McDamage Control

They say honesty is the best policy. But how true is that in advertising? Sometimes companies stretch the truth to make a product or service that really isn’t that great stand out from their competitors. Few companies are one hundred percent honest with their customers. It’s not easy to do. And just like people, no company is perfect. So when is the best time for a brand to be honest with their customers? When they’re doing damage control, of course.

A recent example of this came last year when McDonald’s launched their new Twitter campaign. Using the hashtag, #McDStories, users were encouraged to share their positive stories and experiences about McDonald’s. While McDonald’s thought they would receive heart-warming tweets from people reminiscing about their first Happy Meal, or what it was like to eat their first Big Mac, they got anything but. After one day, users hijacked the hashtag and began sharing their negative experiences of McDonald’s. To make matters worse, the fast food company paid to have the hashtag promoted, thus increasing the amount of people that saw the negative tweets. Although the promoted hashtag was pulled within two hours, by that point the campaign had taken off and the damage had been done.

Looks like even billion dollar companies can make mistakes.

Some negative tweets from McDonald’s #McDStories Twitter campaign.

So how do you come back from such a backlash? With the help of ad agency, Tribal DDB Toronto, McDonald’s Canada launched another social media campaign entitled, “Our Food. Your Questions.”. The campaign was developed to clear up the many misconceptions surrounding McDonald’s food, packaging, and advertising. It began by McDonald’s posting a YouTube video that encouraged users to submit any questions they had about McDonald’s through their Facebook or Twitter accounts. It could be any question at all and McDonald’s promised to personally address and answer all of them. All questions and answers were posted on a separate area of McDonald’s website (http://yourquestions.mcdonalds.ca/), with a handful of them being answered through video on McDonald’s YouTube channel. The company was immediately hit with thousands of questions ranging from what meat is used in their Chicken McNuggets, to whether or not they used real eggs in their Egg McMuffins.

Their honest approach proved to be successful, as they were able to clear up any negative misconceptions consumers had about the brand, while overcoming the #McDStories Twitter disaster at the same time. As of April 2013, over 20,000 questions had been answered and the website had received more than two million hits. Some of their video responses have even gone viral, including one that looks at why their food appears different in their advertising. In fact, the campaign was so successful they decided to turn it into an integrated advertising campaign, releasing a 30-second television commercial along with online and transit ads.

This campaign demonstrates that McDonald’s understands that by being honest with their customers, they're showing them that they value their relationship. At the same time, they were able to create trust and build their reputation as a brand. Because each response was also personalized and addressed directly to the person that asked the question, I think it  made the campaign more engaging and portrayed McDonald’s as being a friendlier company. It allowed them to create a conversation and get people talking about them in a good way.

Social media is a fantastic outlet for consumers to interact with their favourite brands; however, with the ability for anyone to say anything, brands can often get caught in the mix and face negative criticism in the process. While being completely honest in advertising can be risky, the McDonald’s “Our Food. Your Questions.” campaign proved that honesty can benefit your brand and help foster the relationship with your customers. At least until the next Twitter scandal.

Sources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/01/24/mcdstories-when-a-hashtag-becomes-a-bashtag/

http://www.marketingmag.ca/news/marketer-news/marketer-of-the-year-2012-mcdonalds-canada-70067

Correction Fluid: The 'Tipp-Ex'-perience

We’ve all seen those ads that play before YouTube videos. They rarely grab your attention, and half the time we can’t wait to skip them so we can start watching that funny cat video. With more than one billion unique visitors a month, YouTube is a popular site advertisers use to reach their target market. So what other ways can brands effectively use YouTube without placing those cringe-worthy commercials before a video?

Sure, they could try and make a viral video, but there’s no guarantee it’ll actually pick up enough momentum to become an Internet sensation. One approach advertisers can take is to create an experience for their audience through an interactive video campaign. One of the best examples of this was done by Tipp-Ex.

Tipp-Ex is a European company that specializes in making correction fluid (better known as white out). In 2010, with the help of creative ad agency, Buzzman, Tipp-Ex introduced their interactive video campaign entitled, “A Hunter Shoots a Bear”. In the 30-second video, a bear approaches an unsuspecting hunter. Viewers are then asked if the hunter should shoot the bear. Simple enough. The real creative part of the campaign comes when the viewer makes their decision.

Upon deciding what the hunter should do, viewers are then brought to a second video, where the hunter says he doesn’t want to shoot the bear. He then reaches out of the video screen and grabs Tipp-Ex correction tape from what appears to be a static web ad, and erases the word “Shoots” from the title. Viewers are then asked to write another action in the blank space and watch as the scene unfolds. With 42 different scenes produced, this made for a pretty engaging video.

 Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M

To increase the exposure, the agency reviewed and analyzed current YouTube videos to see what was already popular on the site. For this reason, they decided to shoot the video so that it appeared to be filmed on a camera phone, as opposed to being professionally shot. They also included the acronym ‘NSFW’ (Not Safe For Work) in the title of the video, as these videos have a higher viewership on the website. These small details made the video seem more authentic and appeal to the brand’s target market.

Overall, the campaign was a hit for Tipp-Ex, as they were able to successfully increase brand awareness among their target market. In addition to this, it was viewed by 46 million people, shared 380,000 times on Twitter and Facebook, and reached 217 countries around the world. Most importantly, sales of Tipp-Ex increased by 30%. Not too bad for correction fluid.

Apart from turning their video into an experience for their audience, Tipp-Ex’s campaign was so successful because it was unexpected. Viewers didn’t see how the story was going to end, and they certainly didn’t expect to become a part of the video. It’s also unique in the sense that no other company in this product category has done anything like this before. Correction fluid is typically something that people don’t feel brand loyal to. They purchase it because they need it, but don't pay much attention to the brand name. By creating this simple and engaging video, Tipp-Ex was able to stand out from their competition and make themselves more memorable. 

While many brands attempt to advertise on YouTube, it takes something more than just an ad before a  video to grab a viewer’s attention. At the end of the day, advertisers have to create an experience for their audience. By engaging and allowing them to interact with their brand (virtually or not), they will become more recognized and (hopefully) more successful.

Source: http://adland.tv/commercials/tipp-ex-hunter-shoots-bear-case-study