Sponsored Tweets and ANOTHER bad example of PR

Saw a very interesting article on the Daily Mail website today which you can read here...
The article tells of an angry British Airways customer who has paid for a sponsored tweet in order to express his frustration of losing a bag on the airline:

The tweet below followed which details the impressions and coverage the original sponsored tweet received:

Final Stats pic.twitter.com/adNW4JMTAL
—  (@HVSVN) September 3, 2013

 Clearly his anger at the airline and his desire to gain some notice, sympathy and for the airline to resolve the issue must have been strong for him to pay $1000 for a sponsored tweet, yet the press coverage and extending twitter discussions lead to more than notice from BA.

As a big virgin fan which you may have noticed from previous posts- this thrills me as British Airways dirty tactics have been evident in the past. But reiterating what I have said a million times bad PR can be avoided with the RIGHT RESPONSE to customer complaints (evident in the bodyform blog post).

British Airways took 24 hours to reply to the tweet- and told @HVSVN to contact them through private messaging. Have they not learnt from Tesco's mistake? Instant responses can avert disaster! Clearly the situation did get out of hand and has erupted to world wide media....

With simple planning in place alongside a dedicated customer service social media team who operate constantly- this could have been avoided. Clearly- with the negative publicity of an organisation, the competition steps in, see this tweet from the CMO of Marketing at JetBlue:

Interesting; a disgruntled customer is buying a promoted tweet slamming a brand where they had a bad experience. That's a new trend itself!
— Marty St. George (@martysg) September 3, 2013

 @HVSVN has clearly caused a world of marketing and social media experts to question their own PR strategy and rethink the use of sponsored tweets!

On the other hand-  a fantastic use of PR from my old favourite Virgin Atlantic- when a similar complaint from an airline customer arised in the form of a letter complaining about the food on board which you can read here, Richard Branson the CEO of Virgin actually rang the customer and offered for the customer to come and help design the new menu onboard!

Take note British Airways!!

Clearly the press/customers are going to make a comparison and in the tough world it is as much about how you deal with the aftermath of bad customer service as much as delivering good customer service in the first place.

Steph

Miley's negative publicity

Andrew Loog Oldham said, "there is no such thing as bad publicity" when he was manager of the Rolling Stones in the 60's. He positioned and promoted a "bad boy" image for The Rolling Stones which opposed the clean cut band from Liverpool; The Beatles. His positioning and brand image generated world wide printed headlines such as, "Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?" The brand has clearly stood the test of time- which poses the question, is bad publicity one of the most clever tactics a marketer can use?

If you haven't seen/heard/received some form of buzz around Miley Cyrus' antics this week- then where have you been? Literally EVERYONE has been talking about her music video/VMA performance. If not then you can read all the drama HERE....

Jonah Berger posted a very interesting Linkedin post on why this may be Miley Cyrus' best career move yet and I totally agree. You may or may not have read my post on Sankeys Manchester and their rejection of Justin Bieber which lead to an uproar in the press....(if not go ahead and read ;-)) well this carries the same theory.

If Miley had just relaunched herself as an 'adult star' with the same attitudes and personality she carried in her Hannah Montana days- then I guarantee there wouldn't be the hype that there is regarding her music, the video wouldn't have had over 175 million views and I wouldn't be writing this blog post!

What I'm getting at- is that whilst people may be saying she's gone mad or she's ruined her career, the fact is- the vast majority of them will watch her music videos, download her tracks and watch her TV appearances.

 “There is only one thing in life that is worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

Oscar Wilde