In principal, it's a pretty simple campaign with not much potential and is almost a bit dull and samey...however, the campaign took an interesting twist...
We all remember Your Mama jokes from the playground... and it seemed the Twitter community found it hilarious to relive their youth and tweet Penguin with endless jokes, totally hijacking Penguin's lovely intentions with crude jokes.
So @PenguinUKBooks is using the hashtag #YourMum for their Mother's Day campaign. It's almost too easy. Much like #YourMum
— Dan Northcote-Smith (@D_NS) March 10, 2015
And then more brands jumped on the bandwagon!
Give #YourMum a break. Get the #pizza in tonight. pic.twitter.com/y0crdfeAwX
— Domino's Pizza UK (@Dominos_UK) March 9, 2015
@PenguinUKBooks You're braver than we are, Penguin.
— Waterstones (@Waterstones) March 9, 2015
However, despite the totally highjacking of the campaign- I actually believe Penguin did a great job and spread much faster than had the campaign not gone viral- even if the reason behind doing so wasn't their original intention. Everyone was talking about Penguin and it got the Twitter community talking about literature- a great result for Penguin in my opinion!
As much as I loved @PenguinUKBooks #YourMum, I think I would have gone with #WordToYourMother...
— Daisy Buchanan (@NotRollergirl) March 10, 2015
Penguin handled their response to the highjacking excellently, remaining calm, professional and taking it lightheartedly, which actually made some question whether that was their intention all along! I don't believe Penguin could have predicted that reaction, nor could anyone else. However, it is a lesson to brands in the future who need to be extremely careful when selecting hashtags and content which has the potential to go viral for the wrong reasons.
I think overall the campaign was great PR for the brand and has shown their personality slightly more than I have ever seen!
Steph
