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.
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.
2008
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.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.Louis Vuitton gets Brand-Jacked 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 HansenBurger 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.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.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.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.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 mediaHD 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.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.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
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.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 communityThe 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 my 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.
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.
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
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)
I know I’m missing others, please leave a comment, and I’ll credit you
63 Comments so far
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Walmart embarrasses itself with the Jim and Laura fiasco.
My little collection of corporate missteps.
Comcast at Berkman Center/FCC hearings.
2008: Burger King Exec Hides Behind Daughter’s Email Account To Trash Talk Opponents
What about Walmart’s fake blog?
I’d add Bob Garfield’s ComcastMustDie.com.
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.
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…
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.”
The Neistat Brothers and the iPod’s dirty secret
http://www.neistat.com/movies/ipodsdirtysecret/index.htm
ooooohhhhhhhhhhhh! This is a good one Jeremiah!
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”
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.
Whitney, thanks for the clarifications, Noka makes the cut
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
Hey there Jeremiah,
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
Great list BTW.
Cheers David
David
That’s a classic one, thanks, can’t believe I forgot that.
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.
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.
where’s sony’s messup and walmart? both 2007 early
[…] 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: […]
Hi Jeremiah
This list is excellent tool for explaining companies the importance to monitoring the web.
Thank you!!!
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/
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
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.
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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
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
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
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?
Graham
Taco bell, added
Thanks!
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
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
[…] A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media Great list of brands who had activities exposed via social media. Some reacted, others didn’t. Lessons can be learnt from all the examples; (tags: branding socialmedia casestudy) […]
The Church of Scientology is getting punked big time - leaks of all sorts on YouTube, the rise of Anonymous, countless Tom Cruise parodies etc.
Good one Linda, I’ll add this
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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/
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[…] 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 […]
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/
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