Snickers Tweets Itself ...

Social media seems like such a simple and innocent thing. Write something funny. Post it. People enjoy it, share it and it’s good advertising. Turns out social media is actually a minefield of hidden dangers. One wrong move and it blows up in your face. This week’s mine sweeper is Mars Candy, specifically the Snickers bar in the UK. It began with a strange series of Tweets from Maxim model Katie Price. It’s Tweeter so remember to read from the bottom up. Who knew Miss Price had such an interest in international finance? Apparently, no one because fans soon started question whether the celeb’s Twitter had been hacked? Soon after, another set of Tweets: The photo shows Katie with a Snickers bar. If you don’t get the joke right away, you’re not alone. Let me spell it out. Before eating a Snickers, Katie was hungry and so she wasn’t herself – she was smart and concerned with global issues. Then she ate the Snickers bar and went back to being (with apologies to Miss Price) her usual, dumb, uncaring self. Is there any other way to interpret the ad? Marketing Pilgrim’s Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information. The concept is insulting, but Snickers isn’t the first company to sell their brand using a questionable campaign and they won’t be the last. That’s not what got them in trouble. What bit them, was the lack of clarity that all of the Tweets were part of an ad. Snickers ran similar, though not quite as insulting, campaigns with boxer Amir Khan, footballer Rio Ferdinand and others. Fans were not happy but in an odd way the Tweets did what they were intended to do, they got people talking and thinking about Snickers in the UK. Will it help sales? Let’s hope so. Mars and the celebs are facing the possibility of paying out huge fines for deceptive advertising. According to The Daily Mail, a formal investigation has been launched to decide if the campaign broke the rules. Specifically, should the teaser Tweets have ad hashtags and was the final tag of #spon, clear enough? Obviously, including the ad hashtag on the teasers would have ruined the joke. The irony of the whole incident is, this is Twitter, and were it not for the uproar, this campaign would have been over and done with by now. Katie Price often Tweets 5 to 10 posts a day. At that rate, the Snickers ad would have been off the front page in under week. I understand that consumers have a right to truth in advertising, but we’re not talking about the safety features of a car seat. We’re talking about a celebrity promoting a candy bar that they probably won’t even eat. (Katie’s photo shows her pointed to a sealed bar.) Anyone who runs out to buy a Snickers because Katie implied she liked them doesn’t need legal protection, they need a life. Allow me to borrow from Katie’s own hashtag — big fines for a bad joke? #comeonguys!

The Obama Campaign Is N...

The latest technology to be adopted by the Obama campaign— Square . The mobile payments device is now being used by the Obama for fundraising, says the company. Staff, fundraisers and others are being equipped with the card reading devices, says Square, enabling the campaign to take donations on the go via Android devices, iPhones or iPads. “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, running for president or local assembly, Square makes it easier than ever for candidates, organizations and volunteers to fundraise for their cause,” said a spokesperson for Square. There’s no doubt that using a mobile payments device from Square makes fundraising much easier. With traditional forms of fundraising, if you want to donate money at a fundraising event, you often have to fill out a form and hand over a check or cash at the event. If you don’t have your checkbook or cash handy (which, many of us don’t), credit cards are the only option. You can write down your credit card number and info for fundraisers to charge at a later date, but you have to trust that the fundraiser keeps track of that information and paper. With Square, there is both a convenience added for both the payee and fundraiser. The donation is instantly processed, and Square will send the receipt via SMS or email to the payee. Of course, political contributions and donations are a little more complicated because of the reporting requirements associated with donations. We’re told the same processing fees (2.75 percent) apply for use by non-profits and political campaigns. Similar to the way Square created a special platform for the Salvation Army, the company has also worked with the campaign for a tailored way to take campaign donations. The special app for accepting Square payments for the Obama campaign is currently being used by staff but will be available to the public soon. We’ve embedded screenshots below. Square has been used for campaigning and fundraising at political events for the past few years. For example, in 2010, Square was used for the state assembly campaign of Silicon Valley VC Josh Becker, and for Reshma Saujani, who ran for Congress in New York’s 14th district. Considering that the Obama campaign raised $42 million in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone, that’s a lot of potential money that could be flowing through Square’s platform. And the marketing exposure is also a bonus for the mobile payments startup to scale even further.

Anonymous Reacts to Meg...

Hacker group Anonymous isn’t happy about the takedown of file-sharing site Megaupload , and as a result, it’s targeting some big companies and government agencies. Earlier this afternoon, interspersed with a stream of anti-SOPA and PIPA tweets,  the main Anonymous Twitter account declared, “The government takes down #Megaupload? 15 minutes later #Anonymous takes down government & record label sites. #ExpectUs.” Specifically, the group claimed responsibility for taking down the Universal Music, RIAA (the record industry’s lobbying arm), MPAA (the movie industry’s lobbying arm), and Department of Justice websites, among others. As of 3pm Pacific, the sites were still down for me, although some comments on Twitter suggested that they were returning online sporadically. The group also claimed  that the current attacks were “the largest attack ever by Anonymous,” with 5,635 participants. And it looks like the campaign is ongoing — Anonymous says it’s going after the FBI’s website next: “Get some popcorn… it’s going to be a long lulzy night.”

Not So Evil: Google Pen...

“I love the name of honor, more than I fear death” – Julius Caesar. Google does too, apparently. The company has lowered the PageRank of its Chrome download page after violating its own paid link policy during a sponsored blog post campaign for the browser by Google’s ad agency Unruly Media. Google’s head of webspam Matt Cutts responded to criticism of the campaign last night, saying his team “has taken manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome for at least 60 days”. Some accuse Google of lying about not knowing it was buying sponsored blog posts through Unruly. I argue it might have thought it was buying StumbleUpon Paid Discovery or other legitimate ads. For background, earlier this week Google hired Unruly Media to drive views of a promo video for Chrome. Unruly Media paid bloggers to post the video. One blogger linked directly the the Chrome download page without using a nofollow attribute or intermediary to prevent giving link juice to the page. This violates Google’s paid link policy, for which penalties can range from a month to a year of penalized search rank. Myself and other bloggers incorrectly assumed Google would not penalize itself. Honestly, I’m impressed with the severity of the penalty. Chrome used to rank #2 for a search for “browser” , now it’s #50. It still seems questionable that Google says it didn’t expect Unruly to do a pay-per-post (PPP) sponsored blog campaign considering that’s the primary type of advertising Unruly does . Cutts says “Google was trying to buy video ads about Chrome, and these sponsored posts were an inadvertent result of that”. Google told Search Engine Land, “Google did not authorize this campaign”. I actually don’t think Google is lying. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d imagine Google would have made sure Unruly passed along its policies if it planned the campaign. Unruly does distribute videos through StumbleUpon Paid Discovery, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Maybe that’s where Google thought it its ad dollars were going. If Google wants to put the issue to rest, it should provide a specific explanation of exactly what it thought it was buying through Unruly. Hopefully the flack Google took for the garbage content PPP campaign will disuade reputable companies from using this kind of advertising in the future. At first I blamed bloggers for accepting PPP campaigns selling out their audiences. But really, cash flush companies bribing starving bloggers seems almost coercive. I’d love to see Unruly Media crumble right after taking a  $25 million funding round today . [Image Credit: Search Engine Land ]

2012 Campaign Video: DN...

The latest 2012 Campaign Videos from the DNC.