Flash-in-the-Pan Spokespersons Can Burn You
You knew things were going to get interesting when the New York Post quoted famed chef Anthony Bourdain saying that best-selling author and television personality Rachael Ray promoting Dunkin’ Donuts was nutritionally “evil” and like endorsing “crack for kids.”
Bourdain is known for hyperbole and a surly attitude. So his comment might have been no froth off of Dunkin’s cappuccino if stories of Ray, in her own fit of gourmet pique, calling Dunkin’s coffee “sh*t” on the set of a commercial shoot, hadn’t become major blog material.
Still, one must wonder why a vested player like Dunkin’ Donuts is risking its reputation on an overnight sensation with strong love/hate appeal. Most interesting is the fact that Ray’s television ratings were already tanking at the time Dunkin’ made its move.
Rats!
So a television news crew films dozens of rats running around your restaurant and puts the scene on air. Plus, the video, as well as several iterations filmed by amateur videographers, is a smash on the Internet. What can you possibly do?
In what has to be considered the most difficult marketing moment of 2007, a cobranded KFC/Taco Bell unit in New York City found itself at the center of this scenario in February ’07. Despite anything else you might have heard, corporate parent Yum! spoke out promptly and told the New York media all the things that must be said about the incident’s unacceptability and the steps it will take toward rectification. Yet it was not nearly enough.
Why not? Quite frankly, nothing on the Internet is entirely local anymore, and nothing ever goes away entirely. The rat incident taught Yum!, and the entire industry, that damage control cannot simply be applied to the damage site. Terrible things might happen locally, but one has to fight the information war globally. And emergency preparedness will forever after include a plan for getting some positive news into Internet search engine rankings and a remedial video up on YouTube.
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas
That the Internet is not just some sort of magic road to marketing nirvana was painfully revealed to Whataburger this past Christmas. The company came up with a really nice promotional idea, “The Twelve Days of Whataburger,” in which the company planned to e-mail a free coupon for a specific item to a controlled customer list every other day during December. Unfortunately, an employee e-mailed samples of the coupon during November and before you could say “fried pie,” the coupons were being duplicated and mailed all over the Web, and the company cancelled the promotion.
Bah, humbug.
No Dopes
To its fans, Chipotle is as much of a mindset as a menu choice. In what has to be one of the year’s most elegant and enlightened choices of branded sponsorship, Chipotle attached its name to the Garmin professional cycling team, an international group of top cyclists whose signature contribution to their sport is a tested and proven commitment to dope-free racing. Already successful on the international competitive circuit, Garmin/Chipotle was one of the American teams that competed in the 2008 Tour de France.
How targeted—and cool and additive-free—is that?
Jared
Every year he keeps that weight off, he becomes more valuable to Subway. Can you envision a campaign so simple and universally resonant that it will still work for you 10 years down the road? Just don’t say it can’t be done.