Random House calls in Zuni to assist with digital strategy weeks after Remembrance Day social media disaster

Two months after being caught in a media storm over an attempt to hijack the #LestWeForget hashtag, publisher Random House Australia has appointed an agency to assist with its digital strategy.

Zuni will help Random House with development of its digital strategy. According to an announcement from the agency: “Zuni will be working with them to assess their current activity and help develop strategies and innovation to take them ahead of their competition.”

In November, Random House apologised for a tweet offering discounts on war books which it published at 11am on Armistice Day to coincide with the minute’s silence to commemorate Australia’s fallen soldiers.

At the time, marketing and publicity officer Brett Osmond said the tweet had come from an internal team and said he would be discusing what tactics were appropriate. In today’s announcement he said: “We are very excited to be working with Zuni to examine, test and refine our plans to maximise the return on our efforts”.

 Osmond told Mumbrella the appointment was part of a “robust examination” of the company’s entire digital operations which included new training and other measures to ensure such incidents didn’t happen again. 

Zuni chief Mike Zeederberg said Zuni had not been bought on as a result of that incident, but confirmed part of their role was to develop strategies and structures to ensure such ad-hoc, on the fly Tweets and social media messages did not get posted.

Zuni has also announced other client wins including toy car maker Top Gear, the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Zuni launched in 2010.  Zeederberg said: “It’s exciting to start the year off with some amazing projects and clients, and our model of providing clients with top class digital strategy and planning across all digital areas, which can easily integrate with their existing production arrangements is appealing to a number of different businesses.”

Other clients include NRMA Motoring, Tourism Tasmania, Westfield, Moet Hennessy, ABC Music, Roche and Pfizer.