Last month, Prince died at the age of 57. As always, brands quickly took to Twitter to honor the memory of the music legend.
Cheerios came up with the following Tweet:
Grieving fans and many other users were outraged. They saw the Tweet as a shameless attempt at self-promotion.
Hijacking the news or a trend is an art. Only a few brands have succeeded, such as Oreo.
Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC
— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013
Actually, the backlash was so strong that General Mills, which owns Cheerios, decided to delete the Tweet. But it was already too late. Many media outlets had reported on the event and lambasted the brand as well. Econsultancy did its part:
The Cheerios tweet demonstrates that too many marketers are so focused on branding anything and everything that they’re not using common sense or recognizing that some things just shouldn’t have a brand imprint.
Honestly, I fail to see the problem here. Including a company’s logo in a graphic paying homage to a dead celebrity is the same thing as publishing a branded message starting with “At [name of the company], we are saddened to hear of the passing of [name of celebrity]…” Most companies do it. No one complains. On the contrary, we praise them for the gesture.
So, was it a major blunder? Absolutely not! I find that what Global Village Duluth did in 2015 during Martin Luther King Day was much worse. And you may remember the whole Urban Outfitters fiasco following Hurricane Sandy…
Looking for an example of tacky and offensive tactic? Check this out:
.@ExpWriters OMG I saw @annhandley post an email she got from company announcing a sale on all purple items in ‘honor’ of Prince #blogchat
— Mack Collier (@MackCollier) May 2, 2016
Oh, and what about the hundreds of posts titled “The 5 things Prince taught me about marketing / business / real estate marketing / leadership…”? You won’t see media outlets criticize the practice. Why? Because that’s kind of posts they publish to get eyeballs.
Do you think its smart or tacky when you see ‘5 Things Prince Can Teach Us About….’ Posts right after his death? #blogchat
— Mack Collier (@MackCollier) May 2, 2016
“5 Things Prince Can Teach Us About Living Life to the Fullest” is OK by me. 5 Marketing Lessons isn’t. #BlogChat https://t.co/6TMKGCeVbJ
— Kerry O’Shea Gorgone (@KerryGorgone) May 2, 2016
“It seems a bit of a no win,” says Digital Marketer Kelly Hungerford. “We ask brands to be human, but when they are we scold them. We encourage brands to be bold, when the do we tell them they would be safer to sit it out.”
“I understood the relationship between Prince and the brand because I researched. I believe brands can think global and act local when they do it tastefully. We need to stop holding brands to double standards. Or, we need to go back to brands being completely robotic and cold and be happy with that.”
I agree with Kelly. We expect companies large and small to show they care at all times. And when they do, we still find faults.
Maybe Cheerios’ Tweet was in poor taste. Maybe the logo shouldn’t have been used. And maybe, brands should only post updates when they have something meaningful and heartfelt to add to the conversation.
But the problem speaks to a deeper (albeit inconvenient) truth. The relevancy companies are trying to achieve stems from a culture that demands they behave like people. And when people send sympathy cards, we expect them to sign their names at the end.
That’s what the Cheerios team did. Of course, it was a way to promote the company. Maker’s Mark or Four Loko, however, used a much less tactful approach…
What do you think about Cheerios’ Tweet? Am I missing something?
