Murphy-Goode Wines Social Media Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong - Jim Louderback: MediaBizBlogger

Ed Martin39s full live coverage from the Television Critics Association tour is available exclusively to corporate subscribers of the Jack Myers Media Business Report For more information visit wwwmyersreportcomA few weeks ago I was seriously considering picking up a few cases of MurphyGoode wine Now I wouldn39t touch them with a ten foot poleAnd today many other internetconnected folks feel the same way I do It has nothing to do with vintage TCA or bottlerot Nope it39s due to social rot instead amp8211 and MurphyGoode39s tonedeaf marketing folks are to blameBack in June they had a clever idea to try to promote their wines to a younger internetsavvy audience quotLet39s do a starsearch for a new spokespersonquot they decided call them a quotlifestyle correspondentquot and use the power of the internet to select the winner build awareness buzz and good willApplicants were asked to post a video to YouTube explaining why they would make the best candidate MurphyGoode encouraged fans to vote on their favorites and the winery promised to first select 50 finalists and then bring the top ten up to Healdsburg for a final set of interviewsOver 2000 people applied and more than 900 videos applications were posted on YouTube Thousands of votes were cast with exTechTV and Revision3 host Martin Sargent the clear winner His submission received 6600 votes more than 3 times as many as the second place video and more votes than the next 4 or 5 candidates combinedBut when the winery finally announced their top 50 candidates Sargent was conspicuously absent from the listHis friends followers and fans were aghast How could the top vote getter amp8211 by a long shot amp8211 been squeezed out of the finalsAcross the web it quickly got ugly First Sargent39s fans started lambasting the MurphyGoode winery and then his influential friends picked up on the injustice Popular web host Leo Laporte told his 136000 listeners about the travesty as did Digg founder Kevin Rose 1061379 twitter followers Kevin followed that up by spending nearly 10 minutes talking about the issue with his cohost Alex Albrecht on the popular Revision3 show Diggnation The story ended up getting nearly 2400 Diggs on the popular social news site Diggcom amp8211 which was enough to put it into the top ten where it was seen by a significant fraction of the site39s 39 million monthly unique visitorsThere was more negative chatter around the internet a lot more And instead of improving the winery39s perception among internetsavvy drinkers the opposite appears to be true Search for quotMurphy Goodequot on Google and you39ll find two of the top ten results are negative stories about the failed campaign with headlines that say quotMurphyGoode39s job contest turns sourquot and quotMurphyGoode says 1 spot isn39t good enough to make top 50quot And nearly a third of the 122000 search results for Murphy Goode are in fact negative stories spawned by the Martin Sargent debacleSome of the more memorable stories include quotMurphyGoode Winery is run by dicksquot quotMurphyGoode has ROBBED Martin Sargentquot and quotCareful MurphyGoode Social Media Just Might Spit Wine in Your Facequot These obviously are not what the marketing department intended Nose around the web for Murphy Goode and you39ll likely run into one of these negative stories And if you39re part of the millions that follow Martin and his friends you39ll probably never buy a MurphyGoode wine againWhat happened How did such a promising campaign turn so ugly Here are my 5 lessons for how to keep your social media campaign from turning sourRespect the Wisdom of the Crowds If you39re going to solicit entries from the internet and then ask people to vote then you need to at least pretend to abide by their selection MurphyGoode built a framework that would have let them finesse this All they had to do was put the top ten vote getters into their top 50 Even if they had zero intention of ever giving Martin or the other nine a job they should have amp8211 at a minimum amp8211 given them some recognition for winning the popular voteKnow Your Web Stars You may have never heard of Martin Sargent But he39s an extremely powerful web celebrity amp8211 both because of his own following and his influential friends If Jon Stewart Tom Brady or Britney Spears had entered or even Wine Spectator editor James Laube you can be sure they would have been treated with kid gloves Martin got snubbed and snubbing sucks But Martin was powerful enough to get a well deserved revengeMonitor Constantly While running a social media campaign keep a close eye on what the socialsphere is saying about your brand Use Twitter search tools Tweet Deck Trendrr backtype amp8211 among others amp8211 to keep track of how your campaign is doing And when you notice something going awryamp8230Fix it Fast As soon as quotMartinGatequot began to spread around the web MurphyGoode should have jumped in and fixed it Perhaps they could have added a 51st finalist to the list Or maybe they could have expanded the competition to end up with two winners a winery choice and a people39s choice Rapid action could have saved this campaign Even an apology and am quotI39m Sorryquot would have gone a long way to repairing the winery39s reputation Instead company representatives responded with lame platitudes like quotYou39re too famousquot and called Martin overqualified for the job That just served to fan the flames amp8211 particularly because one of the top ten finalists was Rachel Reenstra former Animal Planet and HGTV show hostDon39t be halfassed But here39s the biggest slap to the face of everyone who created watched voted and even paid attention to this online kerfuffle As the story got out it turned out that some of the candidates for the temporary position were actually sourced by recruiters who told them that quotthe online votes were relatively unimportantquot That39s the worst thing that ever could have gotten out Today39s engaged social network users are no less passionate than the millions of Iranians that flooded the street when their votes were ignored And they39re far more connected as well Be honest be authentic and be real MurphyGoode alas tried to pull a fast one But on the internet it39s extremely hard to be opaqueOh and if you39re looking for a creative engaged spokesperson who really knows how to take advantage of social media Martin Sargent is once again available And if he enters your next online campaign consider yourself warned He knows how to winJim Louderback joined Revision3 as the CEO in July 2007 He can be reached at jimrevision3comRead all Jimamp8217s MediaBizBlogger commentaries at Jim Louderback MediaBizBlogger

Become a Thought Leader.
Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

Murphy-Goode Wines Social Media Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong - Jim Louderback: MediaBizBlogger

Author

Publish date

Channel

Jim Louderback

“Mean” Joe Greene Coca-Cola Campaign Remains the Holy Grail of Super Bowl Ads - By Greg Licciardi

More Videos:

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

Murphy-Goode Wines Social Media Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong - Jim Louderback: MediaBizBlogger

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Jim Louderback

“Mean” Joe Greene Coca-Cola Campaign Remains the Holy Grail of Super Bowl Ads - By Greg Licciardi

The payment was successful

Cookies

Become a Thought Leader.
Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership