Significant seven: Social media controversies

Over the next few days, we are publishing highlights from this year’s Mumbrella Annual.

1. #QantasLuxury
A good idea in theory: ask your customers to tweet about their favorite luxury Qantas experience for a prize. But after a year of mechanical difficulties, union strikes and an entire fleet grounded, the timing was less than ideal. Tweeters used #QantasLuxury as a platform to shoot the airline down.

2. GaspFail
Retailer Gasp sent a very rude emailed response to a customer complaint, which went viral. Gasp was later caught astroturfing. The same comment was written beneath stories about Gasp on a few websites, defending its outrageous email as “pure genius”.

3. Louie the lie
When Mortein announced that it was going to kill off brand mascot Louie the Fly it looked like a hoax from the start. Mortein later said that Louie might be spared, due to the public outcry. Bizarrely, social media is still buzzing with people begging Mortein to save him. With a Save Louie the Fly tour about to hit the road, there’s life in the stunt yet.