Carat claims responsibility for Virgin Australia tweet to Kanye West telling him ‘eat a dick’
Media agency Carat has claimed responsibility for a tweet posted on behalf of Virgin Australia which ordered hip hop artist Kanye West to “EAD (eat a dick), you douche.”
The move comes almost 24 hours after the tweet was accidentally sent by what is thought to a junior staffer, who was handling the social media on behalf of the major airline brand.
This afternoon, Australia’s second largest media agency, Carat tweeted: “Carat Australia apologises for a recent Tweet that we mistakenly posted on Virgin Australia’s account. We regret any damage possibly caused.”
The admission of responsibility comes after the social media snafu garnered both local and international media attention being picked up by the likes of news.com.au, smh.com.au and US sites like HollywoodGossip.com.
Some media outlets had claimed incorrectly that the Virgin Australia Twitter account had been “hacked”.
The original offending tweet – posted from the Virgin Airlines account, which has 240,000 followers – directed hip hop singer, Kanye West to “EAD (eat a dick) you douche”.
The tweet was quickly deleted, with Virgin Australia tweeting: A recent tweet on our account was not published by a Virgin Australia employee and we are investigating the matter.”
“We apologise for any offence caused.”
Rather than cause outrage on social media many users were supportive of the confrontational tweet and joked about it.
A spokesperson for Carat told Mumbrella: “we are reviewing the appropriate disciplinary action to take against the parties involved”.
RELATED: How to avoid insulting Kanye West from your brand’s account
Nic Christensen
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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Disciplinary action? How about a promotion and a raise!
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Who needs speed humps when interns under the bus wheels will do?
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what happened to creativity in excuses?? “a junior staffer/intern has gone rogue” bla bla bla.
it was funny. the staffer in question’s opinion of Yeezy is shared by millions. Nothing to see here. A quick giggle and off we go.
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Feel sorry for whoever sent that out.
I suspect they meant to post it on their personal account and failed to notice they were still logged into the client’s account.
For those higher up at Carat and Virgin Mobile. Please consider the nature of this mistake and that it’s a very easy one to make.
Take that into account when you decide what will happen to the staffer’s career.
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Much respect Virgin Australia. Inadvertent or otherwise, I like how you are prepared to take on the celeb names, whether its Kanye for being Kanye, or Russell Crowe and his hoverboards. Keep up the good work!
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Carat. Not skilled in social. But who doesn’t share that opinion of Kanye?
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Classic how the focus is on “EAD” – whereas calling him a “douche” passes under the radar.
Mind you, he IS.
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‘Mistakes’ can happen when you’re insanely overworked and constantly worried about how you’re going to pay your bills on that entry level wage they’ve kept you on for three years…
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ouch
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Give the kid a corner office. Cause he is like an artist and Zuckaburg should spill $1b into his tab account, yous kno to show the world love. Love your work Virgin, not your buckpassing.
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Truth in advertising right there: Kanye is a douche.
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Two really key points:
1) I will still fly Virgin Australia more often now regardless. Great post.
2) Why the hell would you claim a junior staffer was the last stop on handling such an important client’s social channels? Ridiculous. Have you not learned? How many times will we see this?
Better to say the key person F’d up and you have fixed the process..
Unless it was a junior, then it might be time to fire the agency from these duties. No, it is time.
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Yawn
People who use airlines just want to get from A to B and occasionally C.
Safely.
In one piece.
With their luggage.
They don’t give a %$%$#@ about minor celeb twits aka tweets and what have you,
These marketing experts are way out of their league and out of touch with the paying plebs,
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Minor quip by junior staffer betrays the fact that media agency has laughably poor practice in place when it comes to managing clients social comms (ie no personal accounts held on same devices used for brands), and clearly no social media management/workflow/approval tool – these cost as much per month as a round of beers.
To be fair, Facebook and Twitter have only be round the better part of a decade, so I’m sure the guys plan on getting on to it very soon.
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I’m with Bill Gates (above) and others. Carat and any other media buying agency for that matter need to stay away from social and any other PR or content program. This is not your craft. Stick to your knitting and stop trying to be all things to all people.
As for throwing a junior under the bus – disgraceful. As for allowing a junior to run an account like Virgin – well, hope the profit margins have been worth it.
And as others have said – hat tip to Virgin!
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A personal account? Serious?
This is a prime example when the process around social media are broken. There should be just no way this should have happened as described. If the unfortunate staffer was using their own personal account for managing a corporate social channel this a school boy error by the agency Carat. Management of key social channels using appropriate governance process, technology is entirely achievable in 2016! Good tweet though KW free mention zone.
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Whilst i agree that throwing a junior under the bus is unacceptable, how do we know that that resource is all the client wished to pay for? Clients are increasingly looking for ways and means to cost cut and unfortunately that means that often, juniors are placed on accounts with elevated responsibility
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1/ Virgin has a junior running a prestige (high commission??) account. So kama with the inappropriate “non-corporate” tweet.
2/ Juniors get to run big client accounts because management believe they are the “tech gen” and it is now legislated that older, wiser, greyer heads cant operate the interwebs. So karma again.
3/ Junior seems to actually have his/her (but I’m going with his, given its a dick jibe)… antenna correctly tuned to a global and widely held view of Kanye…
4/ Junior deserves to be “thrown under the bus” because the “tech gen” KNOWS and has ALREADY learnt from personal experience how to blow themselves up on social.
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Ever heard the business mantra, you can have two of the following three things?
Speed
Quality
Price
I suspect that given most media agencies seem to want all 3 at once, its no surprise that mistakes like this get made, particularly by junior staffers.
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Intentional for sure!
“a junior staffer…”…”social media”…”major airline brand”…what could possibly go wrong?
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What a fortunate accident this was for Virgin….. a handy bit of publicity for Carat in claiming it too….. .
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Why can’t a brand like Virgin have a bit of personality in its social media presence? I think Richard Branson would tell Kanye the same
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Given @caratAUNZ didn’t actually tag @virginaustralia I’d suggest they arnt that keen for the people who saw the original post to see their apology tweet. it’s clear they know how @ tagging works. Ask Kanye.
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Oh Virgin, you used to be fun! Mistakes happen! Own it
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Steady on – in 2016, a professional social media producer or community manager, no matter how junior, should simply NOT be using any kind of personal device, account, app or whatever to manage their employer’s publishing. Double demerits for them being with an agency who’s job is to run other organisations’ account and add value, not giving their staff the right equipment and policies.
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Surprisingly…. this is the best global media coverage Carat have provided Virgin. And it all seems to be quite positive.
And, if its true, it all appears to by-pass the standard processes… Says something about how few agency staff we really need if we have a great idea!
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While it’s clearly not something that most brands and agencies would want to become a regular thing, it is fortunate for Virgin that they are one of the few brands that can get away with something like this.
Lots of publicity, lots of positive response, so just let it go (this time at least). I’m sure whoever is responsible has experienced a pretty sick feeling over the past couple of days and has hopefully learnt their lesson.
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I love how professional people (like this 65 year old (junior, as if!)) still use sexual acts as insults.
I guess that’s how WW1 started. “Your mother’s a slut!”, or similarly, how the October Revolution happened in Petrograd.
See, its not just immature minded professionals that think like this (sorry to explain the obvious, my bad), but every world leader always states these facts during tense negotations.
They also know that must tell their bi-lateral trade negotiating partner that they know about their:
• sexual orientation; and that it is wrong, and must be announced as such
• mother and how she manages her sexual relations,
all done with a snigger or smile.
We act as if emotionally-restricted kidults of the male kind do this, or bogans, but no wonder the TPP talks took so long to get through. 5 years of insults about mothers, bitches and sluts! Stenographers working overtime!!!
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Best campaign ever
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Has anyone considered it wasn’t a junior, but it is easier to blame “non-de script junior staffer”
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Virgin could get away with this. It’s great when brands have a distinct personality and a real point of view on social media. So many are so homogenous now. Why not make a thing out of the gaffe (Like Chevy did with “Technology and Stuff”) and call out celebrity douches? Get some attitude back in the brand.
Also hate it when juniors are blamed. It’s not their fault. If your company doesn’t have proper processes in place, it’s YOUR fault.
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There’s an inevitability that happens to Virgins.
It just did. Try to enjoy it.
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I am just waiting at the airport now for a work flight and I hear a bunch of Virgin Australia staff talking about how this was so funny. So I guess the client was not that mad. They were all saying “Apparently it was someone who was doing out advertising”.
Though really why is Carat not using correct social media management this is a rookie move, I wasn’t sure Carat even offered Social Media management as a key service.
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I thought it was refreshing to see a brand being so human – especially when its something that, deep down, we all were thinking but never said it.
I can only predict that some stuffy senior stakeholders at Virgin are going on about how this “damages their brand” and how this may impact their relationship with their customer base. I would rather, as a consumer, have a brand talk like a human being rather than some AI Rachael lookalike (from Bladerunner) as a Community Manager.
What really annoys me, both as a marketer and a consumer, when brands try and use social media and be “authentic” – remember this? https://mumbrella.com.au/twitters-lamest-brand-moment-of-2015-brought-to-you-by-the-spontaneous-and-authentic-marketers-of-westpac-and-airbnb-322471
Virgin, if you’re reading this (hope you are) then its about time you rethink your brand. You want to come across as personable with all your shiny imagery that you launched a few years back? How about a soul behind those pearly whites that I keep seeing being plastered on your creatives.
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