3 times social media proved to be unpredictable for brand campaigns

By Felicia Guthrie

There will be times when you get things right and, unfortunately, there will be times when you get it wrong when it comes to brand campaigns. Big brands are no exception to that. Sometimes you win and sometimes things are an epic fail. When it comes to social media, while brands make the final decision on what content is initially posted, there are a lot of unknowns when it comes to how customers and other social media users will respond.

Here are 3 times social media proved to be unpredictable for brand campaigns – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

THE APRIL FOOLS FAIL

Tarte Cosmetics

Every year on April 1st brands around the world talk about a new launch and, in most cases you wonder, “Is this an April Fool’s joke?” because it’s playful, outlandish, weird, or silly. Usually, it’ll get some fun feedback and laughs. However, sometimes, the joke might actually be on you. One brand, the cosmetic brand tarte, learned this the hard way.

On April Fool’s Day in 2018, tarte posted an image and announcement for their brand new “icy betch” eyeshadow palette (as seen below). This palette was a little different from their typical palette (bold instead of neutral) and featured gorgeous bold blue and green hues. People were excited that they changed things up, went crazy for the palette, and were ready to splash out some cash for it. Not only did this backfire because people actually wanted it, but people were also talking about how it was the most interesting thing tarte had come out with in a while... ouch.

They did eventually come out with their limited edition “icy betch” palette about a year later but it may have been a year too late. Other brands like ColourPop and Jeffree Star Cosmetics saw that people wanted monochromatic bold eyeshadow palettes and were already pumping out eyeshadow palettes with similar colour stories to the fake tarte palette. In addition to that, this release of the palette wasn’t even the same as the teased one; the shades were different, the design was different, and a lot of people online expressed liking the “fake” one more.

This is a perfect example of why you need to know your target audience, what they want, and why you shouldn’t be afraid to try something that’s a little out of the box for your brand.

WENDY’S WIN

In January 2017, Wendy’s social media team snapped back at an internet troll who insulted the brand and it was pretty sassy. It’s not every day that a brand can get away with giving a snappy reply, but people really loved the interaction – and they were dying for more. In fact, people loved their “clap backs” so much that they began begging Wendy’s to “roast” them and it even led to Wendy’s creating #NationalRoastDay. Who knew roasting someone could be good for your brand?

National Roast Day is now an annual Twitter event where users get the opportunity to be roasted by Wendy’s and it’s personally one of my favourite things a brand has done on social media.

This highlights how showing a bit of your personality can yield great results.

P.S. If you want to hear some of their roasts, they inspired countless reaction videos on Youtube that cover some of the funniest responses from Wendy’s.

BURGER KING’S BLUNDER

Sometimes a brand posts something and majorly misses the mark. Burger King UK did just that. For International Women’s Day 2021, Burger King wanted to spark a discussion about women chefs and empower women to pursue culinary careers. Sounds great, right? Yes... but the execution was terrible and that’s because they tweeted, “Women belong in the kitchen.” Yep, you read that right. And on International Women’s Day of all days. Yikes. (And yes, we’ve included the now deleted tweet below). They also took out an ad in the newspaper...

While the intention was good, their choice of phrases was awful – and unsurprisingly, they began getting backlash for the line. This is one of the times when you wonder, “How many people saw this and why did they think it was a good idea?” Now, while we aren’t surprised the tweet received backlash, it seems this wasn’t the response they predicted.

This is a great reminder to know your audience and run your campaigns by at least a few people.

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