Social Media Failure? Don't blame the tool. Blame the workman.

Last week a blog post popped up last week on the Ad Contrarian about the "massive failure" of the Pepsi "Refresh" campaign.  The author, Bob Hoffman of the redoubtable Hoffman/Lewis add agency, was claiming this proved that social media didn't  work.


Let's not point out that the advertising effort Pepsi was putting out before they tried social media wasn't helping them gain market share, which is the reason they went to a social media effort.  Because that would just prove that advertising doesn't work, using Bob's logic. Instead, let's take a page out of Bob's own book.


Bob says: 


1. Advertising is most productive when it is focused on changing behavior, not attitudes.


2. Advertising messages should be created for, and directed at, the heavy-using, high- yield customers in your category.


3. We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand; we get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product.


Now let's point out that all three of those points are also the effort of a good social media campaign.


Finally, let's point out that Pepsi's campaign did none of those things.


The Refresh Project asked Pepsi users to tell Pepsi what their favorite charities were and then vote for those charities in a contest to get some $20 million donated to those causes.  At the end of the project, Pepsi lost 5 percent of their market share.  How did that happen? All the people whose causes did not get picked got pissed off, that's how.  


When you have a product that is not ABSOLUTELY necessary to the everyday life of your customer, then you have to be careful what you say to them.  The Refresh Project did not tell Pepsi anything about the junk food/drink perception of any current or potential customer.  It did nothing to change attitudes of non-customers, nor how to keep current customers. It didn't target major outlets of soda pop distributors.  It was the result of a bunch of clueless people within Pepsi sitting around a table and making stuff up.


And it was primarily an outbound marketing effort... and social media is ALL about the inbound.


So it wasn't a failure of social media as a means to improve market share. It was the failure of Pepsi to use it properly.


Anyone getting this?


 

Comments

  1. bob hoffmanApril 5, 2011 at 2:10 PM

    Hi Lou,

    Thanks for your comments on my blog and especially for having read my book. It's nice to know someone out there still reads.

    I'd like to clear up a few points in this post.

    First, I did not say that this one instance of failure "proved that social media didn't work." Obviously there are cases where social media marketing does work though, truthfully, they are rarer than one would hope.

    Second, while you are correct that Pepsi's market share slide -- in fact the whole category's slide -- was an ongoing problem, the rate of Pepsi's slide increased eightfold during the past year and was ten times the rate of its rival, Coke.

    As I said in a follow-up post, there were probably other factors (like their idiotic "re-branding") involved in the failure, but I believe it is disingenuous not to put a significant piece of the blame on the Refresh program as it was the centerpiece of their marketing. (See my blog tomorrow for more on this)

    Finally, the crux of your argument is certainly correct. The problem may not have been with social media marketing itself, the problem may have been with the specific execution.

    However, all the hyperventilating over the magical powers of social media make it almost impossible for a pain in the ass like me not to stick a pie in the face of the social media bandwagoneers when something like this happens.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lou CoveyApril 6, 2011 at 1:36 AM

    Bob, you have a point. You didn't say social media didn't work, you said it "took a massive hit." You're right if the point of Pepsi's effort was to prove that getting a bajillion likes on Facebook is important to your brand. Of course it isn't important.
    You are also correct about the "hyperventilating" social media gurus that tell people it is the primary way of building your brand and sales figures... because most of those people are doing it wrong.
    I think we both understand that the problem was the brain-dead Pepsi execs and their consultants who tried to run the Refresh campaign like a typical outbound marketing campaign. That's not what social media is for.
    And I like what you said today (and I will comment in a later post) that no one says TV advertising, or any other advertising, is dead if one campaign fails.
    I think we are on the same page.

    ReplyDelete

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