Online Reputation Management (ORM) is a fairly new concept, but a concept that’s incredibly important. I think we’ve all seen a situation where something happens and suddenly every person on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ and every blogger climbs on board and writes about the situation, before you know it, something that might have normally brushed over has suddenly become a trending topic, one that might cripple a company. ORM comes into play to manage situations like this, and hopefully stop them.
I saw a situation today where Durex South Africa sent out a tweet, which ended up offending a few people and within minutes it escalated and everyone was talking about it and Durex SA was faced with a horrible situation that required immediate damage control. The whole thing started off when @DurexSA sent out a tweet saying, “Why did God give men penises? So they’d have at least one way to shut a woman up. #DurexJoke“. Sure, they were joking around, but if you think about it, this is going to offend something!
@FeministsSA quickly jumped onto this and tweeted back at Durex SA, who responded in what I would say is the worst way they could, here’s the response, “@FeministsSA We have posted many jokes, see our timeline… And they not violent against woman! Re-read it!!!!!” – bad, bad, bad move. FeministsSA clearly didn’t take the response well at all and went on to write a long blog post about it; But, it didn’t stop there, everyone on Twitter stood behind FeministsSA and so the ball began to roll. Tons and tons of tweets went out against Durex SA and finally after a few hours Durex SA stood up and apologized, “We’re really sorry for causing offence today, not intentional. We believe in the rights of woman and safe sex. Thanks for putting us right.” A few hours!
I feel bad for Durex SA because I do see it as an honest mistake on their behalf, but the way in which they dealt with it was really not great, an immediate response apologizing to FeninistsSA might have controlled this situation a great deal better. I don’t excuse Durex SA at all as I think the tweet was uncalled for, but as an honest mistake, if only they had someone who understood Online Reputation Management, they might have avoided this whole situation.
So, what’s the moral of the story, I guess it’s two-fold:
- Hire someone who knows what they’re doing to run your Twitter account – Twitter seems easy and most people will be too proud or cheap to pay someone to manage their Twitter account, but it’s not that simple and if you have a brand that wants a Twitter following, then you need someone who knows where the line is – remember, you have to move quickly and close to the line to draw in new followers, but if you cross that line, there’s big trouble.
- Think before you tweet – Twitter is so accessible, from your mobile phone, from your laptop and even from some cars! It’s easy to just blurt out a tweet without thinking, we’ve probably all done it, but why not be the person who doesn’t make the mistake and who thinks before tweeting, a lot of brand damage can be avoided.
If you have any tips of advice about managing social media accounts, please feel free to leave them in the comments.
I thought the same, then I thought about how much attention they got. Also, I don’t think it was coincidence that this happened on the eve of the 16 days of activism against violence against women. Then, for the first time ever, I heard a Durex ad on the radio this morning advertising an upcoming event or something. Either all really coincidental, or flipping well planned. I rate that is some sneaky marketing.
I reckon James is right, some sneaking marketing!
See, the thing is, they decided to roll out a ton of jokes, that was their strategy, what they didn’t realise was that one of those jokes would offend someone – there’s no way they planned for this, just looking at their stream shows this. Secondly, the apology is clearly written by someone else, the tone is different, the amount of time it took to make the apology all shows that they had no idea that this was going to happen, it was definitely not a marketing ploy – even if it was, what a silly marketing ploy, marketing around the concept of woman abuse.. no chance.
I get your point of view and it makes sense, but I get the feeling that this was done deliberately and that they had underestimated the negative response! A huge faux pas this one and the public will not forgive or forget so easily.
IOL picked up on this blog post and covered it too: http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/technology/internet/careless-twittervert-a-big-flop-1.1186519
With quite a few of those jokes they were treading on a fine line! It was a funny joke but at the end of the day you can’t go around mentioning things like that in public, especially if you have a brand to protect!
I’ve been wanting to write a post about this all day, but I’ve run out of time and by the time I’d finish it would already be old news.
I feel that this might’ve been an honest mistake for a human, but not for a brand. It’s bullshit. I agree with you and say that DurexSA should be represented on social media by someone with proper experience. When they followed me a few weeks ago, I got excited, “finally a brand who could really do something great, and in a fun way touching on unique human intimacy, using social media” I thought.
Watching the tweets roll in, I was more and more disappointed. The account has got my back up for 3 reasons:
1. The bad grammar. Seriously, if you’re going to be represented online, make sure it’s done professionally, using professionals. There is no excuse for bad grammar, even if you’re trying to portray a hip tone of voice.
2. The jokes – is that really a strategy? Where are they going with it? What is the point? There’s so much more they could be doing!
3. I’ve read through the jokes and although in principal I hate to agree with feminists, I do see why they were offended. This joke in particular could’ve meant a number of things, but that’s the problem – was there no thought put into the repercussions of posting something as dumb as that? And if not, why not? Again – a professional content and channel strategy would’ve avoided this.
Overall, I feel that the PR issue was handled badly, the apology came across insincere, condescending and not in line with their current tone of voice immediately making me wonder who was actually in charge of the account, how severe the previous tweeter’s punishment was, and if this has taught the brand anything.
Having said all of that, I do understand why the apology took hours. From personal experience, I’ve learnt that if you do not have an ORM escalation process in place for these things, they take much longer to sort out. I can only imagine that the tweet had to be put into context with examples of the public reaction, sent on to the big wigs at Durex through a PR person for approval and only then back through the channels to get published.
It’s a disaster, really.
Sorry for the rant, needed to vent as this has been on my mind since yesterday ;)
“Durex respects and supports the rights of women and men to have a healthy, safe and fulfilling sex life. The statements that appeared on our South Africa Twitter feed yesterday were posted by our PR agency in South Africa – Euro RSCG. They were offensive and inappropriate and do not reflect the views of the Durex brand. We apologise unreservedly for the fact that this has happened and have already taken steps to ensure that this situation cannot arise again.”
Faisal Hashmi, Marketing Director
For further information: Bespoke Communications
Tel: + 27 11 280 6701/6639
Lisa van Hoogstraten: +27 83 448 6008
Jeanre Ruddy: +27 82 5570424
Debbie Valentini: +27 072 435 4849
SheBee, it’s great to have someone of your experience come in and share your opinion on the matter, as it’s an educated and experienced opinion, which is more than a lot of people who commented. It’s sort of like I said, Durex SA certainly didn’t want this to happen nor do I believe the joke was said to offend anyone, but it did and it escalated so darn quickly, as things do in social media. The apology came late, which I can understand and appreciate, the chains of command, the damage control meetings, etc do all take time. It’s a shame, I support South African companies, especially those who take on social media, so this situation saddens me. You mention grammar and I agree, and we’re not the only ones, Dave Duarte left a tweet as well, which stated, “Typographical are one of the top 10 things that erode credibility online http://credibility.stanford.edu/guidelines/ according to Stanford research.” and I do _believe_ he was referring to Durex SA and if he was, he (like you) is dead right.
I received press releases from Euro RSCG, “Advertising agency Euro RSCG has apologised to Durex SA and the public for the inappropriate and offensive comment posted yesterday by one of its employees on the Durex SA Twitter site.” so they’re aware of what they did and they’re taking action, which I can appreciate, but like I said on Twitter, Euro RSCG is acting like the morning after pill of social media.
Anyway, I feel sorry for Durex SA that they were made an example of, perhaps this is a great time for them to revisit who handles their account or at least adjust the way the account is handled and realise how important social media really is. I think this is something that everyone can learn from so that we can all avoid such a situation happening again.
What’s interesting to see is Durex SA’s growth of Twitter, still increasing rapidly – http://cl.ly/091j3j2g1m2Z1E3f3N06 – It’ll be interesting to look in a week or two from now and see if the trend continues, people say, “there’s no such thing as bad press” and this might prove that, which is good for Durex, but bad in general.