Hashtag backlash: marketing campaigns that turned into social media disasters

Woolworths was widely chastised for launching its commemoration website "Fresh in Our Memories", a play on the supermarket's "fresh food people" slogan. Photograph: AAP

"Never profiteer off other people's suffering."

Dr Brent Coker, an internet marketing expert from the University of Melbourne, says that is the fundamental rule any marketing or advertising agency should stick to when promoting a brand.

"Don't even go there," Coker says. "But it's surprising how many brands do this."

Related: Woolworths takes down Anzac tribute website amid Twitter outrage

This year is certainly no exception.

In the lead-up to Anzac Day, Woolworths launched the commemoration website "Fresh in Our Memories", a play on the supermarket's "fresh food people" slogan.

People were encouraged to upload war-related photos and tributes to the site, which would automatically add the Woolworths logo and the Fresh in Our Memories catchphrase to them.

Using the hashtag #FreshInOurMemories, Twitter users were quick to call out the supermarket for being disrespectful and insensitive. The then minister for veterans affairs, Michael Ronaldson, was among those who complained, and the site was taken down.

Such insensitivity happens "quite often", Coker says.

"After the Paris terrorist attacks, there were brands tweeting sales on French wine or cheap Paris holidays. Agencies have to be very careful. Really, as soon as a tragedy hits or people are mourning, brands should cease their marketing communications and be very careful on social media, because often agencies have pre-programmed these tweets to go out."

A spokesman for Woolworths, invited to reflect on the lessons learned from that campaign, declines to comment.

"We will not be commenting further than what was said at the time," he says.

By contrast, the executive director for the coal division of the Minerals Council of Australia, Greg Evans, is only too happy to reflect on the council's advertising campaign, launched in September, called Coal is Amazing.

The advertisement, in which the council praises coal for creating jobs, and includes the voiceover "Isn't it amazing what this little black rock can do?" came as environmentalists were rallying against the approval of huge new mines in Queensland and New South Wales.

Using the hashtag #CoalIsAmazing, people on Twitter mocked and criticised the campaign, and highlighted the lung diseases former coalminers were suffering from.

Research commissioned by the fossil fuel-free superannuation fund Future Super, and conducted by Lonergan Research, found net approval for coal fell 9% after the Minerals Council campaign.

But Evans denies the campaign is a failure.

"The Little Black Rock advertising campaign has been a tremendous success story," he tells Guardian Australia.

Research commissioned by the fossil fuel-free superannuation fund Future Super found net approval for coal fell 9% after the Minerals Council campaign. Photograph: Bloomber/Getty

"We have been extremely pleased at the level of engagement and the support we have received, especially from the hard-working employees and their families in the sector. We fully anticipated anti-coal activists would try and hijack the campaign and welcomed that they supported our messaging by running with the hashtag #coalisamazing."

Evans says the environmentalists and activists only helped promote the message to a broader audience than the council expected to reach.

"We don't plan to make any changes to the way we execute advertising campaigns and we are encouraged to keep it going indefinitely as it is registering such great results," he says.

The social media commentator and former advertising executive Jane Caro describes Evans's response as baffling. She says the campaign is "gobsmacking in its narcissism".

"It's a flawed strategy from the get-go. You never try to tell people your product is wonderful," Caro says.

"You might tell them energy is really important, and that there are many ways to produce it. But who gives a toss about coal? Who is pro-coal, apart from workers in coal?

"There is a cultish thing happening in corporations and business communities where they become so self-referential and encased in their own bubble that they don't remember people outside have a different view."

Misjudging public sentiment was also key to the failure of the Victorian Taxi Association's "Your Taxis" campaign, Caro says.

Related: Coal not so 'amazing', public say, as mining industry advertising backfires

The campaign, launched in November, encouraged people to share on social media their experiences using taxis across the state, which led to a barrage of negative publicity as people shared stories of being physically, verbally and sexually abused by drivers.

Initially, as hundreds of horror stories were shared, the association insisted it had expected the negative feedback, and welcomed it saying it would help highlight where to improve.

"The association should have admitted it was surprised by the high level of negative feedback, that the campaign didn't go the way it expected, and that it was sorry and would learn something from the stories," Caro says.

"Don't try to put a positive spin on things that can't be put positively."

But the worst was yet to come.

Just two days later, the @YourTaxis Twitter account experienced another backlash after using Remembrance Day to promote the campaign.

The tweet, which misspelled "remembrance", read: "#RememberanceDay 600,000 taxi trips are taken by war Veterans and widows for treatment purposes. Lest We Forget. #yourtaxis".

The Victorian Taxi Association's "Your Taxis" campaign received a high level of negative feedback. Photograph: Melissa Meehan/EPA

The tweet was written by the agency behind the campaign, Ellis Jones, and as people responded angrily, more tweets kept coming from the account, including one that read the campaign was "really trying".

The association eventually took over the Twitter account, apologised and sacked Ellis Jones. The offending tweet was removed.

The agency has declined to comment on lessons learned from the campaign.

Coker says the lesson should be to stop tweeting and reassess a campaign as soon as a backlash begins.

"I'm definitely using this campaign as an example in the crisis management class I teach next year, because it's a good example of what not to do," he says.

"My research indicates that about 80% of these social media disasters occur from within a company, where someone has messed up internally, or someone within the agency managing the marketing for the brand has messed up," Coker says.

"And the key there is having a crisis management plan, often involving someone very senior from the company admitting fault when things go wrong and doesn't pretend it's all fine, and all social media activity ceases while that occurs."

Related: Agency behind #YourTaxis campaign fired after social media disaster

Brands can bounce back from a social media disaster, Coker says, but they usually have to make a very quick public apology, and it has to be genuine.

"What people want following these events is remorse," he says.

"That's how our whole judicial system works, when someone has broken the law and done something serious, people want to see them pay their dues and society back. It's the same with brands. The biggest mistake a brand can make is deny they've done anything."

Caro agrees. As long as the mistake is acknowledged and not repeated, most social media disasters are a "storm in a teacup".

"People will forgive you if you say: 'Mea culpa, I'm sorry, I'll do better next time'," she says.

"What you shouldn't say is: 'We expected and wanted you to react that way'."

Source: Hashtag backlash: marketing campaigns that turned into social media disasters