Lessons for brands sucked into the News of the World Twitter boycott
In this guest post, Mediacom’s Nic Hodges observes the Twitter blowtorch turned onto brands advertising with the News of the World
What a day to be in London. James Murdoch’s announcement that after 168 years, this Sunday’s News of the World will be the last ever has ricocheted around the internet faster than a fake celebrity death. And if you’re an advertiser in any category in any country, there is a lesson to be learned from today.
Already the twittersphere is buzzing with retweets of retweets pointing out that The Sun will simply take up where News of the World left off. There is uproar about Murdoch taking “the nuclear option”. I have been steadily watching a stream of tweets and Facebook posts flow past calling for the boycotting of advertisers, calling for heads to roll, and spreading each breaking piece of this story around the world faster than Rupert Murdoch could ever have dreamed even a few years ago.
I could now go on about how in the year of the Twitter Revolution(TM), this is not at all surprising. How a small but significant chunk of a great media empire has been brought down by the heaving masses of this “new” social media.
But that’s not really true. Yes, the news did spread faster than we could ever conceive in a world before Twitter. But the seriousness of the allegations against News of the World are such that there was no social media revolution required here.
The lesson for any brand and every marketer today, is that social media is clearly no longer an optional extra. Social networks, in whatever form they take, are now the rivers through which our information flows. No brand is an island, and no brand is immune to the huge financial fallout from the stories and events that take the digital social world by storm.
Early this morning reports of brands pulling ads from News of the World were being replaced by reports of brands that weren’t. That’s social media dynamite right there – allowing people to convey their righteousness in 140 characters by proclaiming theiroutrage at these terrible, terrible brands.
By midday Tesco had been singled out, and the Twitter Revolution(TM) was on. At one count there was a tweet containing “#NOTW” and “Tesco” rolling by every 6 seconds.
And their Twitter profile? @UKTesco were politely informing @benhuson that they would refund the cost of his parsnips. Oh and there was a link to a dead Facebook post for “our latest update on News of the World queries”.
A few hours later, the idea of filling trolleys with groceries at Tesco on Sunday and leaving them abandoned in the store with a copy of News of the World on top was quickly making it’s way around Twitter and Facebook. This wasn’t just a boycott. This had the essential ingredient of a viral campaign – a good idea. And from Tesco? Still nothing.
But wait a minute. I’m being a bit extreme aren’t I? The allegations against News of the World are just that, allegations. You can’t pull millions of dollars of advertising on the back of allegations? A former assistant editor of the paper was reported as saying the paper is being “damned without full trial”. As correct as his point may be, the reality is that logical argument doesn’t always align with what the social masses think, feel, and spread. What the social mob says, goes.
Some brands were getting it right. O2 pulled their ads, and immediately tweeted a link to their statement. Three followed suit shortly after.
Virgin demonstrated why acting like a human and not a brand-robot is so important in social media, with the following: “NOTW has already printed & sealed an insert for their mag & have told us it cannot be changed, but there will be no more after this.”
Today has shown that it’s just not possible for brands to get away without a social media strategy. Even if you don’t plan on setting up a dedicated social media team to update four different sites twelve times a day, knowing how to respond and more importantly knowing how to be agile is absolutely critical.
If I’d walked in to Tesco’s marketing team a few years back and told them that they could potentially lose hundreds of millions of pounds due to a boycott organised through social media they’d tell me I was crazy. (At 10.30am, Tesco UK’s share price had dropped 2.8p, shedding around US$357M. As focus moved off them and on to Murdoch’s announcement, the share price returned to its opening mark.)
If I told them it would happen in the space of a few hours, they’d tell me I was a nutter. If I told them it was all because a newspaper hacked some mobile phones, they’d call security.
This is the nature of today’s media environment. It isn’t always logical, it isn’t always fair. And if you’re not prepared for the worst, the impact is very real.
Nic Hodges, is Head of Innovation and Technology at Mediacom Australia
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I think all print news media is utterly useless.
During last week the ONLY way I could get uptodate human level information about extreme weather in Blackheath NSW (where my daughter lives) was via somebody (Callan you’re a star) charging their phone/laptop in their car and tweeting. I am in the UK. He then set up an ‘instant’ news page for the families of the locals who were all sequestered under piles of duvets in their dark cold powerless homes unable to make contact. The news people just don’t cover the ‘further” news at the intimate level required, only interested in the bashed train then off. Imagine the joy when news came through that the fish and chip shop had it’s generator going.
It’s local news for local people throughout the world.
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Social Media is a very real alternative to the thousands of conversations that are happening down your local pub the World over. Brands need to start listening and understand that the alphabet arranged in 140 characters is a very powerful voice, petitioning to be heard. A brand that listens makes better friends.
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Great read Nic. Tesco will be yet another social media case study for brands that illustrates you need to be monitoring the social media space and have strategies in place to respond and deal with crisis situations. #NOTW is a tipping point not only for tabloid media practices but for the power of social media opinion to influence and have an impact.
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Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..another twitter story out of nothing. In true tabloid journalism you conveniently omitted the fact that Tesco share price finished up 1% on Friday a twitter revolution – wake up more like a croc of ….. the social mediaretti should focus on driving some revenue to businesses as opposed to keep on banging on about it being the biggest thing. Usually the more you keep banging on about how important something it is, the more it devalues its actual value.
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News has been brought down by the illegal behaviour of its employees that has come to light not because of social media but due to a Scotland Yard investigation on the back of new information they have received (from channels other than social media).
The media and political firestorm that has followed has been generated off the back of this. Not due to people tweeting.
If anything this may be an example of how social media can cry wolf if every time a brand is associated with another one that is being covered in a negative light the cry ‘boycott’ goes up. If this is the case then very soon such cries will fall on deaf ears as people tire of melodrama very quickly.
Based on Fraser’s summation it seems to me that Tescos has not been negatively impacted. If it were then it will be for a fleeting second.
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Two years ago I attended a conference where a presenter on social media made the bold statement ‘that within a decade there will be no ‘bad’ businesses!’. Social media, as Alexa says, gives credence and power to conversations. Marketing has shifted from being institutionalized to being very personalised. Reputation is now the buzz word and the ‘tribes’ on social media will make their voices heard if they don’t like your reputation. Murdoch has created an empire that encourages people to step over the line for the sake of a headline and the sake of his bottom line. It is just one of many empires that will tumble in the next few years as ordinary folk begin telling the world what they think, and simply say ‘I am angry and I am not going to take it anymore!’
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“And if you’re not prepared for the worst, the impact is very real”
Rubbish.
As Fraser says, Tesco wasn’t prepared and yet the impact has been nothing. In fact, the share price is doing fine and finished up on the day of the Twitter “boycott.”
This is another storm in a Twitter teacup, talked up by social media vested interests
A few hundred self-important 20 year olds bleating about a company with tens of millions of customers won’t make a crumb of difference . As Rob N says, this kind of juvenile reaction will soon fall on deaf ears as sensible people tire of melodrama very quickly.
Ironically, in all the discussion of how much damage brands sustain from Twitter you rarely read about how much damage the Twitter brand is sustaining due to the lynch mob mentality that it encourages, where the facts are secondary, injustice is common and mistakes are frequent.
Social media evangelists (and it does have all the hallmarks of a religion) should focus on proving the economic value of what is a very low-leverage, low value communications medium when compared with media relations and other forms of PR.
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Newspapers are great for getting my log fire started every night. I find the SMH burns best.
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@ Rob N – agreed.
Whilst I do agree with Nick: brands have to stay alert and react in real time to social media and, no doubt, Virgin did themselves a favour by being so quick.
The interesting part of this is: the whole firestorm was not caused by social media at all. The traditional media, The Guardian, vigorously pursued this and reported on it long after the original investigation had finished. There was no social movement behind this.
The whole saga has been played out on traditional media – The Guardian, other newspapers plus TV shows and interviews.
The role of social media has been confined to sharing and tweeting links to traditional media.
No bloggers but real journalists working for traditional media went out and about to ask the questions that needed to be asked.
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The initial investigation and further knock-on’s didn’t have the proper outcome before because the investigators are all part of the corruption cycle. When people on the outside of that sector, became an ad hoc social group of twitters & bloggers. . that was when something happened. Hopefully the greater ‘other’ of ordinary folk will continue to be provocative. Bring it on!
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I just had a quick look at the Tesco share price. It looks as though this is higher than a week ago and a week ago it was higher than the week before. I welcome you now to walk into the Tesco marketing team and claim that what is going on with News is anything other than a criminal investigation that has been driven as Anonymous said it had. I reckon they would think you were a nutter.
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jean cave – did you also realise that the US government was also responsible for the Sept 11 attacks?
i do look forward to the day when the dumb old news media is dead and i can get all my news from Twitter and Facebook
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@Jean Cave
You’re utterly wrong – “an ad hoc social group of twitters & bloggers” did not cause anything to happen here.
It was The Guardian doggedly investigating and reporting it over the last 3 months.
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I reiterate that no corrections were made when the corrupt core was twice/threetimes investigated previously. It was only when those outside that circle of corruption, which possibly includes The Guardian got onto it that justice started to be done. I am not claiming that the ad hoc mob were responsible, just that their interest in it provoked a broader concern. I should desist from writing comments on the hoof perhaps.
However I still think news printed on paper has had it’s day and a lot of salient information is witheld.
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