What’s The Worst Thing That Could Happen?

Written by Aldi Souripet on July 27th, 2010 | 3 comments

A few months ago Coca-Cola, owner of the Dr Pepper brand, started a competition called ‘the status takeover’ which is a continuation of the ‘What’s the Worst that Could Happen?’ campaign. Social media was the next step for the teen-focused brand to boost the engagement.

As Cathryn Sleight, marketing director at Coca-Cola Great Britain, said: “The Dr Pepper, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ creative has a successful nine-year heritage for the brand, and continues to resonate strongly with our teen audience.”

“In 2010, we’re looking to bring the message to life, giving consumers a personal experience in social environments and scenarios that are relevant to them, and appeal to their sense of humor.”

So what was the worst thing that could happen for Dr Pepper?

Lean Mean Fighting Machine created the Facebook app which could be found on the brand’s Facebook page which gave consumers to the chance to win 1,000 pounds if they allowed Dr Pepper to take control of their status update. What could go wrong when the updates are chosen at random from a bank of options from ‘Lost my special blankie. How will I go sleepies?’ and ‘what’s wrong with peeing in the shower?’ to ‘never heard of it described as “cute” before’

Well as long as the updates are funny and embarrassing as above nothing. Unfortunately the mother of one of the 160,000 contestants felt her 14 year-old-daughter’s status was hi-jacked and put on the highway to dirty pornographic movies. When her little angel’s messages stated: ‘I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards’ the mum shared her shocking experience on mumsnet.com and the reactions from fellow parents weren’t lightly.

Coca-Cola immediately removed the status update from the Facebook app and apologized for any offense caused. The status update even ended the promotion. The relation with Lean Mean Fighting Machine got under pressure and they eventually, according to sources, “mutally agreed” to end their relationship.

Do you think Coca-Cola did the right thing by ditching the social media campaign and Lean Mean Fighting Machine?

Or should they have shown the 160,000 participants that Dr Pepper is one of the guys and is in it to stay?

Igor Beuker posted yesterday about how Starbucks got 10 million Facebook fans and I believe that this quote sums it up nicely: ‘If you do not have an Obama or Starbucks alike mentality and DNA, stay the hell away from social media marketing programs, since you will probably only disappoint your targets and damage your largest asset: your brand and its reputation.’

What’s the Worst that Could Happen

source: marketingmagazine.co.uk and brandrepublic.com

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