| Blog |
This sounded ominous.
Over the past week, Qantas has faced a social media backlash over the appearance of private pilot and A-lister John Travolta in its new air safety video. According to Pop Eater, the airline’s cabin crew were highly critical of the campaign and described the video as ‘tacky’ and ‘corny’.
We’ve run a quick analysis of the social discussion to evaluate how the story developed and gauge sentiment towards Qantas in the context of the video.
First up, the channel breakdown shows us where the discussion has been.
And, how the story has spread across different social platforms.
There were no surprises that Twitter captured the conversation and we were able to drill down to the topic cloud for microblogs.
There were two stand-out phrases. ‘John Travolta angers’ based on tweets and reweets of ‘John Travolta Angers Qantas Employees With In-Flight Video Appearance’, mostly by celebrity and movie gossip sites. Social media relates to tweets warning of a ‘storm’.
The news hit the forums mid-week and the most influential site was airport.yuku.com which mentioned that staff had ‘taken to anonymous posts online to discuss their dislike of the Travolta video’ with some calls for Qantas pilot de Crespigny to replace him. It also mentioned staff members felt demeaned by Travolta calling them the team, not cabin crew.
In terms of sentiment, the standout negative comments (11.4%) regarding staff reaction have been discussed. Wider comments claimed that the video was a bit ‘misleading’
But, an analysis of the positive comments (13.8%) has showed that while some crew were upset by the video, on balance the story had little impact on public perception of the airline’s safety. For example, responses to a piece on the Huffington Post included: ‘What is the noise all about? This is a very good safety video. There’s no difference between it and the many ones I have seen, well, except that it begins with a celebrity whom the Qantas crews are jealous of’.
If a crisis breaks and a story goes viral, any brand or PR agency needs to mitigate the situation. Fast. And remember, there are four helpful rules: monitor the discussion, listen & communicate, participate in the conversation and then follow up.
If you’ve ever seen Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman interview a politician then you’ll know that sometimes it can be hard to get a straight forward ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Now the tables have been turned. The coalition is asking the public to vote in the referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) on 5 May. Both the yes camp and no camp have launched their campaigns so it’s a good time to take a quick look at how the discussion in social media has been developing over the past seven days.
First up, where’s the discussion been?
Figure 1: Channel breakdown for the AV discussion- 18/2 to 25/2
Looking at the channel breakdown, it’s no surprise that Twitter has captured the conversation. The forums have also been buzzing and the most influential social source has been Amazon’s politics forum.
And, what’s everyone been talking about?
Figure 2: Topic cloud for the AV discussion- 18/2 to 25/2
The political stakes for David Cameron and Nick Clegg are high as the Prime Minister leads the no campaign and the Deputy PM leads the yes camp. We’ve drilled down from the topic cloud to gauge the sentiment around the two party leaders in the context of AV question. In terms of negative mentions, the cost of the referendum has been one of the key comment threads.
‘… If we hadn’t had to have Nick Clegg’s referendum on AV we would not have to spend at least £250m’. (Tweet by Charlotte Vere 24/2)
‘… David Cameron says AV is the wrong system. Well why did you introduce a referendum on it then? Wasting money and time’. (Tweet by HouseofTwits 18/2)
Almost 10% of mentions of Nick Clegg were negative compared with 4% for David Cameron.
Facebook and Twitter have also been two of the stand-out topics. Campaigners have been using the hashtags #no2av (3422 tweets) and #yes2av (3315 tweets) to mobilise supporters. The immediacy of Twitter has also been used to counter opposing arguments – in 140-characters.
In the long run, how influential do you think social media will be on the outcome of a referendum which, according to the latest polls, is too close to call?
Fashion retail giant Inditex, which lists Zara among its global chains, recently found itself in the middle of an online spat with bloggers over the use of images used by its outside designers for t-shirts in its stores. The designers used pictures posted by fashion and style bloggers for a series of t-shirts, which have now been withdrawn.
It was a spectacular PR own goal by alienating bloggers who are extremely influential in the fashion world and are often taken on as brand ambassadors, advisers, even designers, for an industry when tomorrow is out of date. Inditex missed a golden social media opportunity to run a design campaign with the bloggers on side. Michèle K, who runs a Swiss fashion blog, said that she would have been happy to give permission for her image to be used.
The retail chain is getting some of its social strategy right. At the beginning of the month, figures from famecount.com placed Zara fourth among the top ten brands on fan engagement.
But, just not this time.
In a landmark move, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is taking action on bloggers and tweeters who endorse a brand without declaring they’ve been paid for it.
The Guardian has reported that the watchdog last month started a case against PR firm Handpicked Media, which runs a commercial blogging network, for apparently paying bloggers for positive brand comment. Consumers should be told about any paid-for endorsements.
The eWord blog explained OFT could: “Prohibit any future promotion that does not clearly identify, in a manner prominently displayed with the editorial content such that it would be unavoidable to the average consumer, that the promotion has been paid for or otherwise remunerated.”
Celebrities in the US can make big bucks from paid-for tweets which are tagged with ‘ad’ or ‘spon’. According to Marketing Week, celebs there can pocket over £30,000 per month.
The social marketing trend is picking up speed here as well. Range Rover has been recruiting celebrities to tweet about its new Evoque 4×4, including Daisy Lowe, as part of its ‘Pulse of the City’ campaign. Interestingly, Charlie Trumpess last month tweeted: ‘Range Rover uses 40 celebrity “trendsetters” to tweet about its new Evoque 4X4. Soon this sort of blurry activity will be covered by the ASA’.
There haven’t been any rules here, but that’s all about to change. If your brand or agency wants to use celebrities for social marketing – it will have to be transparent.
