Beta and the outdoor industry analyse the Mumsnet cock-up

[morningpaper]

The Mumsnet Incident in Brandrepublic

Garry's chum Robert:

"Don't mess with Mumsnet. It is like wrestling with an octopus. There is huge diversity within it. There are those with political ambitions as well as many looking for advice and support and everything in between. They can organise themselves very quickly. The conversation is relatively serious during the day and gets pretty wild in the evening - we found threads about wife-swapping, gangbangs, "bumsex" and drugging babies with alcohol."

PLANNER (and mum to be) - Amelia Torode, head of strategy and innovation, VCCP:

"It was astounding to watch it all happen in real time, though, from the first reaction to the haiku about Garry (Lace)'s penis size."

AGENCY HEAD - Cilla Snowball, chairman, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO:

"But the key postmortem question is one of judgment and establishing why
the ad got cleared to run. It's patently horrible, untrue and offensive
and should never have seen the light of day.

i want someone to send the haiku thread to my new best friend cilla. does anyone have it at all or did it really go phut?

Drugging babies with alcohol? WTF? I've never seen threads about this on here. Someone's telling porkies!! We are not some of the other sites you know, jeeze, we'll be giving the poor sods fruit shoots next. Tsch!

it's pretty interesting, though, that none of them really 'get' the new media thing at all. they don't understand that we are all individuals. (yes, we are all individuals...) [life of brian]

Yes Cilla Snowball is a real woman. And a damn fine one too

Dittany > it's fairly common (and advised) for firms to have their own bloggers to defend them. If they have any sense then they'll have a twitter account and someone who joins forums like MN to put across their point as well.

But can you imagine trying to do that here on such an issue? Their point of view seemed so vacuous I can't see that any "directing" (WTF!!) would have been possible. Again a real misunderstanding of how things work. Big forums are not like focus groups, conversations go their own way regardless of what anyone might like. Likewise the 200 "abusive posts" probably happened in a few hours, fairly late at night. They were certainly (sadly) all gone by the time I got to look. Perhaps MumsnetHQ needs to add that as a caveat to the guidelines, so that it is understood that things are rarely (if ever) removed in real time. This is not a premoderated board after all.

we could have done with a whole team of bloggers ready to ride and direct the debate more positively

I find this line fascinating. Do bloggers hold that much power? And are people convinced by a horde of paid bloggers arguing that black is white?

IF this is true it shows how sinister advertising can be, really.

They had no plan for managing the response to a social networking campaign, it was a really bad concept to begin with, which they had to know would provoke much comment, they claim they were 'misunderstood' and that their subtlety in deliberately leaving the question mark off the end of the sentence was obviously too clever for the general public... They couldn't respond in real time and those MN bullies could and did. Boo Hoo.. They didn't have any idea what they were doing or how to use the tools that are at their disposal. They seemed to have no idea how they were coming across either, no idea about image, and that is really funny considering their jobs.

Bloggers have influence, not outright power. I don't think this unsubtle group could have pulled it off, because to influence you have to be very, very subtle, even oblique. All social media are capable of being used cynically by anyone.

Carmen,I read that line to mean "next time we will have a load of plants on mumsnet to steer the conversation in the direction that we want."

which is also pretty annoying.

me too, nightbynight. they really do not get these places at all. can you imagine if fifteen newbs suddenly popped up to say 'garry lace's penis is ENORMOUS'?

the notion that they didn't have an internet platform is ludicrous in any case, the whole campaign was to drive people to the whatbritainthinks website, they could have engaged there, no problem.

the minute they saw any consternation they could have gone on the site and said 'whoops, that does look a bit bald in the light of day/wish we'd put the question mark in/wish we hadn't been sexist/ soz' and the air would have gone out of the whole thing. had they done so it would have driven traffic to their site, which would actually have achieved their aim.

what it says to me is that they wanked off the campaign in their board room, did their usual ad agency poster-y stuff, had some techmonkeys set up the internet side, trousered the cash and then never thought about it again.

i'm pleased that they lost the opportunity to pitch for a company this week. i hope it was a working mother who nixed them.

Anyone going to own up to the drugging babies with alcohol one then?

Goodness me how disappointing. To have positioned this debacle as a 'misunderstanding' by 'mumsnetters' tells me that either:

a) they didn't know that their campaign was receiving a widespread negative reaction across many platforms - twitter, mumsnet, netmums and a plethora of blogs WORLDWIDE.

This would suggest that they don't understand the role the internet plays in making visible opinions that are already out there, on the street, at the bus-stop, in the workplace, e.g. the man/woman on the street as critic/journalist/commentator, and the power this yields. They are never going to succeed in this new world without a good grasp on this.

b) they did know, but didn't care, and have used this opportunity with Campaign to try and discredit the 'enemy'.

It wasn't that their campaign was misunderstood online. Lots of people saw the ads, lots of people saw press coverage about the ads, lots of people didn't think the ads were appropriate, lots of people talked about it, everywhere, including the internet.

Admitting the mistake, wholeheartedly, and not with loaded statements, then moving on quickly would have been a more graceful exit from this disaster.

To anybody, this looks like a monumental cock up:

• badly thought out, offensive copy?
• little understanding of even the rudimentary workings of the internet?
• reacting aggressively and threatening lawyers?
• a veiled apology?
• lying about getting the posters removed asap?
• trying to bulldoze people to help them turn round the campaign?
• pontificating about a new, alternative slogan that in the end never saw the light of day?
• making a last ditch attempt to save face in trade media all the while glossing over ones own mistakes and apportioning blame elsewhere for the failure of the campaign?

Mmm...

Nope, can't find any threads about drugging babies with alcohol anywhere...

An archive search brings up plenty of threads on how much alcohol is safe while pregnant/breastfeeding, but nothing on drugging babies with alcohol.

I wonder who has more grounds legally?

• GL getting upset about penis size haikus
• MNHQ/MNers being labelled as baby druggers...

can you imagine if fifteen newbs suddenly popped up to say 'garry lace's penis is ENORMOUS'?

ROFL, Aitch

we should respond to his response, i think.

Defies belief doesn't it?

Some small solace in the fact that Google doesn't forget... if I was hiring an ad agency, the first thing I would do is Google them - web, news, blogs, the lot. The whole sorry saga is there to read, warts and all. Ho hum Garry and pals...

It's a silly response and still not understanding what went on. He is trying to claw back authority and the determine meaning of the campaign. Which is impossible. People were offended.

Any amount of Beta 'bloggers' on here would have been very easy to spot, and would have fuelled the fire rather than possibly swayed or tackled it in any way.

They just need to admit that however high-fiving excited they were in the 'brainstorms' and creative process about this campaign they got it wrong/.

The comments below were very good.

I just can't believe there are comms people out there who seriously think that 'hiring a team of bloggers' is the way to engage with people online who disagree with what you're doing!

If they are serious about this, they would need, at a guess, say 20 or so bloggers who are habitually using major online communities on a daily basis, on a big range of topics, for a period of at least six months before said campaign breaks. In order to have a trusted viewpoint, said bloggers would need to be known, recognised and respected in their communities. That would be monumentally expensive, and even then, would very likely be too transparent to actually work.

A more sensible plan, Garry et all - if you're listening - would be to try not to offend people in the first place. And if you do, be humble about it, offer a swift and genuine apology, and learn from your mistakes.

there were, yes, and they were as much fun as a fart in a spacesuit so immediately spotted as impostors.