Woolworths wasn’t the first company to feel the wrath of the online community in South Africa, and it certainly won’t be the last.
There aren’t that many examples of South African consumers making use of such outlets. SA has a small community of internet users, and of these, most who use social media spend more time rescuing lost cows from friends’ farms and finding out what superpower most suits them, than engaging with big business. But the times, they are a-changing.
Woolies vs God
On October 21, Woolworths announced that they would be removing all religious magazines from their shelves with immediate effect. While this in itself a provocative way to announce what was later described as a purely business decision, the situation was not helped by headlines such as “Woolworths bans Christian magazines” that appeared on some websites.
The Woolworths Facebook page soon turned into a religious war between Christians, who threatened boycotts of the stores, atheists, and those who had just come along to watch the fun. Later that day, Woolworths reversed the decision, which led to another outpouring of rage, this time by those who thought the company had lost its spine. From the outset, it was always going to be a case of damned if they did, very damned if they didn’t, so where did they go wrong?
Johannesburg social media consultant Melissa Attree said it was a PR disaster from the start. “Had they come out in the beginning, and said it was a business decision, things might have been different. It was a failure from a PR point of view”.
Core vs Apple customers
Last year Apple consumers went head-to-head with local distributor Core Group over what they said was the exorbitant pricing of Apple products. The subject was hotly debated on forums, blogs and Twitter.
Then Core Group’s executive director, RJ Van Spaandonk, entered the fray. He set up a Twitter account and posted a stream of sarcastic tweets aimed at putting down people who questioned Core’s pricing. This only angered bloggers further and they retaliated by slating Van Spaandonk en masse.
Realising that his strategy had backfired, Van Spaandonk protected his tweets — effectively hiding them. But the damage had already been done. Touted as a lesson in how not to use social media, screen shots of his Twitter feed were posted on the internet and conversations about his snide remarks circulated even more widely. He lost all but 18 followers.
Van Spaandonk later admitted that the way he had handled the situation was a mistake.
The people vs Nestlé
In September 2009, in was reported that Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace was in talks with Nestlé. The corporate megalith was considering buying milk from farms she owned, farms allegedly claimed during the “land grabs”. When the news broke, the public, horrified that their Bar Ones could soon contain milk procured in this way, took action, writing blogs and commenting on articles about the issue. They also set up Facebook groups such as “Boycotte Nestlé for doing bussiness with Grace Mugabe“, which, spelling aside, had its heart in the right place, recommending boycotts and letters of protest. Nestlé, probably glad that this was the only questionable practice of theirs that people were picking on, eventually decided to pull out of the deal.
The ubiquitous Mr Noah
A few months ago a YouTube video was posted — which soon went viral — which showed comedian Trevor Noah mouthing off in a comedy routine about the bad service people receive from cellphone companies in South Africa. Cell C then responded, “apologising” to Noah in adverts in major newspapers around the country. “How wonderful”, everyone thought. “What a clever bit of PR”, everyone tweeted. It soon became uncomfortably clear, however, that the whole thing had been a set-up. The “Tell Trevor” website, that the company claimed had been a response to the clip, had been registered months before the clip was posted. Everything had been planned. Social media platforms accused Cell C, and Noah, of dishonesty.
Attree was surprised by the backlash.
“Some people said they abused social media, that they were dishonest. But it raises an interesting question. No one ever said that social media has to be a forum for honesty. It’s advertising, and advertising has always cheated”.
So all’s fair in love and marketing, it seems.