Twitter’s lamest brand moment of 2015 – brought to you by the spontaneous and authentic marketers of Westpac and Airbnb
Sometimes brands really nail being spontaneous and authentic on Twitter.
At other times, they’re Westpac and Airbnb Australia.
Westpac began the not-at-all scripted exchange between the brands on Friday morning, with one of those tweets that absolutely isn’t simply intended to tap into a consumer insight about first home buyers.
And wouldn’t you know it? Within 20 minutes Airbnb’s social media manager, who of course had been monitoring the Westpac account, was hilariously joining in the conversation with an observation about dads prancing around in their undies. (Really? Is that a thing?)
Gosh. Brands collaborating. And just when everybody’s talking about how that’s the hot strategy of 2015. What a coincidence.
And back came Westpac for more. Along with a new, not-quite-understanding-how-it-works hashtag.
And of course, Airbnb was soon earnestly building on the entirely on-the-fly conversation.
Indeed. What can you do when you’ve just come up with a consumer insight, followed by a not entirely realistic problem.
Wait! You’te not going to believe this. The 22-year-old social media intern at Westpac has just had an idea.
And it’s an idea that will happen to tap into the consumer insight and might just solve that spurious problem…
Gosh. It’s funny you should ask, Westpac… What if there was a magical way of finding that spare space?
But who could possibly offer an answer? Could it be Airbnb? Could they actually – unbeknownst to Westpac – be in the business of room listings? Might they have space? They surely might.
Well, who’d have though it?
And just to show that the whole thing hasn’t been scripted by tools from the marketing department, let’s sign off with the ending from Casablanca. Only, in keeping with the off-the-cuff vibe. let’s mess up the quote. After all “promising relationship” is so much more poetic than “beautiful friendship”.
Astonishingly, the witnesses to this Twitter exchange were a tad cynical.
Try hard? But it’s so clever.
A terrible radio commercial? What with scripted fake problems and a trite solution? Ah…
Lacking in authenticity? But it’s as real as the unbiased advice you get from a Westpac financial adviser. Probably evil? Let’s not rule it out.
And does the marketing manager really suck? Only Twitter can decide.
Should the two brands launch an offer in the coming days for first home buyers to put up their families with Airbnb hosts, we can be sure it all came out of that genuine Twitter conversation, and wasn’t a marketing campaign all along.
(Hat-tip: Leslie Nassar)
I’m shocked – shocked! – that brands might plan their communications activity in advance and then execute that plan. It’s *almost* as nutty a notion as a website putting on a conference and then writing about what happens at that conference as news! Crikey, I wish it was the 1950s again.
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The twist is that this story is also paid for by Airbnb and westpac
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Hi Alex,
If your email address supplied is correct your agency would have been involved in this one right?
Cheers,
Alex, editor, Mumbrella
Hi Alex,
Actually not sure if we were, it’s a separate team from mine. Doesn’t really matter though, just felt it was a bit rich teasing two brands for doing exactly what brands do all the time, including yours. So I thought I’d join in.
The email address was included deliberately btw…
Cheers, Alex.
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Hi Alex,
Thanks for the reply. It’s not the collaboration but the execution that is the subject of this Mumbo. I’m not sure quite how it compares with giving editorial coverage to events we run.
And thanks for including the email address.
Cheers,
Alex, editor, Mumbrella
Have you two Alexes collaborated on this sparkling repartee to drum up business too? How meta!
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This could only be better if Alex lived in Alex’s spare room.
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In the meantime, only a handful of people working in social media have realised that subscription based channels such as Twitter are only for the heaviest buyers of the brand, and therefore unhelpful “banter” such as this is fundamentally an over-investment and a waste of time.
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Would you two please just go and get a room together?
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Copy rewritten by legal dept perhaps? It’s just so bad I can’t believe it came from a creative agency.
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Speaking of godawful radio ads (which we sort of are), there is a particularly diabolical spot airing in Sydney. A “natural conversation” about Sustagen (I think). The spot is so bad I can’t exactly recall the product.
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