Amp up before you score - or think before you use social media
OK, picture the scene. You are a male in your mid-20s. You're in a bar packed with beautiful women, and you have one thing on your mind. How do you increase your chances of 'success'? That's right: turn to family brand Pepsi, who have sanctioned an incredible piece of social media marketing, built around an iPhone app.
The application - available now free from an AppStore near you - offers advice on how to 'score' by way of promoting its spin-off beverage, Amp. "Amp up before you score" is the line behind this amazingly insensitive marketing idea.
OK, so it's harmless fun, right? And it's aimed at a demographic that would relate to this kind of messaging? Really? How about the fact that the app divides women into a number of categories, including "Married". Click further into this category and you are given lines that might be used in furthering your cause with said married woman. And, just in case they work, there is a further link that takes you to - wait for it - motels in your area that you might wish to use.
Now, I'm no prude. But what were they thinking as they sat around a boardroom table and came up with the idea?
But a wider question, more poignant to readers of this blog, is what does this mean to B2B marketers? The inference is clear - social media is incredibly powerful; but it cuts both ways. Just because a message is aimed at a certain part of the target audience, we cannot guarantee that it won't leak to others. We no longer control its distribution. Social media has a life of its own and bad news spreads fast. The Buyersphere is complex and unruly and even the best social media ideas (and let's face it, this is a great idea, if a very risky one) have to be carefully thought through.
Maybe I've got this wrong. Maybe this will ultimately cause a huge increase in Amp sales that outweighs any minor damage done to the brand. Maybe most women will remain blissfully unaware of the campaign - and maybe even pleasantly surprised at the improvement in quality of chat-up lines on a Friday night. But then I heard of this through social media channels (Jezebel.com and the Hobson & Holtz podcast to name a couple), and others are learning about it by the same route, and will be duly offended at the way it reduces them to mere 'target categories'.
Now, to give Pepsi credit, when people began talking about this, they responded and they responded well. They even created their own hashtag (#pepsifail) and engaged with people on Twitter. But you can't help wondering why they went ahead with something when they must have known that they couldn't control it.
Maybe they should have taken a bit more advice before leaping into bed with this particular idea...
9 Comments
Chelsea Blacker
As a woman, I'd like to say that women being offended by this are those annoying uptight feminists (with armpit hair) who seek out things to be offended by. It's a funny, creative application! Any press is good press right? Pepsi is still winning in the long run, if the offended party really wanted to tick off pepsi they'd talk about their love of Coke (the drink).
i have no idea what this means for b2b marketers. cheers.
John Bottom
So you're sitting on the fence on this one then, Chelsea? Not sure that the app features 'uptight feminist' as one of its categories, but I'll suggest it to the Pepsi development team. And I wonder if your "any press is good press" adage really works here... Don't uptight feminists drink Pepsi too?
Noël Ponthieux
Well...I tend to save my feminist ire for more high-impact issues, although as an AMP app Category #24, (former) Women's Studies Major, I recall discussions of how promoting such images of women in media and entertainment affect the ways women are treated in real life - and it usually ain't pretty.
But I'd like to put on my marketing hat now and say I rather sympathise with all the brands out there scrambling to cloak advertising as something people can actually use, to get a piece of the iPhone action. And the follow-through of the AMP app is kind of impressive - apparently it really does locate 'relevant' shops and restaurants (and yes, motels). I wonder if it can combine the categories they have that apply to a gal like me: Married + Nerd + Indie + Bookworm + WSM? If I were in L.A., I suspect it would point to the Bodhi Tree Bookstore.
As a consumer, I just think it's boring - tired blokey humour, and strangely rifle-shot in terms of the targeting (oops, marketing hat again), as you mention above. Actually...I wonder if any of their target dudes are offended by the implicit portrayal of their kind as so tongue-panting and dimwit?
Ada Nisbet
Ok ok, so it’s yet another marketing ploy trying to use women-men relationships… or the promise of, to sell more. So what’s new?
But the question is: should women REALLY feel outraged about this?
Is this piece of technology truly going to throw women into a whirlwind of controversy and debate? As my colleague here above says I think such passionate and strong-felt reactions are likely to be kept for much more serious issues. After all, whether we like it or not, we are all ‘target categories’ for one product or another. This is no different.
In my opinion whether the guy in the bar who is looking to score has an app to help him on his way or not, the outcome – and the uninspiring, unexciting, wearisome, annoying lines, which will no doubts be delivered in parrot fashion –doesn’t change, they will keep on trying and women will keep on turning them down…(or take them up on it!)…with or without the help of technology, no matter, like in this case, how dull and very likely futile it may be.
The question to Pepsi however is, to ensure that the balance is restored, are they going to come up with an app just for women? From what my single girlfriends tell me, knowing in advance if a man is unattached or married would probably be quite a welcomed and useful piece of information. So has Pepsi missed out on a major opportunity here? Maybe, maybe not, but I don’t think they’ve underestimated the power of social media. In fact I think they deliberately ‘threw the hand grenade’ and ran so to speak, and are now standing back watching and enjoying the dispute that is unravelling…It seems to me their intention was never to control this but rather to ensure their brand was on the forefront of people’s minds...for a while anyway.
Mark W Schaefer
I guess I'm old-fashiouned.
No, I KNOW I'm old-fashioned.
I think this is disgusting. Unfortunately, these are smart people who know what they're doing. What a reflection of our society.
@markwschaefer
P.S. Nice re-design on the site, mate!
Jake Bate
What worries me about this campaign, John, is the old 'there's no such thing as bad publicity'. Is this really a failure by Pepsi, or has it achieved exactly what they want?
Will the number of people who drink pepsi normally, and hate this campaign enough to *stop* drinking pepsi, outweigh the people who secretly think it's rather funny, in a juvenile sort of way?
It was the same thing that worried me about the (very laudable) internet response to Jan Moir's recent article on the Daily Mail. When the dust settles, will anything have happened to the Mail except that they got a few thousand extra visitors to their site for a few days?
Only time will tell, I suppose.
Michael Selissen
These kids today, huh? To Chelsea's point, many 20-somethings simply don't find ads or games like this the least bit offensive. So Pepsi seems to be tapping into somehting that connects with their intended audience, leaving the rest of us to squirm in our seats.
In this way, they are getting a two-fer -- a viral app for their audience and outraged PR from the rest of us.
And Pepsi is certainly not the only one. Consider Burger King's "blow your mind" ad from earlier this year which ran in Singapore and caused a bit of a kerfuffle.
John Bottom
@Noel @Ada: eloquent responses, as I have come to expect from you. Perhaps it's not the big deal people may have made of it. And while it's leading-edge technology, it reflects some tired, non-progressive attitudes.
@Mark Thanks for weighing in – and interesting that you and I, as men, appear to be most surprised at Pepsi's approach.
@Jake You make a valid point, but little things matter don't they? How much does Pepsi spend every year building a reputation as a responsible, global brand? If that reputation is even slightly dented, it equates to a lot of money. And I hope Jan Moir gets all that's coming to her
@Michael Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm just too old. And maybe offending a few of us is the price they are happy to pay for a great bit of youth marketing. But somehow I don't think it was that deliberate...
CorineMack23
All people deserve very good life and personal loans or just car loan would make it better. Just because people's freedom depends on money.
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