From Crust Pizza to Crustgate in one tweet
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or every Old Spice using Twitter in brilliant ways, there’s another brand that uses it to fall flat on their arse, as Australia’s Crust Pizza has learned today with the birth of #crustgate.
@Crust_Pizza has been a committed tweeter for some time. They provided the food for Sydney’s Twestival and give away pizzas via Twitter every Friday.
Today it tweeted a link to a video: “Need a laugh? Hilarious compilation of female driver madness.”
Fair to say it didn’t go down well.
- gilmae: And @crust_pizza just smeared it’s own reputation amongst women. Congratulations.
- shonias @crust_pizza Yeah, ’cause it’s the lack of Y chromosome that causes bad driving…..
- DanielFisher @crust_pizza hmmmmm something NQR about that last tweet. I’m guessing you don’t have a female tweeting for you right now.
- redambition Seriously, @crust_pizza? The “female drivers” “comedy” video is not cool. Not cool at all.
- randomknits @crust_pizza suddenly you guys don’t seem so cool
- web_goddess RT @crust_pizza: Need a laugh? Hilarious compilation of female driver madness. http://ow.ly/2avpf // Sexism FAIL. Badly done, Crust.
- MetalheadMick This is gonna bite Crust in the ass #FAIL RT @crust_pizza: Need a laugh? Hilarious compilation of female driver madness http://ow.ly/2avpf
- Warlach @MetalheadMick @crust_pizza OK… yeah, that’s not great.
- tali3sin RT @crust_pizza: Need a laugh? Hilarious compilation of female driver madness. http://ow.ly/2avpf <- I won’t be entering Crust Pizza Friday.
- BluntNate LOL I get it @crust_pizza girls can’t drive, also black guys are good at soprts, jews are greedy and fags are all lisping limp-wrists right?
- Princess_Zo @Warlach @MetalheadMick really not good at all. Not sure what @crust_pizza were thinking.
- nlfharrison Laughing at @Crust_Pizza stabbing itself in the foot and people reacting accordingly with hostility
- Warlach Not going to lead a witchhunt, but am curious: will @crust_pizza’s tweet affect your buying habits? #CrustGate
- fifowood @Crust_Pizza Video is offensive to female drivers and SO tiresome. Personally, I have ace parking skillz that I’m proud of!
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couple of hours later came the apology: “Sorry guys, we apologise for the video and meant no offense to drivers, female or otherwise. Lesson learned and thanks for the feedback.”
Fair to say though that not everybody agrees that #crustgate is a full-blown scandal. PHD’s @JoelyRighteous has created a special handy tool kit offering help in getting over it.
i’m more offended by the fact that i’ve just ended up listening to Crazy Frog again :`(
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correction, song is “The Hamsterdance Song”. turns out I did a better job of wiping that from memory than first thought.
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People seem to have rather quickly jumped on a marginally un-PC comment, but Crust’s quick and frank response demonstrates that they do, in fact, have their act together.
The real problem here is the tiresome retweet-baiting going on every time this happens.
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Blown way out of proportion, people really need to lighten up.
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Oh FFS! Welcome to the world of political correctness gone mad, totally out of control. Let’s banish all opinions and sense of humour. Let’s use the power of the crowd to smack down anyone who expresses any thought we disagree with.
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Maybe Crust should give all their female followers free pizza for a year? #justsayin
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Agree with 3, 4 and 5.
What also doesn’t help are these “Social media experts” jumping on the bandwagon for a one sided uniformed witch hunt in order to gain tweets, “expertise” and followers. Parallels Today Tonight / ACA practices if you ask me.
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There are things like sexual harassment and bullying that are serious and wrong.
Even in the workplace though, there are times when we do more minor “silly” things which in hindsight you probably wouldn’t repeat. I think this is one of those times and that everyone should lighten up a bit.
We are human. We all make mistakes. No one was seriously injured.
Crust are doing a great job engaging with people and showing the human side to the brand which like I said, will not always be perfect. Embrace the imperfection I say!
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I hope their ingredients are fresher than their content – Uploaded 30/09/2009. Who hasn’t seen this before? I even think TopGear (UK) payed it a while go.
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Twitter’s marketing if done right tends to bring a brand / company out of the shell of being overly concerned with being “on-brand” all the time. Being “on-brand” is all well and good but that also tends to remove the human quality out of the type of messages they put out because let’s face it – it’s a extremely prescriptive way of communicating and that’s kind of the opposite of being authentic.
My thoughts are that it’s good to make a few mistakes on social media, take the backlash, respond and make it obvious that you’re listening and learning from your community. Handling that way will make the brand more human / interesting and yes – imperfect! But overall people will resonate a lot more with the brand – because yes, aren’t we all imperfect!
So, it’s it a mistake to make one? Or is it better to huddle under the cover of our polished branding guidelines to avoid making a mistake at all costs?
@Crust_pizza have the potential of coming out of this one even stronger.
( BTW Just wrote this one here: http://amnesiablog.wordpress.c.....pizza-fail )
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Thanks for the link Tim.
I just want to help these Social Media kids through what is obviously a very traumatic event for them.
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@Jahn those bloody Social media gurus are at it again – hunt ’em down, burn ’em on the stake !!
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This isn’t newsworthy.
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Good pizza but
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Make mistakes on Twitter, fine. But pushing bigotry as ‘all part of the brand’ seems less than ideal.
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All this fuss has made me really want a crust pizza….
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Sunny, I think I mean’t it’s all part of being human not “all part of the brand”. My 13 month old girl has just started walking – she falls over a lot but is mighty insistent on getting up and trying again – she just really really wants to walk.
Occasionally campaigns fall on the ground too – it’s a very human quality. It’s in our geneitc make up – we can either curl into a little ball and wither away or let go, listen, learn and move on. What choice would you make?
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Hope no-one ever shares a video taking the piss out of blokes again, but if they do, they better make sure it’s got some decent tunes rather than that hampsterdance muck or I’ll be pissed.
I’m with Jack, laugh, disagree, move on.
Oh an Joel, love your work man!
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Lighten up!
The number of twitter users that seem to sit and wait to pounce on the slightest mistake seems to be on the up. Frankly, it is getting boring.
I would prefer Twitter to be source for entertainment than a soap box for every PC man (or woman) and their dog!
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I’m not sure what you’re saying here, David… That this is Crust’s fledgling attempt at a Mel Gibson rant?! Bless em, they’ve just got to keep trying!
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what really grates my cheese about this *ahem* “controversy” is how much it’s been sponsored with RTs from social media experts. Who have a vested interest in social media controversy, since it demonstrates the need for social media experts in the first place
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I believe, Jonathon it is a conspiracy rotten to the very core the social media fruit bowl. Crust is in on it. Mel Gibson is in on it. The church of Scientology has definitely got a stake (or should I say slice) in it too. And @Crust_pizza now were’s my free pizza!
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So what you’re saying jonathon, is that this kind of bullshit is just these social media retards sorry… experts, having a wank?
Interesting.
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So what’s the problem? There weren’t female drivers in those cars? Or is it that if you spin it, squint a bit and are determined to manufacture outrage you can make a case that Crust Pizza is mysogenistic? Fucking idiots. Lighten up. This is supposed to be Australia. The description is true, the content is funny. So it’s not politically correct? FUCK OFF!
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I wonder if it would caused the same reaction if it was male drivers?
Still, from a social media perspective, the initial tweet should of been worded significantly differently if posting a link to this particular piece of content was necessary. I know I can think of far more interesting pieces of media that are funny that are PC and not seen as “sexist”.
Crust pizza, I hope you have learnt your lesson, I forgive you, your only human after all…..
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Jess – wow I would be really upset if you were my HR person and you even tout yourself as the HR Club Sydney. Your lack of any understanding of how demeaning casual sexism must relate to your immaturity and inexperience. There there little Jessy I’m sure it’s a matter of time before you cop the kind of sexist treatment you think is so ok. Oh but you won’t think it’s sexist will you? Just drink the paternlistic koolaid and save it for the poor women who have to put up with you.
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Hmmm… perhaps in my old age I have become de-sensitised, hence why this tweet and video didn’t even cause a blip on my ‘OMG radar’?
(admittedly the music angered me however that had nothing to do with the subject of the video).
I’m curious… to those in the twitterscape and/or the above posters who took offence, can I inquire as to whether if any of you watch (let alone enjoy) shows such as South Park and Family Guy?
If you answered ‘yes’, explain to me why should Crust be deserving of such criticism? If you responded ‘no’, do you harbour the same condemnation for the television networks (SBS and 7) for having these shows in their line up?
For the record, I am a regular customer of Crust, and will continue to be for a long time to come.
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@HR Infraction – You’re honestly comparing that youtube clip to being sexually harassed in the workplace?
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@HR Infraction
casual sexism: bad
being a patronising chachbag: perfectly fine
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Is that Michael Logos???? you wanker!!!!
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@HR Infraction
wow. issues. so many issues. none of which really are relevant to this discussion.
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Hi there HR Infraction,
Wow indeed. While I appreciate and encourage feedback on things I do or say I found your comments to be excessive and quite frankly an unnecessary personal attack.
HR is a tough job and a balancing act. It’s about managing diverse human beings in the work environment and trying to get them all to work together to achieve objectives. Often there are no hard and fast rules about how to deal with sensitive situations in the workplace, which is why it is great to start discussion and get different opinions.
I like to weigh into different industry debates and in an industry such as media where HR is often scarce- it would be great if you gave feedback in a less personal fashion.
As the current HR Rising Star of the Year as announced by the Australian Human Resources Institute, the creator of the largest HR network in Sydney and a Gen Y HR Manager in professional services- I would hope that I am not completely clueless about HR.
Happy for people to disagree with me and give feedback, but like I said your comments were just an excuse to slag someone off.
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That was a funny video: what’s the big deal.
(it would have been just as funny be it men or women driving)
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Casual sexism doesn’t exist in a vacuum – it reinforces sexist views that can be perpetrated in other situations, whether it be the workplace or personal relationships.
I don’t think anyone could argue that the video is not sexist, irrespective of the fact women are in fact driving. So essentially what you’re saying is: ‘lighten up, it’s sexist but hey, it’s funny!’
Awesome excuse! I’ll remember that next time someone makes a sexist joke to me or in front of me. If you think it’s funny so be it, but don’t criticise those who genuinely care about equality, no matter how ‘minor’ or trivial it may seem to you.
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