 6:55 pm

[...] nicht anders zu erwarten, sind die Erfahrungen mit Social Marketing keineswegs nur positiv. So rät Deutschlands bekanntester Blogger, Robert Basic, Unternehmen mittlerweile von einem [...]

Posted by DEMOS-Monitor on January 14th, 2009 at 5:47 am

[...] add another one to the Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media, Wendy’s added themselves to the “gifts” application on Facebook, so you could [...]

Posted by Wendy's social media campaign: Facebook | Matt Wilson, young entrepreneur, changing the world, under30ceo, @ZaggedEdge, collegiate entrepreneurship on January 22nd, 2009 at 5:26 pm

[...] as an example of a damage control move gone wrong. So, I welcome NDTV and Barkha Dutt to the list of brands that got punk’d by social media and I won’t be surprised if the severity of damage to [...]

Posted by Indian Blogosphere Condemns NDTV’s Bullying of Blogger Chyetanya Kunte Over Criticism of Anchor Barkha Dutt’s Sensationalistic Coverage of the 11/26 Mumbai Terror Attack | Gauravonomics Blog on January 29th, 2009 at 12:03 pm

[...] If you are looking for a good cautionary tale, Jeremy Owyang’s blog has an interesting list of companies that were blindsided by social media. [...]

Posted by Brands in Social Media « Brian Cavoli New Media Marketing on February 2nd, 2009 at 6:24 pm

[...] sure you’ve read the horror stories of brands getting punk’d by social media. Companies who fell short of the mark and paid for it in their customers eyes. There is one glaring [...]

Posted by What is social media and why do I need it? | Shua Consulting on February 6th, 2009 at 1:01 pm

And then there was the Street Team “Stiped Disaster” of MTV and the Knight Foundation. I recently got two letters from the Company saying they are completely renovating the way they pay freelancers! Yay for Citizen Journalists!

http://gawker.com/5115067/whistleblower-mtv-sweatshop-sponsored-by-charity

Posted by Erica on February 9th, 2009 at 7:20 am

[...] A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media (tags: marketing branding social PR list socialmedia reputation) Written by charlie in: Uncategorized | [...]

Posted by links for 2009-02-09 | Molecularist on February 10th, 2009 at 12:41 am

[...] These types of questions inspired the topic of our “sold out” roundtable session being hosted at Fleishman-Hillard this evening, “When Social Media Becomes Unsociable“. More often than not, the phone rings for us when you know what hits the fan. As companies adapt to and accept the influence of unfiltered customer opinions syndicated via social media, they must decide how to engage. Even what appear to be the best plans can backfire in an uncontrolled environment like the blogosphere. Things can appear to be unsociable. [...]

Posted by navigate communications » When Social Media Becomes Unsociable on February 10th, 2009 at 7:00 am

[...] sosiaalisen median hyödyntämisen menestystarinaa kohden on paljon epäonnistumisia ja vielä enemmän kokeiluja, joista kukaan ei kuule [...]

Posted by Pikavoittoja ei ole tarjolla : DAILY DIEGO on February 10th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

[...] Some have definitely done well (Nike, Dell, for sure) but it becomes a nightmare (e.g. Motrin Moms et al, from Jeremiah Owyang) for [...]

Posted by Brands Do. | Oscar Scarlet design blog on February 14th, 2009 at 11:51 am

[...] that trolls conceal in the Stygian corners of the Interweb. And we undergo that undergo that some brands got punk’d by ethnic media! So we intend scared. We amend a paranoia that we’ll be next. We contemplate [...]

Posted by ø Social media myth busting – The customer’s gonna get me! | Home Businesses Articles ø on February 25th, 2009 at 1:31 pm

Posted by Social media myth busting – The customer’s gonna get me! on March 2nd, 2009 at 11:37 pm

[...] A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media (Web Strategy by Jeremiah) [...]

[...] sometimes it’s not an employee that is doing the faking. Jeremiah Owyang’s blog post, A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media, added Exxon Mobil to the list in August due to a Tweeter imposture. A “Janet” created [...]

Posted by Transparency Scams « Chris Runyon’s Blog on March 21st, 2009 at 3:09 pm

Hey, Jeremiah. Ad Age Digital dug up this cool Unilever example for ‘09. Orangutan (suits) teach uUnilever a lesson in viral video: Result? Unilever is negotiating with Greenpeace. [http://jijr.com/h8cm0

Posted by Dana Theus on April 10th, 2009 at 6:10 am

Sorry, typo in the url: this is the Unilever example: http://jijr.com/h8cm

Posted by Dana Theus on April 10th, 2009 at 6:11 am

[...] After CNN, now Domino’s punk’d by social media (Via: @jowyang) [...]

Posted by Twitter Today: April 16, 2009 | kenneth lim . net on April 16th, 2009 at 8:34 am

Hi Jeremy.

As requested by tweet:

We’re all familiar with Skittles’ great social media ploy (via Agency.com) – switching their homepage to the Twitter search results for #skittles. Great idea, but they not only didn’t register a Twitter account but also completely failed to engage with any Twitter users or provoke a debate, causing their homepage to become a haven for those looking to subvert what they saw as a pretty cynical viral marketing campaign with adverse comments about the brand (many of which were pretty near the knuckle). As one blog commenter put it, it was “like stealing candy from an ad agency”.

There are hundreds of blogs on the subject. Among them:

http://bit.ly/B1cj8
http://bit.ly/DRT2J
http://bit.ly/QWEI

Posted by JimmySixBellies on April 16th, 2009 at 8:58 am

He definitely isn’t/shouldn’t be ignorant on the topic, but the Fedex/Twitter situation certainly started a discussion:
http://www.thekeyinfluencer.com/channel/2009/01/16/twittersituation/

Posted by EAGS on April 16th, 2009 at 9:08 am

Jimmy

I’m very familiar with the Skittles case, but I’m not sure they got inadvertently punkd here. Isn’t this a case of some pieces missing in the deployment? I would argue that the amount of buzz generated for skittles was a huge win. At this time, I’m leaning on leaving them off this list, but I’m open to more dialog on this.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on April 16th, 2009 at 9:10 am

EAGS

Yup, I’ve spoken to the Fedex folks directly, and wrote a post about Keyinfluencer and Fedex. I’m not sure this is a punking, but really a minor issue that resulted in a larger flare up. It wasn’t really a punking of the brand, but perhaps a personal mistake –and a funky response from the brand.

I’m leaning on leaving this one off the list too, unless you can suggest others?

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on April 16th, 2009 at 9:12 am

Disgusting Domino’s People…

On April 13th the now infamous video got put up on Youtube by the people responsible, it was then removed and re-posted by another user who says that they “re-uploaded because these people deserve to be fired”.
It spread like wildfire throu…

Posted by A wandering marketer returns on April 16th, 2009 at 10:24 am

The Domino’s Effect: crisis over, now the hard part…

This was a tough week for Amazon and Domino’s, although -for a change- it had nothing to do with the economic recession.
Both brands, for different reasons, have suffered bruising “web-storms”. Fortunately, no one dies in these kinds of storms, b…

Posted by social graph insight on April 17th, 2009 at 7:54 am

[...] A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media Krisen aus dem und im vormedialen Raum: Jeremiah Owyang listet Beispiele auf. (tags: reputation socialmedia krise) [...]

Posted by links for 2009-04-18 « Das Textdepot on April 18th, 2009 at 5:30 am

[...] naturalidad, dirigiéndose a los clientes enfadados cuando haga falta con sinceridad y cercanía. Ni es la primera vez, ni será la última que esto ocurra. Hay que señalar que Domino’s siguió todos estos [...]

Posted by eTc :: El blog de Marketing en Español » Blog Archive » Domino’s Pizza, los medios sociales atacan de nuevo on April 18th, 2009 at 8:08 am

[...] was originally posted on Web [...]

Posted by Finance Geek » A Chronology Of Brands That Got Punk’d By Social Media on April 23rd, 2009 at 9:43 am

Posted by TheTradingReport » Blog Archive » A Chronology Of Brands That Got Punk’d By Social Media on April 23rd, 2009 at 9:47 am

Posted by Tech Twitter » A Chronology Of Brands That Got Punk’d By Social Media on April 23rd, 2009 at 10:54 am

[...] Monitor your brand on Social Media – How To? // The recent domino’s effect and amazon glitch incidents remind that – businesses need to monitor their brand online and track the conversations across social web to manage their reputation and respond quickly in the hour of crisis to control damage to their brands online/offline reputation. You can find the list of brands that got punk’d by Social Media at Forrester Analyst – Jeremiah blog. [...]

Posted by Monitor your brand on Social Media - How To? - Social Media Marketing in India on May 2nd, 2009 at 7:58 am

[...] Epically, the word trust has been referred to as “a relationship of reliance. A trusted party is presumed to seek to fulfill policies, ethical codes, law and their previous promises.” How can we know if company X is actually applying the trust requirements mentioned above? Well, sadly, we can’t really know unless in a case of a scandal! [...]

Posted by Websters: Trust in God but Lock Your Car! « Thoughtpick Blog on May 12th, 2009 at 3:26 am

[...] want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.Powered by WP Greet Box // How many brands are properly making use of the free social media available for all? Is there at least one company [...]

Posted by A Round of Applause to Threadless! « Thoughtpick Blog on May 15th, 2009 at 4:51 am

Would you consider KFC’s latest giveaway via Oprah/Twitter a flop or a winner?

Posted by ASHATL on May 18th, 2009 at 9:18 am

[...] Punkd by Social media [...]

Posted by Firmaers brug af sociale medier : web-tv modul 4 2009 TVM on May 19th, 2009 at 3:17 am

[...] 1 Jeremiah Owyang’s A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media 2 Mashable’s 35+ Examples of Corporate Social Media in Action 3 Forrester’s [...]

Posted by A List of Social Media Marketing Examples « ab on May 21st, 2009 at 6:49 am

Great post – this is a really useful resource. Thank you!

Posted by Devon Dudgeon on June 9th, 2009 at 5:53 am

Posted by Brands Do. « Actions vs. Advertising on June 10th, 2009 at 2:29 pm

J:
Busted link on Apple on WSJ. This one isn’t loading: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2008/10/03/high-tech-systems-and-internet-rumors-conspire-to-sink-apple-shares/

Posted by Dana Theus on June 16th, 2009 at 5:41 am

Great list!

What about Bacardi’s fail with “Get an Ugly Girlfriend campaign”? Got pretty much punk’d by blogs and Twitterazi. http://www.viralblog.com/social-media/bacardi-fails-with-get-ugly-girlfriend-campaign/

Posted by Matthijs Roumen on July 14th, 2009 at 8:44 am

Thanks Jeremiah, this list is really useful. Great case studies for brand to learn from others mistakes before joining the conversation.

Posted by Paul Papadimitriou on July 14th, 2009 at 8:35 pm

[...] Jeremiah Owyang is the king of this. Do you even know what punk’d means? They didn’t get punk’d by a damn thing, and these incidents were far, far less widespread than people like Owyang would have you think. While we are a loud group, 100ish whiners sounds like a lot when they all comment on a blog, but it’s insignificant when we think of it in real-world numbers. [...]

Posted by Stop pretending | tdhurst on July 18th, 2009 at 7:30 pm

Would you consider a small-biz example: http://www.thestate.com/gamecocks/story/871489.html?

Posted by Tonya Cannariato on July 23rd, 2009 at 3:37 pm

[...] http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/05/02/a-chonology-of-brands-that-got-punkd-by-social-media/ A list of companies that were blind-sided by the internet, they didn’t understand the impacts of the power shift to the participants, or how fast information would spread, or were just plain ignorant. [...]

Posted by Portland Copywriter » Blog Archive » Social Media Case Studies and Statistics on August 1st, 2009 at 11:04 am

Posted by Links de agosto. Mídias sociais. | the worst kind of thief on August 4th, 2009 at 9:04 am

[...] muy en detalle los fracasos para aprender. Descubro en esa línea una recopilación que hace Jeremiah Owyang sobre aquellas empresas que no “han entendido el lenguaje de Internet”. Casos como los [...]

Posted by Zona Zapping 47 – 26 abril 2009 - Interactividad.org on August 6th, 2009 at 12:29 am

[...] A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social… A list of companies that were blind-sided by the internet, they didn’t understand the impacts of the power shift to the participants, or how fast information would spread, or were just plain ignorant. (tags: web2.0 socialmedia business blogging ethics marketing blog web pr socialnetworking social media blogs reputation viral social_media crisis brands brand management casestudy list community branding advertising) [...]

Posted by links for 2009-08-11 on August 11th, 2009 at 8:07 am

How about Twitter getting punk’d by the Techcrunch hacker?

Posted by Jason on August 12th, 2009 at 12:35 pm

Thanks Jason but that was a security issue –not a social media one.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on August 12th, 2009 at 1:44 pm

Posted by » Take control of your social media presence before someone does it for you. | Web Development Blog: Heidi Adams Cool on August 21st, 2009 at 4:45 pm

Posted by Take control of your social media presence before someone does it for you. | Web Development Tips on August 22nd, 2009 at 3:02 pm

[...] following is a great post by Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Research. He chronicles the brands that have been on the wrong side of power of social [...]

Posted by 13 » February » 2009 » Razor Branding Blog on August 27th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

[...] read more at “A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media” [...]

Posted by Brands Got Punked By Social Media « BAGABOO – outstanding marketing stuff on September 1st, 2009 at 4:36 am

For a medium that moves so fast, your collection of stories is pretty timeless. Kudos!

Posted by Maria Droujkova on September 3rd, 2009 at 5:42 am

Hi There,

Thanks for sharing and keeping the list up to date. There were a fair few examples there that I haven’t heard of before. Will be interesting to see how this trend continues.

Jason

Posted by Jason Van on September 8th, 2009 at 2:23 am

[...] Conduct Internal Training –and Fire Drills New technologies require new processes, skills, and roles. Support organizations must train staff to learn new tools like mobile, social networks, and brand monitoring tools. Conduct internal “fire drills” and have contingency plans to avoid staying off this list. [...]

Posted by How Customer Support Organizations Must Evolve « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing on September 9th, 2009 at 7:46 am

Posted by Checking out Jeremiah Owyang How Customer Support organizations must evolve « Fredzimny’s CCCCC Blog on September 10th, 2009 at 9:02 pm

Posted by How Customer Support Organizations Must Evolve | Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang Feed | Online Marketing Connect on September 11th, 2009 at 7:57 am

Great collection, Jeremy. Amazing to many how fast the world changes now that people can ‘talk’ to each other anywhere, any time.

Posted by Kimi Wei on September 13th, 2009 at 6:43 am

This list needs Nissan’s Horrendous Hypercube campaign (Canada)

Critique/Analysis: http://www.marketingmag.ca/english/news/marketer/article.jsp?content=20090805_174002_6332

Outright muckraking: http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Hypercube

Posted by Greg j. Smith on September 13th, 2009 at 12:17 pm

Very good post. The Dominos Pizza youtube incident is a GREAT example of how social media can really damage reputation.

Posted by ecommerce software on September 14th, 2009 at 8:17 pm

[...] apply command and control tactics to a group that could ultimately shoot them in the foot. Example? The “Target Rounders” program (I’ve not been briefed) encouraged customers to advocate the brand on public social networks, [...]

Posted by Checklist: Develop a Successful Advocacy Program « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing on September 22nd, 2009 at 3:19 am

Posted by Checklist: Develop a Successful Advocacy Program | Affiliate Program Marketing Online on September 22nd, 2009 at 4:40 pm

Posted by Checklist: Develop a Successful Advocacy Program » A Day in the Life of Jonathan “Jon” Gillardi… aka “Johnny Montana” on September 22nd, 2009 at 5:08 pm

[...] times of community backlash (see this list for examples), real-time tools are indispensable in helping to mitigate social vitriol, by being [...]

Posted by 3 reasons why real time analytics tools are essential – Watching Websites on September 24th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

[...] continue to get blindsided by social media –which of course, is just a representation of underlying customer or product issues that [...]

Posted by Damage Control: Social Media Reversals « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing on October 4th, 2009 at 6:32 am

Posted by Damage Control: Social Media Reversals » A Day in the Life of Jonathan “Jon” Gillardi… aka “Johnny Montana” on October 4th, 2009 at 7:32 am

Posted by Damage Control: Social Media Reversals | Dodging Spiderwebs on October 4th, 2009 at 8:15 am

[...] continue to get blindsided by social media –which of course, is just a representation of underlying customer or product issues that should [...]

Posted by Planner Reads » Blog Archive » Damage Control: Social Media Reversals on October 5th, 2009 at 7:30 pm

[...] 2 – Jeremiah Owyang (the ex-Forrester analyst with an equally-valuable personal brand) wrote on ‘brands that stumbled in social media’. [...]

Posted by Monster.com.sg: Online Brand Reputation is Important, No Guerilla Tactics, Please! « a groovyweb by isman tanuri on October 16th, 2009 at 7:18 pm

[...] 1 Jeremiah Owyang’s A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media 2 Mashable’s 35+ Examples of Corporate Social Media in Action 3 Forrester’s Groundswell [...]

Posted by Приклади маркетингових кампаній в соціальних мережах « International relations & Communications on November 9th, 2009 at 9:28 am