#carbonaragate: Marketing fail, or brilliant troll?

Europeans are very entertaining sometimes.

Last month, French lifestyle site demotivateur posted a video recipe for a pasta "alla Carbonara" that was nothing like the eggy spaghetti dish beloved by Italians.

Even among Italians, there are variations in the recipe, which is a "tradition" less than a century old. However, the French version almost seemed like a parody of French food by Italians. Dry pasta, bacon, and onions are simmered in water, then the mix is tossed in crème fraîche and cheese and pepper sprinkled on. Finally, a raw egg yolk is cracked on top. What?

The video went viral in Italy, according to Huffington Post, with Italians loudly bemoaning the "death of carbonara."

But let's look at that video again.

Nice product placement, eh? When I first saw the original video (now gone) I swear I saw Barilla branding at the end as well. I suspect, as some Italian commenters do, that this was just a piece of content marketing gone awry.

And yet the company denied everything on the Sai cosa mangi? Facebook Page, and offered a link to alternative recipes on their own site.

So, either this was rogue content marketing by Barilla's French team that went very badly, or it was a brilliant trolling of Italians. Either way, Barilla is benefiting from clicks, mentions, and visits by outraged Italians and curious foreigners.

Hmmm...

Online threats replaced with rainbows and kisses

According to The Drum, this is the work of an ‘anti-trolling browser extension’ developed by V-Hab, a clever campaign site to promote New Zealand's V Energy Drink.



Apparently, some One Direction fans took umbrage to British GQ's pairing of a Harry Styles cover with the cutline "He's up all night to get lucky" and reacted the way only juvenile fanatics seem to be able to anymore: with threats of violence and sexual assault:

A V-Hab spokesperson told the Drum:

“We love British GQ, but boy did those poor souls not know what they were getting themselves into! “Luckily for them, at V-Hab we’re all about countering trolls with a bit of positive energy so we’ve created humour and positivity into what has clearly been a rather large misunderstanding on all sides.

Coincidentally, Jezebel's Lindy West wrote a lengthy rant yesterday about how she felt "don't feed the trolls" was bad advice, especially for women:

I feed trolls. Not always, not every troll, but when I feel like it—when I think it will make me feel better—I talk back. I talk back because the expectation is that when you tell a woman to shut up, she should shut up. I reject that. I talk back because it's fun, sometimes, to rip an abusive dummy to shreds with my friends. I talk back because my mental health is my priority—not some troll's personal satisfaction. I talk back because it emboldens other women to talk back online and in real life, and I talk back because women have told me that my responses give them a script for dealing with monsters in their own lives. 

V-Hab's mockery is not the same as the fight that Ms. West is advocating, but it still feels good to watch aggression mocked so sweetly.

Stamp artist trolls the entire nation of France for #Femen

"Dear fascists, nationalists, homophobes and extremists of France, now whenever you want to send a letter, you will have to lick my ass!"

Marianne is the mythical face of the French Revolution. A symbol of France's revolutionary values, Marianne's face graces a series of stamps issued every few years with a new interpretation.

This one just happens to be based on Ukrainian activist Inna Shevchenko, of topless radical protest group Femen.

According to one of the stamp's designers,

"For all those who ask who the model was for Marianne, it's a mix of several women, but particularly Inna Shevchenko, founder of Femen [France]" 

According to The Local, Ms. Shevchenko was not even aware that her face had inspired this small act of nationalist subversion. The artist told the press, "For me, Marianne, who is represented bare-breasted, would probably have been a Femen in 1789 because she fought for the Republic's values - liberty, equality and fraternity."

France's Christian Democrat Party has demanded a boycott of the stamp as "an affront to the dignity of women and the sovereignty of France."

Benadryl interactive gets trolled, brand reacts like a boss

Benadryl in the UK recently launched an interesting interactive tool that invited users to report "pollen hotspots", allowing their site to crowdsource reports of heightened allergic sensitivity. Which was a great idea, until someone who the Drum describes as having "a little too much time on their hands" got crude with it:

As juvenile as that is, I was really pleased to find out that today, while locking up the interactive (presumably for some retooling) they acknowledged the act of vandalism with excellent British aplomb:

Excellent work!

Cute Cheerios ad incites racist flamewar

There was a time, a few years ago, when it was common casting procedure on our Canadian government ads to cast families of different ethnic backgrounds. This was an easy way to show population diversity even when the action took place in a single household. The challenge was always to avoid making it look forced, or turning it into a cliché. We just wanted to show families that more people could identify with, and not feel excluded by.

So it was interesting for me to open up Gawker and read about the controversy surrounding a new Cheerios spot from the United States:



Apparently, Cheerios had to shut down the comments thread in its YouTube post of the ad was flooded with racist hate speech. I can't give you a firsthand account, but AdFreak Editor Tim Nudd describes it as "devolved into an endless flame war, with references to Nazis, 'troglodytes' and 'racial genocide'."

But almost as surprising, to me, is what a huge (positive) deal people on Cheerios' Facebook Page are making, as if depicting families that don't all have the same complexion is some kind of marketing revolution.

I guess both the bad and the good show how far American culture has to go when it comes to getting over its obsession with "race" (whatever that means). When everyone can look at an ad like this and just see a family, then we'll know there's been progress.

By the way, to circle back to my first point, congratulations to Saatchi & Saatchi NYC for achieving an effortless realism in what was apparently a very momentous casting choice.

"Voter suppression" billboards removed by Clear Channel

Via The Plain Dealer

Wow.

The above billboard, paid for by an anonymous "private family foundation" was placed in poor and predominantly Black or Hispanic neighbourhoods in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Milwaukee.

The Plain Dealer reports that The Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights contacted Clear Channel (the media company in Cleveland) about the ads, explaining that the signs the signs, "stigmatize the African-American community by implying that voter fraud is a more significant problem in African American neighborhoods than elsewhere," and the billboards "attach an implicit threat of criminal prosecution to the civic act of voting."

As of October 15, Clear Channel — owned in part by Mitt Romney’s former firm Bain Capital — was refusing to remove the billboards, blaming a rogue salesperson for allowing anonymity to be stipulated in a contract. Jim Cullinan, vice president of marketing and communications for Clear Channel Outdoor, told the Washington Post, " once we put them up and signed a contract, we had to live with the anonymity."

According to an update from Media Post, the Clear Channel people have changed their minds about that, agreeing to remove the ads because the billboards actually do violate their policy of "not accepting anonymous political ads" — contract or not. Some sources state that the anonymous advertisers were given the choice to identify themselves publicly or have their campaign removed. Showing the typical lack of personal responsibility typical of trolls everywhere, they chose anonymity.

Clear Channel wasn't exactly showing an amazing change of heart. They didn't have much of a choice. In Cleveland, City Councilwoman Phyllis Cleveland and State Sen. Nina Turner held a rally in front of one billboard installation on October 11 to demand the removal of the ads. There were also petitions at sumofus.org, change.org and signon.org, and the effort was coordinated by online civil rights organization colorofchange.org.

People's World reports that billboards in Cincinnati, managed by local media company Norton Outdoor, are still up. (Norton's mission statement claims, "We are equally committed to being a good corporate citizen in every community in which we do business")

Clear Channel, in a gesture intended to calm the PR crisis, has donated 10 billboards around the Cleveland area for this message:

PETA trolls the Miami Marlins

Now, this is the kind of PETA I'd like to see more of:

The above is a mock-up of a sponsored paving stone that PETA put into the promenade of the Miami Marlins new ballpark.

The slogan is actually an acrostic that reads: F I S H I N G H U R T S (dot) C O M.

I'm not a PETA fan, and I like to go fishing. But I appreciate a good prank. Plus, it's very appropriate for Easter, since acrostics were a popular code among early Christians.

It may not be effective social marketing, putting a hidden message out, but the earned media around it should garner a few extra clicks.

At least no humans were abused in this one.

"I came here for an argument"

Like comment spammers, trolls are a natural part of the blog landscape. Sometimes they're actually quite funny. Unfortunately, more often than not, they are just wannabe bullies.

I say "wannabe" because they rarely have the effect they want. Unlike the schoolyard, social media channels do not allow the privacy that most bullies operate under. They expose their own intellectual and psychological shortcomings for everyone to see. But because they can do so with anonymity, they aren't too worried about being personally exposed.

I have one of these. At least one. Regular readers will recognize a signature style in a certain "Anonymous" poster's comments. I have no idea why he/she bothers to come here so regularly to read posts that he/she thinks are "stupid" or "crazy" just so he/she can call me a "prick" or a "dbag".

My first instinct has been to leave these comments up. They don't do any more harm to me than slight annoyance, and my Facebook friends seem to get some entertainment value out of seeing what the troll will come up with next. Lately, though, things have begun to escalate from random abuse to a weird kind of obsessiveness. It's creepy.

I don't really want to pre-moderate comments, and I won't for now. I also want to leave the anonymous option there for people who aren't comfortable putting a public identity to their comments. I will continue to delete hate speech against others as a matter of policy, as well as spam when I feel like it. And once in a while, I will disappear a troll.

I blog under my own name because I've never been shy about having an opinion. I know my opinions can attract scorn as well as debate, and I can take quite a bit of both. But what I really get tired of is repetitive trolling that isn't funny, creative, or even laughably pathetic. I wouldn't sit silently and take some stranger screaming shit at me on the bus. Why do I need to play host to it here?

I came here for an argument.

Join the conversation... or else!

The Internet grew another layer of interactivity this week, as Google announced the beta version of Sidewiki, a browser add-on that lets you comment and share information on a sidebar applied to any page on the Web, like this:



(Click to enlarge)

For people who are hungry for more ways to share content, expertise, and comments in a more collaborative way — even on Web 1.0 sites — this is great news. For organizations that try to dictate their online brand from the boardroom, and stifle public criticism, this is very bad news indeed.

Personally, I love a good unmoderated thread. I try to encourage our clients to stop being afraid of criticism or mockery, and instead use it as real-time market research to help fine-tune their brand. Sure, you can yank comments that are truly inappropriate (racism, etc.) or nuke the trolls after the fact. (I'm looking your way, Pat!) But it doesn't actually hurt you if someone has their say in the vicinity of your own content.

As well, according to PC World, there is some automated quality control built into Sidewiki with a "quality algorithm" that puts the most useful posts at the top of the sidebar. (We'll see how well that works.)

Most people will be unaware of the conversations at first, because you have to add the app to your browser (get it here) before you can see the posts. But there are bound to be some pretty interesting stories around Sidewiki over the next few weeks, as big brands come to terms with 4Chan-like comments beside their carefully-worded, trademarked and copyrighted content. But there's no reason to be afraid. These things have a way of playing themselves out.

Social Media in CLF 2.0

I'm speaking today to a Social Media Public Sector Workshop for the Government of Canada. It's an interesting topic, because while government clients are desperate to harness the power of social media for their social marketing, they are constrained by a number of rules and regulations.

One of the biggest is the Official Languages Act. According to some of my government clients, everything put online by the government — including user comments — must be translated so that it appears in both English and French. As you can imagine, this makes real-time online community building almost impossible (unless they employ a legion of simultaneous translators, as in the U.N.!)

Another huge challenge is privacy. The Government of Canada has rules about setting cookies, or take other information from users, except in very specific cases. And Google Analytics, which sends private information to the States, is also problematic — limiting measurement.

As well, there are accessibility standards, and a major concern about trolling. How can they possibly get anywhere near a social network? They're also gun shy, because of the responses to CRA's "underground economy" video contest on YouTube.

We were able to make some great headway in collaboration with Public Safety Canada on their 72 Hours emergency preparedness campaign. In short, we avoided the pitfalls of trying to engage people conversationally on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Instead, together we found and engaged interested bloggers and organizations directly, recruiting them to champion the cause and campaign on a secondary level.

As well, we worked with Lee Lefever to develop a Common Craft video on the subject, developing copy in English and French to meet language standards. Lee then shared the video through his own networks, and it showed up on YouTube, giving us even more reach:

We also developed a quiz on MSN about emergency preparedness that drove 47,826 people to getprepared.gc.ca, and created badges for partner sites. Future plans include a podcast strategy.

So my message to government today will be: don't be scared of social media. Just be careful, creative and resourceful.