Zynga Tries to Use the Back-door

What many companies fail to understand nowadays is that ANYTHING can affect their reputation, even how they handle redundancies. And this is even truer after the digital revolution, in a world where the word-of-mouth can reach a much wider public in a very short time, thanks to social networks such as Twitter. You know what I'm talking about, right? The Zynga case, of course.

(taken from here)

WHAT HAPPENED

Right on the day of the launch of the iPad Mini (during the launch itself!) Zynga communicated to more than a hundred of its employees that they had two hours to leave the premises, as they were being made redundant. Such a coincidence huh?

And of course someone started tweeting...

The result? Share prices dropped and no one really liked Zynga's behaviour. 

MY OPINION

So you see? Reputation is something so wide that can be influenced by so many factors... a company should really give a tiny little thought about it before doing any action that affects any of its stakeholders. This brings me back to some of the lectures I followed last year, where I was told that PR should influence a company's management, in order to guarantee the sake of its reputation. This has never been so true today. I'm not saying that PRPs should be called for every decision being made, every single detail being fixed; however, asking the opinion of a PRP (in-house) before making such a major move, would have benefitted the company. 

And if it was the PR department that made that decision, in order to try to hide the redundancy news, I think the whole department doesn't really know anything about what's going on nowadays. I mean... Making 100 people redundant during the Apple's launch and getting away with it is not even slightly realistic.

In conclusion, I believe organisations should behave at their best (i.e. as if they were in the spotlight) in all circumstances, most of all when any of their stakeholders are involved, AND that PR considerations should be taken into account before taking any major decisions. Also, something to keep in mind is that employees, future employees, and ex employees are powerful stakeholders of a company that have opinions, friends, and social media profiles - it's not all about the media and journalists.

I'd really love to hear your thoughts about this case and any reflections you have to offer about it.

#AskLondoners

I came across this nice idea McCann Health had the other day and wanted to dedicate a small post to it, although there is not much information about it out there. I'm talking about the #AskLondonders campaign. 

(Taken from here)

This campaign is all about enhancing the relationship between Londoners and tourists. The idea is as simple as brilliant: Londoners who wear the Ask Londoners badge will be available to talk to tourists about the best places in London and what activities they can do while staying in town for the Olympics. 

I think the direct contact guaranteed is full of potential. I'm sure tourists will remember this for a long time and will do some word-of-mouth, too. Imagine being 'lost' in a city and being given prompt advice from a local, who suggests you places to go and things to do. I'd feel very happy and satisfied when walking away! And I would for sure tell the anecdote once home, too. Great idea McCann Health! It's full of positive feelings.

What do you think? :)

Reverse Riots

After the London riots last year, 14 to 25 year-olds have become the age group holding the worst reputation in the UK. This is why vInspired, a youth volunteer charity, launched the Reverse Riots campaign.

Reverse Riots is a 'Do something campaign' and encourages young people to show the society that they contribute positively to society on social networking sites. The campaign uses celebrity endorsement, including Paloma Faith and Plan B. Audience participation is also a big part of the campaign. Youngsters from all over the UK are invited to take a picture of themselves holding a piece of paper in which they state how they positively contribute to their community, spread it online and use the hashtag #ReverseRiots on Twitter. 

Some lucky participants will have the chance to win a number of prizes or replace the Twitter profile picture of a celebrity on the London riots anniversary. 

MY OPINION

I think this social media campaign is very smart and I really like the audience participation factor. It seems like it will generate the media interest necessary to make it noticeable to traditional media and become mainstream news. 

Images from here.

Lush's Animal-testing-on-human PR Stunt

Today we will talk about this fairly recent campaign that shocked thousands of Londoners on their way to work or the odd shopping trip.

(Taken from here)

THE CAMPAIGN

Last April, Lush decided to reinforce their stance towards animal testing on the occasion of the World Week for Animals in Laboratories. The PR stunt that constituted the epicenter of the campaign was extremely original and powerful.


A performance artist, Jaquelin Traide, underwent the same horrific treatments to which animals are submitted, dressed in a nude body stocking. She was kept  for 10 hours in a shop window of the Regent Street Lush store, in London. Jaquelin was given injections, shaved, and got cosmetics dropped into her eyes, all standard procedures for animal testing.

(Taken from here)

The stunt caused horror and persuaded 200,000 people to sign a petition demanding EU-wide legislation against animal testing. Of course the media coverage was huge.


MY OPINION
The stunt was certainly powerful and conveyed strong images. I personally really liked it. The idea was very original and bold. I also think that this shock campaign was a very effective way to raise awareness of animal testing. Sometimes people do need a shock.

#McFail - Beware of the Hashtag

From a brilliant example of PR to... a flop. Today I want to talk about the famous McFail.

(taken from here)

WHAT HAPPENED?

A few months ago (January 2012) the McDonald's started a 'hashtag campaign' on Twitter with the aim of generating some publicity and quality User Generated Content (UGC). They launched #McDStories and #MeetTheFarmers as promoted tweets.

It all started off pretty well with the McDonald's official account telling stories about the production of the burgers and cheese process... But soon enough Twitter users hijacked the hashtag and started tweeting disgusting stories and comments about past experiences at McDonald's.

                                                                 (taken from here)

(taken from here)

(taken from here)

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Animal rights groups took the opportunity to share horrific images of McDonald's food.

The campaign lasted less than 2 hours. Rick Wion, social media director, had to call it off straight away.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

The social media team probably got stuck on the 'big idea', deciding to ignore the risks that it involved. The association between McDonald's and the word 'stories' was a dangerous one, and I refuse to believe that no one in the team raised their voice to question the campaign before the launch. With such a big name and a long history of complaints though, it was naive for the company to hope that it all would have worked out fine.

LESSON TO LEARN

UGC cannot be controlled on micro-blogging platforms such as Twitter. There is no chance for the companies to moderate the content and tone of what people think and publish. If you are really eager to launch a campaign that involves UGC, try to do it in a more controlled environment such as Facebook. There you can set your own rules before launching the campaign and then have the right to delete deleterious comments. Also, we must remember that the best UGC is usually spontaneous. If we try to force the public to write/talk about us, it can end very badly.

Cheddarvision

I want to start this collection of reviews with one of my favourite PR campaigns: Cheddarvision, by Bray Leino.

Dom Lane, Creative Director at Bray Leino, delivered a lecture at Bournemouth University in which I was lucky enough to sit in this year. He told us all about the campaign, so I'm happy to share the details I know.

THE ISSUE:

In the end of 2006, West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers were facing economic issues and needed a sales boost. The budget was small, but the situation severe. They decided to hire a PR consultancy to try to solve the issue.

THE SOLUTION:

With such a small budget (in the region of 5/10k if I remember correctly), Bray Leino needed to generate a simple original idea that could be executed at a low cost. 

Dom told he was sitting in a meeting with a client that produced wine and he suddenly had the idea of filming the growth of grapes and the process of making wine. Unfortunately the meeting's purpose was that of dismissing the agency for budgeting reasons. Right after the meeting, West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers called him to check how things were evolving with their account. He realised that the idea he had for the ex client could be applied to their key product - cheese.

Bray Leino set up a webcam in West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers' farm to film the maturing of the Cheddar. A micro site was launched to stream the video online. It quickly got viral. By the end of march 2007, the website hit over half a million visits. 


The cheese round got so famous that it was 'baptised' Wedginald. During the broadcast, Wedginal went to Glastonbury festival, received a Valentine's Day card, wore a red nose, opened a Facebook and Twitter account, and became a good-luck charm at the Rugby World Cup.

You can see a time-lapse of the famous cheese maturing from month 0 to 12 here. 

When Wedginald finally matured, it was auctioned off for Children in Need and sent to its buyer all the way to Australia, first class.

The success of the campaign was huge; in fact Bray Leino won the CIPR Pride Awards 2007. 


MY OPINION:


I believe this is a clear example of a creative campaign that has the 'viral factor' and that 'has legs'; that's why it worked. I guess we all dream of conceiving something that has the potential to get viral. However, we must never forget that viral is an effect. We can only produce intended viral material, spread it as much as we can and hope it will become viral... Let the magic happen. If it is good enough, the magic will happen.