5 Social Media Marketing Campaigns That Didn't Go Well

Posted: 12/08/2013

Social media marketing campaigns play a great role in promoting brands and these days almost all brands are going the social media way and are using the new media to promote their products and services in an unique way. But it's not always that a nicely planned, flawless marketing campaign goes well.

When a social media marketing campaign falls through things go bad, especially for the brand. But for other brands it's a lesson learnt.

Here is a list 5 marketing campaigns that didn't go the way they were supposed to in fact were total failure.

Happy reading!

1. General Motors

In an attempt to promote its then-to release Chevy Tahoe SUV, General Motors launched the 'Create your own advert' marketing campaign. The campaign was going great, in fact started with a bang. It received a good number of entries but as the campaign moved towards its later stage it tanked before the automobile brand could announce the results, SUV haters and the environmentalists created negative ads that went viral and created a lot of negative publicity for the brand.

2. McDonalds

McDonalds is known for introducing innovative ways to promote itself. This brand is quite active on the social media space but its one social media campaign forced the brand to doubt its social media marketing strategies.

McDonalds launched a campaign on Twitter where its customers were supposed to share their 'Happy Meals' experience with the brand on Twitter. This campaign did go viral but the catch was that it only garnered horror and scary stories in the comment box. This campaign tanked bad.

The lesson learnt here was that a social media marketing campaign needs to be thought through before being actually implemented.

3. Qantas Airlines

Qantas Airlines is Australia's largest domestic and international airlines. In 2011, the company, in an attempt to reach more customers and create loyalists the company went the social media way. The company started a campaign on Twitter where the people were supposed to share their ideal luxury flying experiences. This campaign didn't go well as it didn't go viral as no proper hashtags were created.

Lesson learnt hashtags play a great role in making the campaign go viral.

4. Resident Evil Video Game

In case you love the Resident Evil movie series then you might have heard about the Resident Evil video game. As per this campaign, text messages were send to the mobile and computers of the fans to download this game. The text read something like this,

"Outbreak: I'm infecting you with t-virus, my code is ******. Forward this to 60022 to get your own code and chance to win prizes. More at t-virus.co.uk."

This campaign didn't work out the way it was supposed to instead the movie did great.

The problem with this campaign was not that it wasn't effectively planned but the texts that were sent out sounded more like an actual virus threats and were eventually deleted.

5. WalMart

Walmart is a brand which is synonymous to practicality and in order to change that image the brand launched a Facebook campaign. The campaign's sole purpose was to help the brand in changing its image to being more stylish. This campaign wasn't accepted by the customers and received a bad response. Hence, proved to be a failure.

The lesson learnt here was that for any brand its not easy to change its image.

These social media marketing campaign are just a few in the list, trust me there are more. But the catch here is that these failures are to be learnt from.

Here's one tip for you - Before you go ahead with your campaigns, think them through and focus on all the aspects of it.

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