Is it brandjacking if you come in late and don’t ask nicely?

Stephen Collins — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 04:49:05 +0000

With all the attention now surrounding Twitter, it seems that every brand and celebrity under the sun suddenly is or wants to be represented on it and every other social network. It seems as if the business world has finally read Cluetrain and wants to be in the bazaar engaging in the conversation.

But the fact is that while some brands have been engaging in the conversation for quite some time – Zappos, Dell, Comcast and others come to mind – others have only recently realised that this conversation even exists. And worse, they don’t seem to realise that there are a few rules that define how you engage in that conversation.

We’re all aware of brandjacking. It’s bad news when it happens in a way that paints you and your organisation in a bad light. When it happens, it’s an almost inevitable PR disaster. It’s the brand related equivalent to identity theft.

In Australia today, we’ve seen the local version of Vogue magazine go after a Twitterer using the handle vogueaustralia. Vogue’s editor Damien Woolnough appears outraged that someone could have taken control of his precious brand so Vogue now have the vogue_australia Twitter account.

Things didn’t start well at the new account, though. And for several reasons.

The first tweet on the vogue_australia account read “smoking crack”. It has now been deleted. It still has just one tweet, pointing to the News Limited story, and no personalisation. Not much conversation going on there…

The holder of the vogueaustralia account has suggested that Vogue could have had the account if they had asked. That strikes me as a logical first step, yet Vogue, like many big brands, turned first to letters of demand and lawyers. Bad move, Vogue. Bad publicity.

I’m aware of at least one other huge Australian brand that is doing the same thing. As far as I know, they haven’t asked the account holder with their brand name if they can have the account, either. Automatic reaction – lawyers and terse emails to Twitter.

This isn’t playing the game well and goes to show that while there is a massive land grab going on for brands in social networks, many of them have yet to learn how to best play in the space. Either they are getting bad advice, or no advice at all. I’m not sure which is worse.

Yet, it worked for Connex. No matter what you think of their ability to run trains, they played this game well, asking the former account holder nicely for the account, and getting it.

Frankly, I have no sympathy for Vogue Australia. They look opportunistic, jumping in on the latest fad for brands without understanding the established rules of engagement. They aren’t engaging in any conversation. With anyone. They’re also late to the game. They could have been here a long time ago – the vogueaustralia Twitter account has only existed for a month.

They weren’t brandjacked. Nobody was doing them any damage. They should simply have asked nicely. That might just have worked.

acidlabs » brandjacking

Is it brandjacking if you come in late and don’t ask nicely?

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