#Clienttweaks on Twitter

The wonderful @asburyandasbury kicked off a Twitter game today with the hashtag #clienttweaks. Take a famous strapline and tweet how those ‘tiny tweaks’ clients make could have totally ruined it. Some excellent examples:

@cog_design please re-arrange to ‘UKFC’ – think you may not have noticed but your version is very close to a sexual expletive #clienttweaks

@tomcopy In the VW factory they call this a lemon, which means it’s rubbish and they’re not going to use it. Buy one today #clienttweaks

@burnettie Don’t shop anywhere else for it, buy it from Argos instead. #clienttweaks

@reedwords Guinness is good for you in moderation as part of a calorie-controlled diet. #clienttweaks

@burnettie Once you take the lid off you’ll probably eat all the crisps #clienttweaks

@cog_design When it absolutely, positively, has to be there by the morning following your pre-4pm phone call and faxed confirmation #ClientTweaks

@asburyandasbury Marmite: You’ll love it. #ClientTweaks

And a few of my own:

Impossible is not much compared to what you can do with Adidas

If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, Club is the biscuit for you

Johnnie Walker: Jog on.

You can follow the latest #clienttweaks tweets here.

Facebook pinball from MAC

As if Facebook weren’t distracting enough, it now comes with an adorable pinball game from MAC (that’s the makeup brand, not the computer marque).

Here’s what it looks like (click for bigger):

It’s really good to see a makeup brand doing something engaging and fun in the digital space. MAC have been incredibly slow with this, if I’m honest – their Facebook page is global so of limited use, and they’re not on twitter, unlike arch-rivals Illamasqua.

MAC as a brand are perceived as somewhat snooty, and their reluctance to engage online hasn’t helped. A friendly, responsive twitter feed would go a long way to repairing years of damage done by snobbish and occasionally downright bitchy staff at their shops and counters.

Anyway, back to the pinball – the sickly-sweet Tokidoki-esque Japanese look is to promote their latest collection, ‘Quite Cute’. It’s well-made and very addictive, and refreshing to see from a well-established, traditional makeup brand. If anyone knows which agency made it, let me know in the comments and I’ll add it in.

Embarrassing Twitter fail by Mother London

We’ve all felt the shame of having sent a link round the office that everyone saw weeks ago. Being late to the party is pretty forgiveable on the whole. But when a leading London advertising agency like Mother tweets something not just out of date, but way out of date and a hoax – that’s pretty humiliating.

Behold Mother’s latest tweet (click for bigger):

The link takes you to Google Translate for Animals – Google’s April Fool from last year. Ouch.

I don’t doubt that the offending tweet will be taken down post haste once they realise – but plenty of people have already spotted it. Way to be the zeitgeist, guys!

Anti-social media

What would most brands do if a Twitter user @mentioned them describing their product as a “pile of shit”?

Specifically, quite a new brand, trying to establish themselves in a crowded marketplace?

Would they ignore it?
Respond in a conciliatory tone to try and find out where the brand had gone wrong?
Or this?

Being social media, this hasn’t gone unnoticed. Outraged tweeters messaged Sunlove, asking about their negative attitude and rudeness. Sunlove responded by insulting their careers:

and education (with ironically appalling spelling):

Unsurprisingly, this is already big news in the beauty blogosphere, and a YouTube video made by one of the people they insulted has had nearly 400 views just today.

This is a classic example of a brand getting involved with social media without knowing what it entails. One bad comment can haunt a brand forever (see Habitat), and even if Sunlove now delete their offensive tweets, the conversation sparked on forums, Twitter and YouTube won’t be going anywhere. Nor will posts like this, easily found on Google. This blog had over 8,000 views yesterday. That can’t be good for business.

The funny thing is, Sunlove clearly understand the influence of beauty bloggers and YouTubers because they contacted heaps of them asking them to review the product. In at least one case, they paid a YouTube member a pretty hefty sum of money to do so [the review promptly disappeared when the furore started]. So why aren’t they smart enough to know that it goes both ways? Beauty blogger gives your product a glowing review -> more sales. Beauty blogger is publicly insulted by your representative, posts angry blog/video -> fewer sales and a bad name.

In my opinion, it’s a pretty good case study for how to ruin your image before your brand’s even got off the ground.