Your business’s marketing strategy surely includes some sort of promotional event where you will get to present yourself to your target audience, show them why to choose your products/services and potentially win them over. Sometimes these events are big conferences, sometimes smaller gatherings and sometimes a publicity stunt of some kind that will draw attention to the company.
However, there are a lot of aspects to think about when doing something like this and you want to make sure everything goes according to plan. Seeing as how there were many promotional events that have unfortunately gone wrong, you can learn from the mistakes of others and do your best to avoid such a scenario. Take a look below.
#FailureToHashtag
With the importance of using social media in marketing campaigns, it comes as no surprise that many companies are looking for unique hashtags that will help their business get noticed. While there are amazing examples such as Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke, Red Bull’s #PutACanOnIt and Calvin Klein’s #MyCalvins, we can also find those that have not gone over too well.
Various companies and organizations have tried to get their users to share stories involving their brand but many attempts have backfired. For instance, #McDStories by McDonald’s and #AskSeaWorld are just some examples that brought out negative responses and affected the companies in one way or another. Of course, no one will forget about Susan Boyle’s album release party for which #susanalbumparty was used.
To make sure your brand doesn’t get embarrassed and ridiculed online, you have to carefully choose the hashtag you will use. From Susan Boyle’s example, we can see that punctuation and capitalization matter. To avoid Sea World’s fate, you need to be sure that the public is not going to use this opportunity to criticize you all over social media. Furthermore, make sure you’re not being insensitive and using a trending topic to promote your business.
Spelling mistakes that cost a lot
Just like a not well-thought out-hashtag can ruin a promotional event, so can bad grammar or spelling mistakes. Hastily typing replies and accidentally making typos or having autocorrect change a word without you noticing before you post it can all bring the grammar police to your profile. However, these things will not affect your business too much.
On the other hand, if your promotional materials or statements all include a spelling error that has a completely different meaning, it can deal a serious blow to your campaign. For instance, a school in England sent a text to parents asking them to attend Easter service and bring their “dirty willies” which will be washed afterward. Of course, they meant “wellies” as in Wellington boots but the mistake still caught the attention of the press.
Seeing as how you don’t want to find yourself in this uncomfortable situation, you need to double-check everything. When getting promotional items such as fabric event banners printed, have a few people proofread the text you are going to put on them. If you’re issuing a press statement, spell check it. Basically, every piece of text that the public is going to see needs to be properly written.
Forcing people never works
Some ideas seem good at the start of the campaign as the company thinks it is doing something beneficial for the people. For example, Apple believed that gifting all of their users – without asking or telling any of them – a copy of U2’s new album would be well-received. Well, it turned out not so good. People were furious as deleting the album seemed almost impossible and many websites published guides on how to hack the system and get rid of the songs.
You should not make assumptions about what you think your customers expect from you. You need to do research and a lot of tests before you offer them anything. Plus, when you do make an offer, make sure they can opt out. Not everyone will want your gift and you might be wasting resources.
Weather conditions are crucial
Even though it’s been a while since this happened, no one will forget when Snapple tried to break the world record for the largest popsicle in 2005. The company made a huge bar that was around 25ft tall and 35,000 pounds heavy. Unfortunately, they did not account for the weather so the ice pop started melting in the warm June weather. The sticky mess meant that Manhattan had to be blocked off while everything was cleaned up.
In order to avoid making a mistake of these proportions, it’s vital to consider all factors that might affect the event. Maybe you will not have a huge popsicle melt but if you forget to check for rain, there’s a possibility all your guests will get drenched. Whenever doing an outdoor event, always check the forecast.
Endangering the general public
Of course, it is never the intention of these promotional events to endanger the public. However, oftentimes no one realizes that a certain aspect of the event is insensitive or outright dangerous before it’s too late.
For example, to promote Mission Impossible III, 4,500 red wired devices were put inside newspaper racks in Los Angeles. When someone opened the rack, the Mission Impossible theme would play from the device. However, no one at Paramount Pictures thought that this might cause panic among the customers instead of amusement. Thinking these were bombs, the bomb squad had to be called in, which lead to the president of Paramount being fired and the company paying two million dollars for falsely enacting emergency services. While this stunt had no injuries, Jägermeister’s foggy pool party affected several people. Due to chemical reactions, the guests had difficulties breathing and the fog made it harder to find those that couldn’t get out on their own.
It’s essential to make the safety of everyone involved your top priority. Having some sort of tragedy happen during one of your events is something you can hardly recover from.
As you can see, there are many ways how an event promotion can go wrong. That is why it is important to do research before you set any plan in motion. By ensuring everyone has fun, your brand can benefit a lot.
