At the
International Search Summit a couple of weeks ago, the post lunch session was all about online marketing howlers. The brief for the panel was to tell stories where companies had got their digital strategies outrageously wrong, and demonstrate the dismal consequences for business owners if they didn’t take online seriously.
In the first of a series, Dixon Jones from Receptional told the story about how in 2006, Wal-Mart came unstuck when it was revealed they’d employed the PR firm Endelman to contribute to employee blogs.
“Working Families for Wal-mart” & “Wal-Marting Across America” were both not quite what they seemed, and when the blogosphere found out Endelman issued a statement:
They said they wanted to acknowledge their “error in not being transparent about identity of the two bloggers from the outset.”
“Our commitment is to openness and engagement because trust is not negotiable...”
The moral of this story is: Yes! Web 2.0 can help you engage with audiences and get your message across like never before. But be dishonest, fake and too-good-to-be-true and you will take more time clearing up the mess than you ever allocated to the project in the first place!
