Comments on: Naked: The numbers prove we were right to do the Witchery jacket hoax

By: Ambron

Ambron — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:32:51 +0000

Another thing – don’t you want the ‘conversation’ to be about your product and not about how bad your campaign was to have any kind of impact on sales in the long run?

By: Ambron

Ambron — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:30:22 +0000

The agency trying their hardest to tell the CEO “on no this is good see look at the ‘numbers’ bla bla” The reason why lots of people have seen it is because it was in pathetic (people like to cringe) and nothing else. Witchery looks silly for dabbling in this social media thing and trusting people who weren’t the experts.

By: EXCLUSIVE: “Despite Naked’s survey, their Witchery campaign was a social media failure” at mUmBRELLA

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 07:42:48 +0000

[...] can reveal that Australian-based Streamwall will publish statistics that question a Naked-commissioned survey which the agency said showed their controversial campaign was a social media [...]

By: The Viral Strategy « Shootstreet’s Blog

The Viral Strategy « Shootstreet’s Blog — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:29:45 +0000

[...] are you my man in the jacket – Naked Communication – Naked respond to criticism [...]

By: TODAY’S PAPERS: Myer’s mega spend; is Naked lying again?; Haymarket treads water; Today Tonight offended by bad journalism at mUmBRELLA

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:25:19 +0000

[...] Naked Communications has lied again over the girl in the jacket video, reports the paper. Citing Mumbrella’s interview with CEO Mat Baxter last week in which he categorically denied that the agency played any part in the press finding out [...]

By: Tim Burrowes - Mumbrella

Tim Burrowes - Mumbrella — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:27:55 +0000

Hi Ben,

They used a research firm called edentify. The sample was 1000, and it was an online survey.

Cheers,

Tim

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 07:14:08 +0000

client sounds happy – win.

naked again getting press and showing their point of difference – win.

standing out in a sea of vanilla is vital in this day and age.

only question is who did the survey that baxter is quoting … getting 1000 people in a sample and asking them questions that detailed so soon after it all happened … it normally takes weeks to get a sample that size unless you go to an existing panel like pureprofile …

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 07:13:37 +0000

client sounds happy – win.

naked again getting press and showing their point of difference – win.

standing out in a sea of vanilla is vital in this day and age.

By: Matt Granfield

Matt Granfield — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 04:42:17 +0000

35% of me thinks Witchery is cooler for trying something different, 23% of me thinks it’s interesting and 100% of me will think twice before trusting their, (or Naked’s) marketing communications again. The idea was unoriginal, they just got lucky by being stupid. Yawn.

By: Kev Johns

Kev Johns — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:04:10 +0000

Not sure if it’s kept anyone else entertained than all of us lot who crossed the campaign’s path for work reasons.
It’s not the sort of content you’d sit there and watch and think ‘wow’… quite the opposite in my opinion.
Also, the best online/viral content is good enough to transcend whether it was truth or lies.
It’s ‘apples & pears’ I know, but Air Force One, Ronaldinho and the crossbar, that’s the stuff that really goes viral and works hard for the brands. Fact or fiction.

By: Matthew Gain

Matthew Gain — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:52:57 +0000

I feel really torn on this. Having done a lot of work in social media my immediate reaction was to scream how wrong it was to try and dupe the audience, but I think this is a little different.

Sure the audience was duped, but by god it has kept us all entertained. It didn’t make falsehoods about the brand or product in question, it wasn’t pretending to be an independent endorsing the brand or product. It was simply the first part in a campaign that I am guessing would have become more overt and less interesting as the brand came to the forefront.

As has been stated above, the true worth will be whether this has a positive impact on sales. The CEO certainly seems happy, the focus groups seem pleased, it generated international awareness (I read about here in London), but are stunts like this a long term strategy?

In my mind Witchery will always have this hanging over its head and may struggle with trust in the online arena from now on – the process of building back that trust will likely be difficult.

By: Tony@TacticalTV

Tony@TacticalTV — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:28:43 +0000

One figure in the SMH article caught my eye. Naked and Witchery maintain that the campaign has been a roaring success with the consumer, with “only a quarter saying they had lost respect for the brand”.

Pardon?

25% of consumers losing respect for your brand is a good thing? If Witchery gave me the account I bet I could lose the respect of only 10% of consumers. Spare me!!!

By: tickled

tickled — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:39:39 +0000

The hyper-defensiveness is almost as shocking as the bold faced lie to the media. Sales will give us the answer. period.

By: Joel

Joel — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:29:17 +0000

Tickled, it’s funny you should use the examples of Britney Spears and Bill Clinton. Bill, who was impeached and then aquitted by the Senate – seems to be the case here, and left with a 65% approval rating. Britney Spears, who currently has a number 1 single in the States, and is as popular now as when she released her first album.

Research and numbers aside, which we can all argue until the cows come home, I do suspect a whole bunch of people would not have even been bothered rating the video, and it’s always the people who are the angriest will always scream loudest which gives us a distorted view of what popular opinion really is.

My point is, there’s examples of good and bad publicity; but at the end of the day; my feeling is it’s a storm in a tea cup. There’s been a hella lot of media and online publicity, talk and banter about Witchery (which even we are all part of) I suspect over time any bad feelings will be glossed over as much as Britney’s anatomy and Bill’s cigar.

Witchery has been cemented in the public domain infamously for a long time to come.

By: Paul Williams

Paul Williams — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:45:21 +0000

From what I recall of the original SMH story, the journo visited the cafe and spoke with the waiter, who ‘verified’ the story; and when ‘Heidi’ was asked outright on The Today Show if it was a hoax, she denied it – a barefaced lie on national television. How else should the media have checked facts?

It is not a clever campaign to pretend NOT to be a campaign and to simply lie about it when caught out too early.

I agree with the above points made by rlh. The industry analysis of this event has omitted comment on the deception upon which this campaign was developed. The story was false, the media were actively decieved as were the public.