2010-03-12

Social media marketing – Missing the mark

It seems social media marketing campaigns are either huge successes or a major flop. Although I love seeing these initiatives go forth in to the world and do wonderful things, I think it’s the failures we can learn the most from. In that spirit, I’d like to have a look at Doritos viral video campaign “Viralocity“. More specifically, how Doritos oversights and assumptions have landed them in hot water and what we can do to keep this from happening in travel.

The purpose of Viralocity was quite simple; make a 60 second YouTube video featuring a bag of Doritos currently unnamed chip flavor and make it go viral any way possible (Facebook, Twitter, email etc.,) and be in the running for 250 000 dollars. The premise makes sense – consumers are becoming suspicious of traditional marketing but something sent from a friend has the potential to get past some of those built up barriers, what could possibly go wrong? Simply put, research.

The competition is only at the halfway point, but has already started to come off the rails. Peter Chao, one of Canada’s top YouTubers, has jumped to the front of the pack with more than double the points of his closest rival. This should have been an obvious outcome to anyone that follows YouTube channels, some Peter Chao’s videos get close to 1.5 million views each! Although there was nothing in the rule structure that punished popularity, it seems like Peter Chao has been disqualified by Doritos due to the uproar his fellow competitors raised about his “Unfair” YouTube advantage.

Some of the most important factors of this competition were either overlooked or deemed to be insignificant, mainly:

Size and strength of the YouTube community- YouTubers stick together. This isn’t the first time the community has pulled together to help a vlogger win a cash prize (See Tessa “Meekakitty” Violet wins Lash Allure contest).
Varying sizes of online followings- Not every one’s online social network is equal, some bring huge followings with massive people power to the table.
Entrant’s reactions to other participants with “Unfair” advantages

If we compare the structure of this campaign to something successful like “Best job in the world”, it’s pretty clear that Doritos tried to take a shortcut and didn’t consider the human factor. They pushed for as many impressions of their brand as possible and put the fairness aspect of the contest second, not to mention using total views to decide the winner was asking for trouble.

The social media marketing arena is new to us all, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to do quality research before we jump in the deep end. As with everything else, put your customers first, the brand will follow.

*UPDATE: As of the 15th of March, Doritos have reinstated Peter Chao in the Viralocity competition.