Moses Gomes, Digital Marketing Expert

It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose 2003

attempt to suppress photographs of her residence in Malibu, California,

inadvertently drew further public attention to it.

Barbra Streisand's lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to the

California Coastal Records Project regarding the inclusion of a photo

of her Malibu beach house on its website.

When the website operators rejected that letter and a followup

letter, she sued. On 3 December 2003, the Los Angeles

Superior Court issued a statement that they were dismissing

the suit.

The previously not-famous CCRP website includes more than

12,000 overlapping aerial photos of the entire California

coastline (with the exception of the area around Vandenberg Air

Force Base), plus a collection of about 55,000 additional photos

that currently date back to 1972.

Skoda case study

Streisand effect

This is a case study of 2008, but still

better example on negative impact of

Social Media

Case study

• Mr. Harish Kanchan has been fighting with Skoda for the

last one year now.

• Skoda dealer in Mumbai, Nummer Eins (earlier

Showroom on Juhu Tara road ) had replaced spurious

parts in his car to the tune of around 4 lakhs rupees

during servicing.

• Harish followed with Skoda India management , who in

turn tried to STOP Harish from going further on this

issue.

• Harish approached the district consumer forum which

gave an interim ruling ordering Skoda to release his car

repaired to its international standards immediately. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/55796-team-bhp-stands-truth-but-skoda-wants-instigate-team-bhp-its-

users.html

Case study contd..

• Skoda in turn appealed this decision and took it to the state forum which stayed the release of his car. The case is pending.

• During this time Harish posts the entire details on team-bhp.com (website on car reviews) which received more than 500 replies and 60,000 views in less than a month time.

• Skoda finally realizes this and actually threatens team-bhp and their users with legal issues.

• team-bhp moderator posts the entire threat mailed by Skoda and started another discussion! This post on the forum has received 1,306 replies and 100,000+ views in just 10 days!

Result

• Skoda in short have lost a lot of potential customers.

Instead of accepting the racket, apologizing to the public

and coming clean.

• They’ve now landed in a mess which is going to take

some serious cleaning up.

• Users are talking to each other about this incident and

purchase decisions are based on such conversations.

That’s the power of social media.

The website has more than 40,000 registered users, and most

of the car and bike buyers visit this site for reviews

This is the review by Harish on www.team-bhp.com,

along with the pics of faulty parts comparing with the originals.

This was the team-bhp.com moderators reply to Skoda’s threats

Result

• With 40,000 registered users on team-bhp.com they

created negative publicity on Skoda, influencing decision

of the buyers by word-of-mouth

• Even print publications like Mumbai Mirror, Mid-Day,

Times of India, Maharashtra Times, Navbharat Times,

The Hindu, etc carried the story.

• Nummer Eins lost its dealership of Skoda

• Sales started declining

Aircel case study

Case study

• The Milan subway in Mumbai apparently has a history of flooding during the Monsoon season.

• So, Aircel when they launched in Mumbai, a mobile company, betting on an almost sure thing, placed a billboard at the station with a real rescue boat tied to it, its logo and the tagline “In case of Emergency, cut Rope”.

• On July 15, 2009 the bet paid up and the station was flooded. AIRCEL staff, wearing tees with the company's logo was on hand to cut the rope and offer "emergency" transport to the stranded commuters, in full camera view of course.

The Story Begins….

A Few Days Back…At Milan Subway

History Repeats Itself…On 15th July’09

Water Water Everywhere…

The Rope Was Cut……

We Are Happy To Help…Aircel

A Solution…And CSR

*CSR-Corporate Social Responsibility

People Using “Aircel Boat”…That’s What They Called It !!

Reaching Destinations…

Under The Bridge…Trying To Rescue

And Finally…

Everybody Talking About……

Result

• The company received quite a bit of "hero" press and

was even held up as an example to the Government

agency BMC of how to prepare for an emergency.

• It was almost guaranteed the subway station would

flood, leading to stranded and distressed commuters,

who would be willing to get in the boat and be "carried"

to safety by men wearing AIRCEL tees.

• With all the media present, the story could not be

reported without the mention of AIRCEL and the images

show its customers that the brand cares and is always

there for them, even in times of emergency.

Achievement

• Aircel prominent in all media coverage

• This also marked the entry of Aircel in Mumbai

• The PR agency prepared a presentation on the same

and mailed to friends and also uploaded on online

forums.

• Aircel did not just advertised “Happy to Help” it showed

this in their actions….

Aircel’s initiative on google search rating

Social Media BLOOPERS

On Sept 20th 2013, Reviewer Gandhi, a Twitter user tweeted saying he wants to marry the daughter of Vodafone India’s daughter.

Vodafone India responded by giving a standard response to that tweet!!

Vodafone India

Tata Docomo

Tata Docomo went ahead with an open ended conversation on their timeline without mentioning the person for whom these were intended. Three back to back tweets in a 15 minute timeframe and yet they failed to check the error until someone responded back!

Star Sports

The most (in)famous of bloopers of all times happened when the SM exec/mgr of Star Sports accidently tweet-abused using the client handle while being engaged in the conversation from his personal handle on a different window.

MTV India

Popular youth channel MTV India made a huge blunder when accidentally they wished the vocalist of Beatles, John Lennon a very happy birthday and a joyous year ahead!

NDTV Good Times, Sunrisers IPL

GoIbibo Vs MakeMyTrip

MakeMyTrip announced a contest on 19th Nov 2013. Few days later, GoIbibocame up with a similar contest with the exact tweet. MakeMyTrip did a great job by taking a screenshot of both their tweet as well as the counterparts’ and reposting it as a single tweet asking people to find differences. It got re-tweeted 17 times with 19 comments as responses!

Oh wait! Picture abhi baki haimere dost :)

GoIbibo Vs MakeMyTrip

The trip down the laughter lane began when a strong influencer on Twitter, Harshdeep Singh a.k.a@_harshdeep got involved in this conversation.

Another example of putting standard responses/autom

INOX Leisure Ltd, Ford Fiesta

When Facebook updates gets RE-POSTED as tweets!!

L’Oréal India

Spams on the Facebook Timeline of L'Oréal India which went unnoticed by the SM agency were highlighted as soon as people noticed it

Jabong.com

When you copy

paste JD’s, this is

what is likely to

happen!!

How do agencies handle the blunders?

Star Sports

MTV India

Fortis Healthcare

While celebrating Breast Feeding Week, Fortis Healthcare started a campaign on Twitter: #AgarMaKaDudhPiaHaiTo

The exact tweet was :And the CONTEST starts! Use#AgarMaKaDudhPiaHaiTo as the hash tag and post creative one liners!! :D— Mamma Mia (@mammamia_off) August 2, 2012

When the campaign backfired, they said: Our account was hacked.

This is the exact tweet.

NDTV Goodtimes

What are the damages of these unintentional man made disasters?

• The brand becomes a laughing stock.

• The social space leaves no stone unturned to publicize to the maximum possible extent.

• In the aftermath, the brand has to invest time and effort in trying to neutralize the negatives arising out of this blunder.

• The poor agency starts sweating by the buckets and one naive executive loses his / her job.

• Is the damage reversible? Unfortunately not, but it is definitely avoidable.

How to avoid blunders?

• Sensible allocation of resources : Brand pages and handles cannot be left at the mercy of young inexperienced interns. Not that interns should not be hired, but till the time they are groomed, they rather be under watchful eyes.

• Eyes wide open : Too much of multi-tasking is harmful. You want to say something to your friend through your personal Twitter handle, but end up tweeting the same thing from the client’s handle. Alt-tab-ing personal window and client window will lead to mistakes like what Star Sports experienced.

• Periodic audits : Keep checking how your teams converse on behalf of your brands. Make sure that they know that there is someone doing random checks. This will make them more careful and alert. Getting internal feedbacks from managers is better than getting fired, no?

• Sensitization: Make the executive / manager feel responsible for the success of the effort on the brand. Drive a culture of ownership of the effort with adequate appreciation for good work and guidance along with hand-holding for upscaling and enhancement.

Thank You

Inputs taken from:-http://www.socialwavelength.com/what-we-believe/blog/SocialSamosa.comExchange4Media.comDgtully.comSlideshare.netWoolfMedia.com

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