Uneven Distribution.

Being truthful.

February 26th, 2009

I decided to post a comment on an article on Mumbrella about our latest Doritos campaign (a campaign developed in the US, replicated in the UK, and now being handled by us for Australia). Now let me first point out that there’s a lot of blogs around that I don’t bother commenting on.  But in this case I felt that the issue had a good chance of getting out of hand. People would make assumptions, and I could see the social lynch-mob picking up on it if nothing was said. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it would be irreversible.

I was involved in the campaign from day one. I’m constantly thinking about how campaigns like this will be viewed by the social media commentators, and I was completely comfortable with what we’d done. So I posted my comment clearing up the questions from the article before they got out of hand.

So I was moderately surprised this morning to find my comment was used as the basis for a whole new article. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too bad, there was the insinuation that we’d possibly done a Tourism QLD, but not a flat out accusation. It was clear that Tim had done some pretty thorough investigation into the story. He had found the creator of one of the entry video’s, but had only found out what I’d already said was accurate. The article had an air of comment bait, but moreso linkbait, hoping one of the Social Media Mafia would pick up on it and get some incoming traffic to Mumbrella.

So here’s the thing. We didn’t do anything wrong. I know we didn’t, I’m as aware about how to operate in the online space as anyone else in this industry, and I have no problem with what we did. And yet we still got written up in a way that tried to find any possible hole in the campaign.

So it seems that every time we do something that steps in to the social arena it’s going to be put under the microscope. That’s fine, really. I’m happy for commentators to say whatever they want. I’m happy to put in my comments on a blog, I’m fully aware that it’s almost guaranteed that it will generate at least one ill-informed and usually idiotic comment, but the net result is still better than not commenting at all.

Where the bloggers (and I’m talking about serious journalistic bloggers here, people who are reporting news, not opinion) need to be careful though is how they treat the relationships they have with the people they are talking about. If I have to jump to the defense of every campaign I do that in any way leverages social media, I’m going to tire of it really quick, then I stop being part of the conversation on these sites. That’s one less person taking part in the conversation, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want that.

Probably the more important lesson out of all this though, is just how important telling the truth is. For an industry that’s not renowned for it’s honesty, the tables have well and truly turned. Not only do you have to be honest when a campaign launches, you have to be questioning the truthfulness of what you’re doing every step of the way. For Dorito’s, as with every other campaign I work on, this was the case. And I’m pretty damn happy that it seems we came out of the whole experience looking good.

By the way I’m in no way criticising the high-profile social media bloggers. Their weapons of fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the David Armano are doing a hell of a lot from stopping brands and agencies completely ballsing up the social media space forever.

And yeah, I’ll still be posting comments on Mumbrella.

Comments

Glad to hear you’ll still be posting, Nic.

Funnily enough I found myself having a long conversation / debate about this topic last night with someone who does a similar role to you in a London agency who happens to be in Sydney for a few days (mysteriously enough).

There is clearly an as yet unresolved debate going on over how you populate a user generated content site to get the ball rolling, without misleading the punters, or making them feel misled.

I’d argue that the test should be: are things actually how the average punter would assume it to be?

In this case, clearly there’s a strong argument that says you did the right thing, you put it in the Ts & Cs, you went out and found real competitors rather than making stuff yourself. But at the same time, there’s a little voice that says it feels a bit unfair that not everyone has been treated the same. That’s what makes it an interesting debate.

I’m not sure what the answer is - I’m glad I’m writing about it rather than executing it. The former is a lot easier than the latter.

For what it’s worth, there probably wouldn’t have been a story to be written if a line or two on the seeding exercise had appeared in the press release. It’s when commenters and journalists start wondering if there is more to it (and videos being uploaded two weeks before a competition begins certainly does raise eyebrows) that it potentially becomes a PR issue.

I’m not sure you’ll have to jump to the defense of every campaign - but if you put Doritos and home made ads together, then that’s a heritage that everyone’s going to be intensely interested in.

Cheers,

Tim - Mumbrella

Thanks for that Tim.

I definitely agree with you that the most interesting topic to have arisen out of the last few months is the question about who creates what content for these types of campaigns, and how transparent that process is. It’s an issue that everyone is trying to get right, and it seems the best way to work out what’s ‘right’ is to give it a go and see how hard we fail.

Thankfully I don’t think we failed too hard at all.

I love the idea of “are things actually how the average punter would assume”. We all know what assumptions are the mothers of, but in this case it’s spot on. We didn’t quite nail it with Dorito’s, and it’s definitely a learning I’ll take out from it.

Interesting to know that the the tipping factor for you was that we didn’t mention the seeding promotion in the press release. Yes it could have saved the issue from being risen in the first place, but on the other hand you probably wouldn’t have covered it. I think it would be a brave agency that tried to throw in a pinch of controversy into their social media campaign just to get media coverage, but I’m not saying it hasn’t crossed my mind.

And finally yes, I realise that such a big brand, such a successful campaign, and an agency such as BBDO is just asking to be put under the microscope. Just glad our scorecard came back positive.

Well, I can certainly appreciate the sentiment you’ve expressed here Tim. I have to be prepared to get feedback on anything I do if it’s public from client work to personal stuff.

Don’t let it distract you from the end goal. This is how the space works—everyone gets a say. It’s less of a microscope than it is a mosh pit. And anything can and will happen in one of those.

Keep learning and keep doing.

-David

I think as long as ‘old media’ continue to see digital as ‘new media’ these types of scenarios are going to continue to happen. Our challenge has become one of trying to engage consumers by getting them to participate with a brand for entertainment, rather than sitting back and being spoon fed a story. The twist is that it can be dificult to replicate the sucsess of any given campaign so you are forced to be creative in coming up with new ways to engage people. This in itself is the process and the nature of what we myst do and is the very thing that brings agecies under unfair scruttiny at times. It’s a learning process for everyone, and sometimes you’re the person on the receiving end of it but most of the time you’re not.

In this instance you haven’t broken any online or social ettiqute and I don’t see how you could have done things differently without jeopardizing the potential sucsess of the campaign.

I’ve just come across an interesting post from Mark Pollard at McCann Erickson Sydney which he put together a few days before the Doritos debate took place.

You can see it here: http://www.markpollard.net/an-indefinition-of-community-plus-anonymity-explored/

His argument is that “Seeding isn’t cool. It’s lazy and treats people as if they’re stupid.”

I see that Rob’s view (above) is that no etiquette has been broken. But I think that’s one of the issues here - everyone’s playing to different set of rules.

Cheers,

Tim - Mumbrella

Rob I think you nailed it, “Our challenge has become one of trying to engage consumers by getting them to participate with a brand for entertainment, rather than sitting back and being spoon fed”.

Even given a killer idea, the initial impetus still has to be created. In our case the whole promotion is about getting quality content that people will want to watch (it’s not about getting as many entries as possible). So in order to kickstart the idea and have it heading in the right direction, we created the lead-in competition.

Tim I did see Mark’s presentation, and I actually agree with all of it. But in my reading of it, we’re talking about a very different type of seeding. I think the seeding that’s lazy and treats people as if they’re stupid is the more ‘dark art’ stuff that ’seeding companies’ seem to specialise in.

But most importantly, I just proved you’re right. We’re all playing to our version of the rules.