Strategically Communicating

So I recently read that the Taliban’s twitter account is now tweeting in English as of a few days ago and now has 3.000+ followers after a media report. The account, @alemarahweb, was created in December and had fewer than 1,000 followers as of Thursday. Most of their posts are exaggerated claims of attacking and killing NATO and U.S. troops and Afghan government personnel; however, if the tweets were believed, 81 “enemy” troops were killed since the feed began tweeting in English on Thursday,  and U.S. spy plane, and 23 vehicles, including five U.S. tanks, were also destroyed. For clarification, the military and news reports to not support anything approaching these claims.

What prompted the Taliban to started tweeting in English? For Americans to follow them? And why? Maybe I’m seeing the glass half empty but I can only think of negative reasons and possible consequences in the future for this…anyone else have thoughts?

This is an amazing example of Public Relations done RIGHT.

In late 2009, Domino’s Pizza launched a “Pizza Turnaround” campaign after hearing an abundance of negative feedback from customers. The campaign begun shortly after two Domino’s employees posted a YouTube video of themselves hating on their own company and declaring the terrible quality of the pizza. After hearing comments from customers via Twitter, Facebook, and Domino’s own website, Domino’s decided to listen to its customers and “reinvent” their pizza. They changed all of the ingredients of their pizzas, including the crust and tomato sauce. Patrick Doyle, President of Domino’s Pizza, stated, “There comes a time when you know you’ve got to make a change”. This is exactly what they did. Domino’s created a site, pizzaturnaround.com, which provides everyone with every detail of the new campaign. The site includes press releases, a live Twitter feed from fans, as well as a video documentary that showcases the campaign from beginning to end. Domino’s Pizza has now included Facebook and YouTube into their campaign, and they encourage customers to continue to post comments and provide feedback as to how they can improve the quality of pizza.

This “self-destruction” campaign was very chancy because Domino’s ran the risk of customers continuing to be dissatisfied with their pizza even after the massive change. Because there are so many pizza companies, each company must have its individuality. If Domino’s changes its pizza taste entirely, what sets it apart from everyone else?

Domino’s Pizza did an amazing job with this campaign. They went so above and beyond what they had to do, and it showed. They did an incredible job of listening to their customers and took it to the next level completely. What I loved about this campaign was that Domino’s completely reinvented their pizza just to satisfy their clients’ needs. Most companies who “listen” to criticism will only make little changes. The fact that Domino’s took these changes to the extreme proves that the company’s sole purpose is to have quality customer service.

Another great thing that this campaign accomplished was the use of many social media sites. Because of this strategy, Domino’s now has many more outlets for customers to give feedback, and the company is able to provide new information and marketing strategies from a different source.

One con that this campaign had, however, was that it still asked the question, “What if customers don’t like the NEW pizza?” Pizza companies can always change as many things as they want about their pizza, but the issue always remains the same as to whether or not customers will be satisfied with the new flavor.

Once PR practitioners understand the true meaning of LISTENING to their clients, they will succeed. Thank you, Domino’s Pizza.

The film “The Joneses” is one of my new favorite movies.  It is all about product placement, but not the way you would expect.  The main characters, the Jones ‘family’ is strategically placed in wealthy suburban areas to sell products to their neighbors, but the neighbors have no idea that they are being sold to.  The film is all about selling the idea of the American Dream through products, and how those products inspire happiness.  Pretty sneaky, huh?

We spent a lot of time in class on Thursday talking about new forms of non-invasive marketing.  The film’s idea of stealth marketing is the ultimate form of product placement.  The Joneses literally change people’s lives to include new products.  Obviously it is a film so everything doesn’t end up happily for everyone, and the whole thing sends a really strong message about materialism and how far people will go to ‘keep up with the Joneses”.  I seriously suggest watching it mainly because it is entertaining, but also because it speaks volumes about our society.

I’m sure most of us who were on Facebook earlier this week were perplexed when our Facebook page was bombarded with the “Nicole Santos” virus. The virus spread like wild fire and in a matter of minutes the comments had completely taken over my newsfeed. The comment, which was quite crude and disturbing, included “Vote For Nicole Santos” along with other profane words. The virus was quickly spread because people kept clicking “Remove this app”, which really allowed the script to access thousands of Facebook accounts, resulting in the spread of the ridiculous message throughout Facebook. This is an example of the quick way news now travels with the use of social media. Facebook took control of the issue in a matter of minutes, and the comments were immediately deleted from users walls in less than 30 minutes. However, regardless of how fast Facebook removed the virus, the news of it quickly spread throughout both Facebook and Twitter. “Nicole Santos” Facebook pages were immediately made, with thousands of users “liking” the pages within minutes. The news of the “Nicole Santos” virus spread to twitter with people tweeting “Who is Nicole Santos”, and it quickly became a trending topic. It amazes me that a virus that was only on Facebook for about half an hour, quickly became the topic of social media outrage and discussion.

Although this was a slightly comedic example of Facebook hacking and the spread of viruses because of the absurdity of the message, it made me realize that now I honestly enjoy using Twitter over Facebook for reasons likes this. I remember back when I stopped using Myspace because it started to get taken over with ridiculous viruses and comments from strangers advertising products and other odd links. In my opinion, if Facebook does not figure out these issues with hacking and viruses soon, it seems that more and more people will start to prefer Twitter to Facebook.

Over the past couple days there have been rumors spreading around the Silicon Valley accusing  Apple or Microsoft of  planting anti-Google messages in newspapers. The stories claimed that Google was invading people’s privacy, but revealed no source. However, this morning, The Daily Beast discovered that Facebook had in fact hired two PR reps from Burson-Marsteller firm to plant negative stories about Google, “claiming that its Social Circle feature violates privacy and FTC rules.”

As news leaked out that Burson was responsible for the “whisper-campaign,” which asked an influential blogger to write a Goggle-bashing story, USA Today quickly picked up the story and exposed its content. It turns out that instead of writing the story, the blogger declined and leaked the emails that Burson sent him to the press. Burson originally denied the accusations, but when Facebook confirmed their involvement to the campaign, Burson came out with the truth as well.

According to The Daily Beast, “Facebook spokesman last night confirmed that Facebook hired Burson, citing two reasons: First, because it believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, because Facebook resents Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social-networking service.” However, regardless the reasons for creating the campaign, both Facebook and Burson ended up looking like the fool, not Google.

The “war” between Facebook and Google is now made public, questioning the motives behind each search engine giant. But who will come out on top? In this case, I have to give Google a point for winning this smear campaign.