Viral Suicide?

Have you seen the one with the Ford Sport Ka (Evil Twin campaign, 2004) and that poor little cat? What an interesting way to engrain the “Ford” brand into our minds. If you haven’t seen it, check out the youtube video. (Disclaimer, do NOT click if you LOVE cats.)
Well, what do you think? Pretty gross huh? Good thing I’m more of a dog kinda guy. In response to its backlash, Ford shut down the micro site and began an “official” investigation into its “leak.” But it was too late. Like most viral videos, it made its way into the digital ether and can still be found today, almost six years later. “Leak,” sure.

Does such extreme marketing benefit a company? One thing I’ve noticed in reading comment threads of the various sites hosting the video are that its negative/positive comments are divided at about 60/40, respectively. The negative comments express deep emotional agitation and most of the positive comments are reactions by advocates to the negative comments. This reminds me of something Karen touched upon in class. That Web managers should take into account all the negative opportunity a site may present to its audience whether blatant or subtle (the Winter Olympics not being “live”). Because negative criticism has greater appeal; people are more likely to leave negative comments than positive ones. In this case, we see negative comments motivating people to comment positively as advocates. Did the Ford marketing agency know it would get this kind of reaction all along?

Toyota did a “Punk’d”-like marketing campaign with the release of the “Matrix” last year in which they pretended to stalk someone for five days through a series of text, e-mails, videos and phone calls. The prank required a person to sign up a friend or the “mark.” The referring friend could then follow the progress of the prank in real time. The result, a woman ends up suing Toyota for $10 million. Did Toyota pop the intrusive bubble on this one? Or should the woman have known better not to click the “agree” button on the “informed written consent” e-mailed Toyota sent her? I don’t even open e-mails unless its from someone I know and especially don’t if my spammy-senses go off. Should she have known better? Or perhaps she should go after the referring friend (or enemy) or marketing agency instead of Toyota? Although a creative campaign, was it successful?

Stuart Foster in his, “Why People Hate Your Viral Marketing” blog post provides a good list of reasons (and case studies) why a viral marketing campaign can receive such negative feedback. So how does a social media marketer decide when a product or service is appropriate for such advertising? Although you attract a lot of attention and get a lot of hits, is it really worth compromising your brand? Do the ends justify the means?