Paid for complaint tweets tests British Airway's 'Fly to Serve' creative campaign

A couple of months an angry British Airways customer displayed the type of creative thinking that was so far outside the box most advertisers would be chuffed had they thought of it themselves. Taking aa dispute over poor customer service from BA following a lost bag Mt Syed decided to take out a paid for promoted ad targeting searches of the airline. The Brand Avenger wonders if Hasan Syed is just one of the growing breed dis-gruntled consumers who will fight back against injustice at any costs?

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1224122/trend-day-co-creation-rise-hyper-disgruntled-consumer

We have all shared Mr Syed's experiences. The Brand Avenger can't remember how many times I have lost sleep over the careless actions of an airline or a apparent lack of any type of customer service. The remarkable thing about this case is the lengths Mr Syed went to to ensure BA paid for their poor handling of a stressful situation. BA may have spent millions of pounds to alter the perception of consumers that elevate their branding around a strong customer service strategy. By spending £700 Mr Hasan certainly damaged BA's positioning and left senior team members so flustered they were using BA's own social media to apologise and clarify they had resolved the situation.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/sep/03/businessman-promoted-tweet-british-airways

Access to a brand is key in todays age and unquestionably the balance of power is changing. Customers like Mr Syed are switched on and savvy. They know exactly how to make a brand pay for any perceived gaps in customer service and can damage a brands reputation with a drop of a hat. It didn't take Hasan Syed millions of pounds or months of strategic planning to generate enough publicity to communicate his intended message. David stood up to the Goliath of BA and they were left dazed and bruised by this confrontation.

As more and more of the public wake up to the fact that they have power and a voice we will begin to move to a world where brands will need to advance their messaging and media delivery.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/09/04/british-airways-angry-flier-promoted-tweets/

Mr Syed had the last laugh and the final say when it came to his public challenging of BA, and as he so vehemently boasts on his twitter in this instance he holds the victory. The real test for BA now will be how they adjust their strategy to ensure this type of glitch never happens again. The worst case scenario would be a influx of disgruntled customers using similarly creative measures to bring them to task. The only way they can truly address is to embrace the message they have spent so much money on over the last year. Wholly embracing a fly to serve ethos and promoting this through all marketing touch points should prevent against getting on the Tweeters nerves allowing BA to truly serve the needs of their customer.

Are complaints brand damaging or great for creating awareness?

If you have often wondered how may people take the time out of their busy lifestyles to complain about TV advertising you needn’t wonder anymore as the top 10 most complained adverts of 2012 from the Advertising Standards Agency was released today. The full list of offenders can be found below but to summarise for those who would rather have it now as opposed to clicking through to another website The Brand Avenger will provide you with the list below. Why? Well just because I’m a nice kind of guy.

http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1180557/gocomparecom-complained-about-advertiser-2012/

10) St Johns Ambulance ‘Helpless’ campaign- 144 complaints

9) Kayak ‘Brain Surgery- 189 complaints

7=) Morrisons ‘For your Christmas’- 234 complaints

7=) Kelloggs ‘Crunch Nut Snake’- 234 complaints

6) Paddy Power ‘Ladies day’- 311 complaints

5) Richmond Ham- As nature intended- 371 complaints

4) Channel 4 ‘bigger, fatter, gypsier’- 373 complaints

3) Asda ‘Christmas doesn’t just happen by magic’- 620 complaints

2) GoCompare ‘Bazooka Sue’ – 797 complaints

1) GoCompare ‘Stuart Pierce advert’- 1,008 complaints

Going through the list there are some interesting offenders who have managed to upset the masses in 2012.  For the purposes of the length of this article let’s focus on a couple of case studies.

St Johns Ambulance.

It is interested that this advertisement made the complaints list but it is in there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC7zfgCXQFs

St Johns had a clear message they were looking to convey with this campaign and for all intents and purposes they achieve that quite well.  But the choice of linking the message to something like cancer, which has impacted so many families was always going to create a little controversy. This might not have been a bad thing for St Johns. The advert not only aired in a prime time spot with 9 million viewers to encourage as many people as possible to watch but it also generated extra coverage and more exposure through the hype surrounded it afterwards.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204809/The-ad-shocked-Downton-fans-Viewers-complain-St-Johns-ambulance-commercial-showed-man-choking-death.html

For a message as important as this this was a smart use of controversial activity to convey a strong brand identity and a clear message.

Paddy Power

Ladies day was not Paddy Power’s greatest day. No strangers to using controversial material in their television advertising and social media tools Paddy Power clearly overstepped the mark on this one and broadcast networks were quick to pull the material.

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1132078/

Paddy Power continue to push the boat out with the ‘we hear you campaign’. Whereas the adverts tend to be funny they always verge on the edge of offense and one has to wonder what objective this is achieving for the brand. If it is a case of raising awareness and making sure the brand is at the front of mind when it comes to gambling it appears this could is working when you consider their rise in pre-tax profits.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19407479

Go Compare

The two offending advert can be viewed on the below link.

http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1180557/gocomparecom-complained-about-advertiser-2012/

Go Compare takes both the biscuit and the spoils of second place with two television adverts last year. It is interesting to compare the sheer amount of complaints something like this generated compared to campaigns like St Johns with a more serious message. I would argue The Go Compare campaign has been a success for many reasons and is a clear sign that sometimes offended or annoying a mass audience over a considerable period of time can lead to rapid returns. Take for example how much profit alone the jingle has made over the last year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/may/02/go-compare-jingle-most-played-adverts

So an interesting list of offenders for this year but if you believe that no news is bad news you could argue it was all money well spent.