back to article Walkers' Crisps pulls backfiring Tweet campaign that paired Gary Lineker and a bunch of nasties

Walkers' Crisps is desperately scrabbling to clean up a Twitter promo campaign after miscreants gamed it to broadcast videos of Gary Lineker holding up photos of paedophiles, murderers, terrorists and other such scum of the earth. The embarassingly backfiring Twitter stunt was aimed at drumming up enthusiasm for their fried …

  1. Flakk

    And Yet Again

    I wonder if companies are performing reasonable risk analyses to determine the problems that can arise from this sort of campaign. This is wholly apart from the risk analysis that every company should have performed long ago to determine if the potential brand and reputation damage is worth even having a hijackable account on Twitter (or any other social media platform).

    1. JonP

      Re: And Yet Again - risk analysis

      These kind of things happen so frequently that you can't help but think that they do plan for these"negative" outcomes. No such thing as bad publicity...

      I don't use Twitter, so I'd likely have never heard about it otherwise (in an ideal world...)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And Yet Again - risk analysis

        Do not attribute to genius, what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

        1. frank ly

          Re: And Yet Again - risk analysis

          They should publish their plans as an article here on El Reg. The commentardiat would tell them exactly what will happen if they go ahead.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: And Yet Again - risk analysis

            "The commentardiat would tell them exactly what will happen if they go ahead."

            Don't you think we are sufficiently aware to tell them it would be a very good idea and wait for the car crash?

            Unless it's a charity, I charge money to point this stuff out.

      2. Cuddles

        Re: And Yet Again - risk analysis

        "These kind of things happen so frequently that you can't help but think that they do plan for these"negative" outcomes. No such thing as bad publicity...

        I don't use Twitter, so I'd likely have never heard about it otherwise"

        Indeed. Except that there actually is such a thing as bad publicity, which is why things like this are clever. Particularly badly done or offensive marketing can actually be bad publicity, but with something like this the company can simply note that they didn't do anything offensive themselves; they simply allowed fans to interact with them in an innocent manner, and are as horrified as anyone else that it was hijacked by jerks. They therefore come out smelling of roses, while a shitty Twitter campaign that most people would never have heard of is now front page on the BBC.

        The same goes for things like the saga of Boaty McBoatface, which some people seem to be suggesting that marketers should have learned from. Maybe they should, but I don't think it's the lesson they're thinking of - Boaty gained the NERC and its ship a ton of publicity that it would never have otherwise had, and when it came to naming it they just said "No, we're not doing that" and picked one they actually liked. Yes, marketers absolutely did learn from that - you can use the trolls who think they're screwing with you to produce cheap, consequence free marketing. Opening things to the public lets you pick and choose bits you like while allowing you to to disown anything that generates complaints because you're not the ones who actually made it, all the while benefiting from the publicity said complaints generate.

    2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: And Yet Again

      Of course no.

      Such campaigns are concocted in a marketing department and never ever go anywhere near security and engineering.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And Yet Again

        Such campaigns are concocted in a marketing department and never ever go anywhere near security and engineering.

        When I worked at a big-box home improvement chain, the IT Dept shut down a marketing dept. promotion by asking if they'd run it through Legal yet. They hadn't, and it was determined that the campaign slogan was not going to be kosher, so the campaign vanished (of course it was something that involved a couple of weeks of changing large amounts of highly fragile production code)

      2. Tom 64
        FAIL

        Re: And Yet Again

        > "Such campaigns are concocted in a marketing department and never ever go anywhere near security and engineering."

        Yup. This is the sort of marketing tosh that gets outsourced to the lowest bidder, who couldn't give a monkeys about how it could be abused. Been there, done that.

        1. Roq D. Kasba

          Re: And Yet Again

          I suspect trying to get free technical consulting from Reg comments is just shifting the problem from rogue photo pairings to leaving their VPN passwords and domain admin privs tweeted in a photo of Gary Linneker

    3. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: And Yet Again

      I feel for the poor saps at every company who thinks wth when Marketing decide to do anything.

    4. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: And Yet Again

      I wonder if companies are performing reasonable risk analyses

      Of course not. It's social meeja innit? All fluffy bunnies and kittens gambolling in spring fields of flowers..

      (Besides which - I doubt whether Marketing has any idea of the words 'risk' and 'analysis' other than when used to indicate that they may not get their soy-mocha-chocca-vente-macciatio-frappe perfectly done..)

      After all - it's not like any social media naming campaign has ever gone wrong eh? NERC? NERC? Is that you?

  2. handleoclast
    Coat

    Fucky McFuckface

    You'd think that after the Boaty McBoatface saga, people might have learned something.

    Oh. Wait. These are marketing people. Forget I said anything.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fucky McFuckface

      Shouldn't they have been put on a spaceship by now?

      1. bazza Silver badge

        Re: Fucky McFuckface

        Shouldn't they have been put on a spaceship by now?

        How do you think they got here in the first place?

        1. Kane
          Alien

          Re: Fucky McFuckface

          "How do you think they got here in the first place?"

          "Well alright mister wise guy, if you're so clever you tell us what colour it should be!"

    2. Chemical Bob
      Headmaster

      Re: marketing people

      Not people, they're marketing *weirdos*.

      Biiig difference.

  3. Paul Renault

    Came here looking for one with "Walken, Chris"...

    ...leaving disappointed.

    1. akeane
      Thumb Up

      Re: Came here looking for one with "Walken, Chris"...

      I am "Being John" Monster Munch...

  4. viscount

    No such thing as bad publicity?

    The recent Jenner Pepsi ad was widely mocked, but subsequent surveys have shown that, despite the "bad" publicity, perceptions of Pepsi's improved amongst those who watched it and saw the reactions. Private Eye was my reference but this story is similar:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/pepsi-ad-kendall-jenner-protest-police-commercial-backlash-prefer-brand-survey-morning-consult-a7682126.html

    1. William 3 Bronze badge

      Re: No such thing as bad publicity?

      Too true. The hive mind of the MSM and it's tragic little acolytes forget there is a whole world outside their echo chamber.

      It often comes as a shock to them to discover that the vast majority of the worlds population really don't give a shit about the sanctimonious press and their forum dwelling gobshites

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No such thing as bad publicity?

      I quite liked the Pepsi ad. Sure was corny, staged, artificial, unrealistic nonsense, but I did not expect anything but that from an ad. I certainly wasn't outraged or offended. Likewise McD's Dead Dad ad.

      I think ad companies should just ignore the barking mob which chooses to be offended and the me toos wanting to tell people how they should think. I do not want to be told when I should take offence.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Brands need to stop thinking that people will love their #hashtag and do what they're asked to do.

    There are very few social campaigns amongst the thousands that anyone cares about.

    #Givethisshitup.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      RE: #Givethisshitup

      It's #GiveUPthisshit you naughty infinitive splitter. #donotboldlygo_goboldly

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Splitters!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Oh, jesus f-ing christ, I just got here and I see my AC colleagues running amok:

        #Givethisshitup

        #GiveUPthisshit

        It's just camelcase, you guys, and it would be correctly served by:

        #GiveUpThisShit or #giveUpThisShit (with the camel's head down for a drink, or to hide in the sand in case of; sandstorm, IEDs, xtian/mooslim uprisings, jealous husband camel to camel he's having an affair with, moonglow, bad hair day, etc.)

        #ShitUpGiveThis

        I only drink MexiCoke. The Coke from Mexico that is made with sugar from a plant. I think it's the sugarbush, or something. Yes, that's it, the Sugarbush. Ask for it by name.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          No, no, a gadzillion times no. Its nothing to do with camel case. The camel is there only to draw attention to the "UP" and how it's been moved. The burning issue here is split infinitives, not bloody camels. Catch up dude. It's nearly bed time.

  6. Bob Vistakin
    Devil

    "This was the worst experience of my life"

    "It sickened me to be seen alongside such a universally hated prat", said Rolf Harris.

  7. J.Smith

    Mustn't mock the media class, they're special and know better than us. People messing it up are just haters, actually, I think they constitute hate speech.

  8. Gene Cash Silver badge

    "Pepsico's PR people told us their Twitter account was not under their control"

    Wait, are they trying to play the "not our fault, we gots h4xx0red" card here? Seriously?

    1. Kane
      Facepalm

      "Wait, are they trying to play the "not our fault, we gots h4xx0red" card here? Seriously?"

      Exactly what I thought, considering that the video clips would have to be generated outside of Twatter© before being uploaded to the account.

  9. Mike Moyle

    If the worst that they got -- or, at least, the worst that got through the "yes, this is a face" software -- were portraits of infamous people as opposed to, say, a photo of someone's junk with a pair of Groucho glasses perched on top, then they should consider that they got damned lucky!

  10. Stevie

    Bah!

    Tsk! Marketers, eh?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Impartial BBC reporting

    Seems to have avoided BBC the paedophilles, and gone for west and Shipman ...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    EPIC FAIL

    because no one was able to sneak a pic of a scrotum in there. I weep for humanity. *weep* *weep* *weep weep weep*

    Here's the problem; marketing people are too stupid to shy away from any possible outlet, even when they end up abusing it or their own brand. When the Internet was new, brands shat all over themselves to scoop up every domain name, sometimes any and all permutations of their name in a URL, just so some average Joe could not come along and, as a joke or parody, take their name and "do something with it." Never mind that no one falls for it, the possibility was there, so idiot marketing shitheads, and they are all shitheads, took up the cause to get all the domain names, and never do anything meaningful with them ever again. I said EVER AGAIN.

    Then along comes social media, and all hell breaks loose; now average Joe can, in a matter of minutes, pop up and pretend they are the CEO of Wanker Crisps, or Jerkoff Jerky, whoever the fuck, and it makes marketing garbage get up and shake their skinny hands and spill their lattes all over their MacBook Pros with the little light bar, but they don't know what it's for, and they go and get the more interesting user kicked off, and supplant them with boring, 1st party, garbage. Now they run for cover because their viral, marketing campaign went haywire? I would kick any marketing person square in the nuts, but then they are a ball-less breed of muggle trash, less worthy to be on our Earth than the horrible people in the photos they want to dismiss as not their idea... too late, we know Pepsi loves Pedophiles. It's the choice of a new generation, of sex predators. :P

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stalin did nothing wrong

    He'd have sent all these adverting bottom feeders to the Gulag where they belong.

    1. James O'Shea

      Re: Stalin did nothing wrong

      No, he wouldn't. He'd have assigned them to a tank rider battalion and sent them off to the front.

      Long live our Soviet Motherland, built by the people's mighty hand.

      Long live our people, united and free.

      Strong in our friendship tried by fire. Long may our crimson flag inspire,

      Shining in glory for all men to see!

      Selah.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Stalin did nothing wrong

      Ehm, in any authoritarian regime propaganda people are highly valued... they would have all climbed the party ladder, and designed what the gulag has to teach us....

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stalin's Famine Crisps

    Now available in the following flavours:

    - Serial killer

    - Mass murderer

    - Kiddie Fiddler

    and

    - Wombat

  15. Roger Greenwood

    "Slack handful"

    So glad to see this being considered for inclusion as an IEC standard unit. I have had to explain a slack handful many times when it is clearly self describing. Perhaps the Reg. standards converter could be updated to assist those who have led a sheltered life in the IT world?

  16. William 3 Bronze badge

    Someone should have posted one holding up a picture of Gary Linekar.

    The sanctimonious twat.

  17. SimonC

    Surprised it nobody linked to that clip from the Brass Eye episode about paeophilia he was in.

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