Social Media Catastrophes and Lessons Learned

Social Media
Catastrophes

1

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Problem:
Two employees from an individually owned Domino’s store shot a few videos showing them in the
restaurant’s kitchen putting cheese up their nose, nasal mucus on the sandwiches and other disgusting and
unsanitary acts. The video was then uploaded onto YouTube and reached more than a million views,
inciting a social media uproar, particularly on Twitter. A few days after the video surfaced, references to the
incident were in ﬁve out of the twelve results on Google’s ﬁrst page when searching “Domino’s”.

Video has been removed from YouTube 3


Response:
Domino’s was on top of the situation within 48 hours and the video was taken down by YouTube, but
not before it had reached a million views. Although the two employees promised that the food was
never actually delivered (and the the video was made as a prank), they were ﬁred and eventually faced
felony charges. The franchisee brought in the local health department which advised them to discard all
the open containers of food. Domino’s created a Twitter account (@dpzinfo) to address comments and
its CEO released a video on YouTube. The company also released an o cial statement on their website
admonishing their employees and apologizing to consumers.

4


Fallout:
Tagged by users and the media as “booger-gate”, the repercussions of this social media disaster caused
many consumers to boycott the pizza chain. Although the company countered the attack by stating that
the health violations portrayed in the video were an isolated incident, consumers were and are still wary of
the brand. Domino’s has since launched a sweeping rebranding campaign in an attempt to counter the
tarnished image of the company caused by the video.

http://www.petitiononline.com/TGIFscam/petition.html 5


Problem:
Mars, the maker of Skittles candy, scrapped its home page on the Web and put in its place a collage of
content from social networking sites. The hodgepodge included a live Twitter feed, chatter and video from
Flickr and YouTube. All the social media feeds were fairly harmless--except the tweets from Twitter. Any
tweets hashtagged with #skittles were immediately populated onto their site- leaving the page vulnerable
for attack from users. By day two, some of the comments were scalding. Among the most alarming: "F!*K
Skittles." It certainly wasn't the reaction Mars expected.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/11/twitter-friendfeed-skittles-leadership-cmo-network-skittles.html 7


Response:
Skittles had a great idea and was on the right track with letting it’s users interact and populate the space,
however, there was an absolute lack of boundaries. Although the company put an age restriction on their site
(13 years old+), Skittles kept the Twitter feed up for a while before they completely revamped their strategy
and their site, moving their social elements to the corner of the page.

Where the Social feeds live on the new Skittles website
8


Fallout:
For days, users would be greeted with o ensive and vulgar Tweets on the Skittles website. The complete
lack of moderation resulted with the brand getting abused and bashed openly on their own website, with
words such as “anal cunt” etc. getting fed directly onto their corporate sponsored site. Considering that
children are also part of the Skittles demographic, the strategy was also polarizing and outraged many
parents who protested, not allowing their children to visit the site.



Problem:
Greenpeace accuses Nestle of contributing to the extinction of the orangutan by partnering with palm-oil
suppliers in Indonesia who were causing deforestation. The organization staged protests and created a microsite
where they posted provocative videos against the brand, which showed a worker opening a KitKat look-a-like
wrapper and biting into an orangutan finger. Facebook users posted negative comments on Nestle’s brand page,
some even changing their profile picture to an altered “Nestle Killer” logo, and flooded Twitter with negative
tweets. Some users rallied together and encouraged others to boycott all Nestle products.

11


Response:
Nestle lobbied to have the YouTube video removed and also posted a statement on their website the day
the video went live, announcing the termination of the accused supplier. In response to the onslaught of
negative posts on their Facebook page, moderators posted: “To repeat: we welcome your comments, but
please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your proﬁle pic-- they will be deleted”. This
defensive response only enraged users further, creating a second tailspin on an already devastating PR
nightmare. Eventually the page apologized to fans for its “rude” responses and stopped deleting comments
on the wall.

12


Fallout:
Nestle’s brand was not only attacked by Greenpeace supporters and environmentalists, but also social
media users for their mishandling of the entire situation. Many users accused Nestle of censoring Facebook
dialogue- a cardinal sin in the social media sphere. Negative sentiment about the company’s association
with deforestation even a ected their international market, particularly when Twitter users picked up the
story about Nestle’s Facebook bullying strategy. In addition, Indonesian palm-oil suppliers were threatening
to also boycott the company for cutting ties with the market.

13


Problem:TGI Friday's launched a huge Facebook o er using a ﬁctitious fan named Woody. If self proclaimed
number one fan Woody could get 500,000 Facebook fans by 30th September 2009, then the ﬁrst
500,000 would be entitled to a free Jack Daniels Burger or Jack Daniels Chicken Sandwich. TGI
Friday’s was not prepared for the campaign response and after a soft launch on Sept. 2 and a
subsequent e-mail campaign, Woody picked up 80,000 friends, even before TV and digital banners
were launched Sept. 7.

By Sunday, Sept. 13, Woody hit the proposed 500,000 Facebook fan mark...

Just 11 days after the campaign commenced.

15


Response:
Facing a mutiny of ravenous consumers, TGIF did little more than extended the o er to a million fans in
order to silence the voices of the angry new “fans.”

FAQ for frustrated Woody’s responses
“fans”

16


Fallout:TGI Friday’s was unprepared for the extreme response. They couldn’t keep up with the coupon demand
created by the overwhelming acquisition of new fans and, in turn, disappointed their captive audience...

What sounded like a great idea in theory turned into a
forum for angry fans to vent their frustrations with no
moderation.



Fallout: Once the promotion was over, TGI Friday’s pulled down the Woody page and abandoned all the fans
their promotion had recruited. TGI Friday’s launched a campaign with a ﬁctional fan, violating social
media tenants of authenticity and transparency and ultimately did nothing more than bribe fans to join
their page. TGI Fridays seemed to have no long term objective of how to engage these fans once they
were acquired.

Woody’s Facebook Fan Growth

1,000,000
800,000
600,000
400,000
200,000
0
July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010

Woody (T.G.I.F.) T.G.I.F used incentives to gain their “Woody” fans.

18


Problem: A groundswell of outrage, concern and confusion sprang up in response to what authors and others
believed was a decision by Amazon to remove "adult" titles from its sales rankings in April, 2009.
Hundreds of gay-and lesbian-themed books suddenly disappeared from Amazon.com’s rankings
which caused an uproar among authors and activists who alleged it was a stealthy extension of the
company’s policy concerning adult content.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/405273-Amazon_Says_Glitch_to_Blame_for_New_Adult_Policy.php

http://justanothermobilemonday.com/Wordpress/2009/04/13/amazon-is-selling-discrimination/
20
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/04/amazon-sales-ra/


Response:
The internet bookseller claimed it was the result of a technical "glitch” and did not o er any other
statements or interactions.

Fallout: Not addressing such a volatile issue left too much room for the problem to escalate in the social
space. Authors were outraged and readers vowed to never use the web-service again, joining
together in their anger.

21


Problem:
In a promotion ﬁnanced by KFC, Oprah Winfrey o ered a free chicken dinner coupon on her

website... The response was overwhelming.
Consumer response created an online tra c jam as many rushed to download the coupon before
9:59 p.m. central time May 6. As KFCs around the country were inundated with customers, bloggers
and tweeters complained about long lines and stores refusing the coupons.

23


Response:
KFC posted an apology tweet, including dozens of replies to Twitter complaints.

KFC also issued 6.5 million rain checks that included a free
cup of Pepsi.

Fallout:
El Pollo Loco took advantage of KFC's troubles by
o ering to honor the Oprah 2 Piece Meal coupon
on Mother's Day, a day excluded in the coupon's
May 5 - May 19 window. El Pollo Loco will give one
free two-piece ﬂame-grilled chicken meal per
customer with the coupon on May 10.

Not only did KFC infuriate coupon holders, but
they were one-upped by a competitor.

http://www.qsrweb.com/article.php?id=14360 24


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