Pepsi had a pretty bad Twitter morning on October 13. But Falcon Heene may have helped Pepsi escape major embarrassment. Just two days later, as the story about Pepsi’s “sexist” iPhone App, “AMP UP Before You Score,” began to gain some real traction, #balloonboy sucked up all the media oxygen and became the biggest trending topic in Twitter history.
So will there be any fallout?
Media Logic’s Z&C Poll, first posted on the 15th, shows there might not be much. Nearly three-quarters of respondents (73%) said any controversy would soon be forgotten. And curiously, nearly as many people who said the story wouldn’t be forgotten thought it was as likely to help the brand as hurt it.
The breakdown by sex is somewhat more interesting.
Way fewer women than men thought the whole thing would blow over. 67% versus 79%. Yet within those groups, as many of the remaining voters thought the story would help the brand as hurt it.
What’s the bottom line? A week and a day or two in, #pepsifail is still popping up once every hour or so on Twitter. By comparison, #balloonboy is popping up once every second. Pepsi apologized but did not pull its app. Perhaps brands, aware of the cynicism and short attention spans of the online audience, are learning not to panic when faced with bad PR. Perhaps Pepsi escaped only because our attention was diverted.
We recently developed a Mine & Dine report for one of our higher education clients, summarizing the analytics for a marketing microsite that was part of an integrated campaign. The report revealed some impressive results, including:
With this type of information, Media Logic and the client will now be able to make strategic marketing decisions grounded in data.
Social media is a game changer on many levels. It can even inspire that “focus group feeling.”
Executive MBA programs are growing increasingly popular among students, recruiters, and university administrators. But these off-site, at-a-distance and weekends-only programs come with one critical drawback: little (or no) campus time.
We recently offered a “social media audit” to our higher education clients – a customized assessment of their current social media efforts, those of their competitors and some initial recommendations on next steps. Many were surprised to learn that their competitors were actively using social media to, for example, create communities of accepted students, thereby impacting yield.
In the new world of conversation-centric marketing, it is certain that you have to think differently about ways to reach prospective (and current) customers.
