BIg Brand UK company in trouble for twitter spam!

[Richard Tunnah]

UK furniture retailer Habitat has created negative publicity after it used twitter to send mass sales messages using the hash # so untargeted. Habitat said it made a mistake and has withdrawn all sales messages from twitter.
Think it shows that some big companies may understand marketing but not new mediums!

Rich

[ExRat]

Hi Richard,

You never know if it was planned that way and they calculated that the 'bad publicity' they receive was worth it for the exposure (double exposure - via the tweets and also via the buzz - IE your post here).

If you think about it, how strong is the suggestion in your mind that they really don't understand online marketing? It's not so much online marketing that they don't understand, but more that they marketed too hard, in a 'spammy' manner.

Conversely, does the occurrence surreptitiously implant the idea that they are a progressive, previously purely offline company that are now tapping into online methods - hence, they are 'with the times'?

[n7 Studios]

When I first spotted the messages, I thought it was just a spammer pretending to be Habitat in order to push a gift card (if you ever look at spam mail, you'll find this is a fairly popular trend), and so I dismissed it.

Clearly I was wrong!

Seriously - how stupid can people / companies get? Using keywords to do with Iran to push Habitat's products? Even from a marketing perspective, it's a wasted effort, because people are hardly going to read about Iran and then think "oh, I'll just pop along to Habitat and buy some furniture"! Marketers know untargeted promotions aren't going to be as effective.

[David Raybould]

I think the strangest thing is that people
follow Habitat on twitter.

Crazy.

[GoGetta]

^^^^^ Haha, just what I was thinking!

GoGetta

[Richard Tunnah]

Originally Posted by ExRat

Hi Richard,

You never know if it was planned that way and they calculated that the 'bad publicity' they receive was worth it for the exposure (double exposure - via the tweets and also via the buzz - IE your post here).

If you think about it, how strong is the suggestion in your mind that they really don't understand online marketing? It's not so much online marketing that they don't understand, but more that they marketed too hard, in a 'spammy' manner.

Conversely, does the occurrence surreptitiously implant the idea that they are a progressive, previously purely offline company that are now tapping into online methods - hence, they are 'with the times'?

Interesting points Roger! They say no publicity is bad publicity but apparently many twitter users complained so not sure?
Definitely agree that Habitat are at least aware of some social networking tools even if they used it wrong.

Rich

[Richard Tunnah]

Originally Posted by David Raybould

I think the strangest thing is that people
follow Habitat on twitter.

Crazy.

Genius David!

Rich

[Expert-World]

I think the strangest thing is that people
follow Habitat on twitter.

Crazy.

Yer - everyone knows that you should be following Ikea
these days.

(some people still live in the 70s I guess )

[Johnathan]

Smart post.

Rarely do big companies make "accidents" like this. It is usually very calculated, with "what's the worse that could happen" scenarios. There is an expression that "bad publicity is better than no publicity at all". Seems quite true in this case.

In the course of a few days, the company has managed to do this:

1. They've established the fact that they are trying to 'get' with the times.
2. They've "positioned" themselves as an "honest" company (by withdrawing the sales messages). Maybe they really are honest, maybe not -- but the actions have established this. (I would like to think it was an accident and they are honest).
3. And people are talking about them. FREE publicity. You are talking about them in a forum, etc, etc.

So very smart marketing.

Johnathan

Originally Posted by ExRat

Hi Richard,

You never know if it was planned that way and they calculated that the 'bad publicity' they receive was worth it for the exposure (double exposure - via the tweets and also via the buzz - IE your post here).

If you think about it, how strong is the suggestion in your mind that they really don't understand online marketing? It's not so much online marketing that they don't understand, but more that they marketed too hard, in a 'spammy' manner.

Conversely, does the occurrence surreptitiously implant the idea that they are a progressive, previously purely offline company that are now tapping into online methods - hence, they are 'with the times'?

[gadget_man]

I think sites like Twitter and Facebook present too big a temptation for advertising due to the shear size of their membership. As said, I wouldn't see this episode as bad publicity. I'm not likely going to boycott Habitat now I've heard this - not that I go there anyway.