Henrietta Cook
March 7, 2012
The Age
Didn’t see it coming … Coles later admitted the tweet was a mistake.
A social media experiment has backfired for Coles, exposing the supermarket to a flood of negative comments on Twitter.
The supermarket is the latest company to have a social media marketing exercise go terribly wrong, following blunders from Qantas and Coca-Cola.
The official Coles account last night urged followers to complete the sentence “in my house it’s a crime not to buy…..”
But the PR exercise quickly fizzled as Twitter users inundated the supermarket’s account with negative comments.
User @Pollytics wrote, “Food from markets while Coles exploits mental illness via pokies.”
Other users raised concerns about the supermarket not giving farmers a fair price for their produce.
@TaraMacca wrote, “In my house, its a crime not to buy LOCALLY- and I don’t mean from a @coles supermarket.”
“In my house it’s a crime not to buy…BREAD AND MILK AT PRICES THAT ALLOW PRIMARY PRODUCERS TO SURVIVE,” said @downesy.
The retail giant tried to back-pedal from its Twitter faux pas, later tweeting “It’s a social media crime not to…..finish a sentence yourself. Sorry guys that post was not meant for twitter.”
The incident follows social media marketing disasters from Qantas and Coca-Cola.
Last November, a promotional Twitter hashtag created by the airline was hijacked by angry users.
Twitter users flooded the #QantasLuxury hashtag with negative comments about the grounding of the airline’s fleet following industrial disputes.
Earlier this month, Coca-Cola invited Facebook fans to post one-word comments to create “a happy story”.
But users quickly turned on each other, and the company was forced to delete many of the responses, which included insults and obscenities.
The fake @AlanJoyceCEO account last night tweeted to Coles, “Now we know where@Qantas PR went for new employment.”
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