What lessons can brands learn from Dr Oz, Bill Cosby’s recent social fails?

Last week was pretty tough for actor Bill Cosby and television show host / cardiothoracic surgeon Dr Mehmet Oz. In what can only have been a fit of self-delusion, the celebrities went down a rather ill-advised path towards Twitter hashtag infamy as they tried to promote their respective brands. The results were calamitous to say the least.

In the first attempt, Bill Cosby’s team created a #CosbyMeme generator on his website, inviting all and sundry to meme him using a collection of classic Bill Cosby images. What followed was a harsh education in what happens when you don’t pay attention to how your brand is viewed by the internet.

Hundreds of memes were generated calling the 77 year old actor / comedian out on various sexual assault accusations that have been levelled at him by multiple women over the past few years. The first rape claims surfaced in 2006 and Cosby is alleged to have settled with one of his alleged victims later that year.

In the second example, television show presenter and much-criticised surgeon Dr Oz attempted to host a Q&A session on Twitter in which he invited his followers to ask him anything using the hashtag #OzsInbox.

This was clearly a fool’s error for someone who has been widely criticised for being a “Pseudoscience promoter” who peddles “magic weight-loss cures” and other miracle remedies that are largely recognised as having no basis in any credible science.

To say that Twitter was merciless would be putting it mildly. Dr Oz faced unforgiving criticism for his advocacy of what many consider to be nothing more than pseudoscience. The criticism came from all quarters including ordinary Tweeters and fellow doctors alike, with one doctor, @DrSunilKSahai, tweeting:

.@DrOz #OzsInbox Why have you not been censured or fired from @ColumbiaSurgery for conduct unbecoming a physician, scientist, and gentlemen?

— Sunil K Sahai MD (@DrSunilKSahai) November 12, 2014

Of course, celebrities aren’t the only ones to have gone down this misguided rabbit hole on Twitter. In 2012, McDonald’s ran a campaign on Twitter using the hashtag #McDStories hoping to inspire heart-warming stories of Ronald McDonald and happy meals. The results weren’t quite the rainbows and unicorns the fast food giant had hoped for. Instead, the hashtag attracted all manner of vitriolic comments from detractors in the form of snarky tweets of what they thought about McDonald’s. Here are some sample Tweets:

“Dude, I used to work at McDonald’s. The #McDStories I could tell would raise your hair. (via Twitter)

One time I walked into McDonalds and I could smell Type 2 diabetes floating in the air and I threw up. #McDStories (viaTwitter)

Ate a McFish and vomited 1 hour later….The last time I got McDonalds was seriously 18 years ago in college….. #McDstories (via Twitter)”

After paying to promote the hash tag, McDonald’s pulled the campaign within two hours once it realised that things weren’t going as planned. However, unfortunately for McDonald’s, the proverbial horse had already bolted from the stable as the #McDStories hashtag continued to gain steam long after it stopped the campaign.

So what’s the lesson to be learned from the collective experience of these hash tags gone rogue? The key lesson is that crowd-sourced campaigns are hard to control or, for that matter, to stop. Armed with that knowledge, it becomes crucial for brands to know how consumers perceive their brand before launching any crowd-sourced campaign on social media.

Before starting any campaign, brands should implement a suitable ORM tool to get a good sense of what the sentiment towards their brand is in the social media space and combine that with any other research that has been done on the brand. The results of that analysis should be a key factor in deciding the direction that a campaign should take or whether one should be even be launched.

Social media is a potentially remarkable platform for connecting with one’s customers and stakeholders, but without a proper well thought out strategy and research, it can quickly turn into a treacherous place that can often leave many a brand custodian not “loving it”