McDonald's Supersizes Results, But Leaves A Bad Taste In Our Mouths

Creativity is nice, but the true measure of a campaign is results. And when McDonald's boasted ridiculously-good numbers from their Foursquare campaign back in April, marketing and social media professionals perked up their collective ears.

However, McDonald's claims are based on one wildly inaccurate premise. I'll lay out what happened, and I'm sure you'll see where things take a hard left turn.

The promotion: Foursquare users who checked-in at McDonald's on 4/16 were entered for a chance to win McDonald's gift cards.

The results: McDonald's reported a 33% increase in foot traffic because of this promotion.

The problem: McDonald's head of social media stated that they considered Foursquare check-ins the same as in-store foot traffic. Right there is that hard left turn I alluded to three paragraphs ago.

Anyone who has any experience in either marketing or social media is probably shaking their head, and understandably so. Check-ins are about as similar to foot traffic as spam accounts are to actual friends or followers.

The fundamental flaw here is that users don't have to be in McDonald's to check-in, meaning there was probably a large, if not huge, percentage of that so-called spike in foot traffic who were nowhere near a McDonald's (trust me, we have experience with this kind of dilemma here at Axiom). It's entirely possible that someone could have been eating at Burger King while checking-in to McDonald's trying to win a gift card.

So, intentional or not, this a clear case of misreporting on McDonald's part. And while it's not an egregious, prison-worthy offense, McDonald's has set themselves up for criticism and have taken a hit to their social media credibility.

But who knows, maybe McDonald's was trying to unlock some "Social Media Blunder" badge I don't know about.

Google's Axiom-Style Promotion

I'm thinking Google may have taken a page out of Axiom's book with their upcoming promotion for the new Google Voice calling technology.

Google's plan is to put red telephone booths in public venues (mostly airports and college campuses) to generate buzz about Google Voice. And these phone booths aren't just meant to sit around and look pretty, they are working phones integrated with the Google Voice feature. Step into one of the booths and you can test out the feature with free domestic and international calls.

If the idea of phone booths sounds familiar, it should. That's because here on the Daily Axioms blog I've made many references to our own Axiom phone booth that sits in our lobby.


Hey communication is communication, right? So why not feature one of the early versions of it. Also, I'm all for any promotion that infuse a little nostalgia with some product testing. Hopefully, this will inspire more phone booth-focused promotions in the future.

Will Chatroulette Ever Win Big?

Back in March I wrote a post about Chatroulette, and had a hard time putting my finger on how successful it would be long-term. Keep in mind, that post was in the middle of Chatroulette-mania as the video chat service was skyrocketing in popularity.

However, Chatroulette's popularity topped out that same month, reaching nearly 1.8 million unique visitors in March. Since then, they saw a steady decline to 1.1 million in May, and crept back up to just over 1.3 million visitors in June.

The reason why I'm so intrigued by Chatroulette's ups and downs is that, with the exception of adding channels about a month ago, they haven't made any significant changes to the site. Sure, they brought on Facebook's founding president Sean Parker, but the site itself hasn't really changed.

Even more interesting is the fact that this lack of innovation hasn't stunted Chatroulette's ability to build buzz for other brands. We've seen the Travelocity Roaming Gnome offer travel tips and musician Ben Folds play concerts live on the site.

The latest Chatroulette promotion is for the movie The Last Exorcism. I won't give away any details, but the premise is that otherwise-pleasant chats with a girl take an unexpected turn. There's a video about it in this Mashable article. It's a pretty clever idea, and another great example of companies adopting Chatroulette for promotional purposes.

So can Chatroulette be successful in the long-term? Sure, but it will take some innovating on their part to retain users, rather than continuing to rely on other brands to utilize Chatroulette in its current state. But my guess is that Chatroulette will spend the next year or so hovering right around the 1-1.5 million visitor mark.

That prediction, of course, is under the assumption that Chatroulette stays the way it is now. But if Facebook's founding president is willing to take a gamble on it, then there's a chance Chatroulette could hit the social media jackpot.

Location-Based Fan Interaction

NFL training camps are now underway, which means that football season is tantalizingly close. And for Minnesota Vikings fans who want to watch their favorite players prepare to start the season, that means making the trek down to Mankato, MN where the Vikings have held training camp for decades.

And to help capitalize on this annual flood of purple and gold, the Greater Mankato Convention and Visitors Bureau has created a SCVNGR promotion called Jared's Journey (after Vikings star player Jared Allen). Jared's Journey will challenge fans to explore the community, completing challenges and earning prizes along the way.

This is a win-win for everybody. The Greater Mankato Convention and Visitors Bureau gets people into parts of Mankato that might otherwise be missed by football fans while building buzz for the upcoming football season, which is great for the Vikings.

And although the Vikings aren't the first NFL team to use SCVNGR to help connect with fans, they are one of the early adopters of this location-based fan interaction. Regardless of the success of the promotion, it will give the team valuable experience for future social media promotions.

Even more importantly, this gives a football geek like me a chance to talk about my favorite team.

What Were They Thinking?

Instead of trying to set the scene about today's blog post, I'll just start with the headline I saw and go from there.

Coca-Cola Pulls Facebook Promotion Amid Porn Complaints.

The Dr. Pepper-focused promotion required Facebook users to allow Dr. Pepper to "hijack" their Facebook status and post a funny or embarrassing message. In return, users received a chance to win $1,000 each week.

Problems arose when a few of the 160,000 people who volunteered their accounts were underage, including a 14-year old girl from England. Again, nothing too inappropriate, but anytime age limits aren't defined you're asking for trouble.

Some messages weren't all that offensive, like the one that read "Lost my special blankie. How will I go sleepies?" Other statuses edged closer away from the line of good taste, like, "Never heard of it described as cute before."

However, the message that Dr. Pepper placed on the 14- year old girl's Facebook wall was, "I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards." For those of you who don't know, 2 girls one cup is a hardcore pornographic film.

Now it's safe to say that a line was crossed. Not surprisingly, the girl's mother wasn't too happy about the status, and her complaints led to Coca-Cola pulling the Dr. Pepper promotion altogether.

This is a great example of not only knowing the target demographic of the promotion, but the target demographic of the medium as well. A status like that might be funny to someone a little older, but the age range of Facebook users extends into that younger demographic.

Some will ask how Dr. Pepper could let that status go unnoticed, while others may ask who was writing such risque status updates. But anytime a big corporation slips up this badly, there's only one thing we can all ask...

What were they thinking?

Bueller...Bueller...Bueller...

If you read the title of this post with a deadpan tone, then you know exactly what movie I'm talking about.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off was an awesome movie about a kid and his friends who ditch school and spend the day in Chicago seeing the sights and having a blast.

Seriously, what kid didn't want to be Ferris Bueller?

Well even though the movie came out in 1986, fans can still experience their own day off Ferris-style in Chicago.

Chicago's Tourism Department, called Explore Chicago, has put together a really cool promotion that lets Foursquare users to earn a badge for reliving the events in Ferris Bueller's Day Off by checking in at designated spots listed on the Explore Chicago website.

If a user checks in to all of the listed locations, they'll earn Explore Chicago's On Location Foursquare Badge.

The only other prerequisite is that the user follows Explore Chicago on Foursquare, which is a smart move that should increase their Foursquare traffic and following.

Maybe it's just because I'm such a big fan of the movie, but I think this is a very clever promotion that users will actually want to participate in. And if the badge isn't incentive enough, there's always the bragging rights of being more Ferris Bueller-y than your friends.

Is Facebook Lactose Intolerant?

If you haven’t had a chance to yet, now might be a good time to read up on Facebook’s updated Promotions Guidelines. Most of it is pretty straight forward. You are fully and solely responsible and liable for your promotion. Check. The promotion must be true and accurate, and cannot mislead, deceive or otherwise misrepresent the prize. Sounds good. You may not publicize or administer a promotion on Facebook if the promotion’s objective is to promote any of the following product categories: gambling, tobacco, dairy, firearms, prescription drugs, or gasoline. Come again?

I think most of us can understand why Facebook doesn’t want promotions for tobacco, gasoline or firearms, but dairy? Sure, some people might lower their cholesterol if they lay off the cheese or lose a few pounds if they cut out the ice cream, but there’s no telling how Facebook came to include dairy in their list of promotional no-nos. Are they just doing their part in helping control the obesity crisis or is there some other aspect of this new restrictive policy that they aren’t telling us?

As the dairy industry continues to decline, they, if anybody, could benefit from a little social media promotion. Now, the guidelines aren’t preventing the dairy industry from having fan pages or groups, but to be banned from offering contests and promotions is pretty hindering. Consider the money the dairy industry is spending to increase consumption in this down market, from all the ads for Wisconsin cheese or California milk, why wouldn’t Facebook want a piece of the revenue?

What do you think? Are there any theories that might explain why Facebook has taken such a bold stance against America’s favorite cookie companion? Why is dairy suddenly blacklisted from connecting with Facebook’s over 200 million users via a contest or sweepstakes? And so I have to ask: Is Facebook in fact lactose intolerant?

Chinese Democracy Failed

Chinese Democracy was one of the most anticipated albums ever and was poised to set sales records. The numbers are now in, and they are disappointing. What went wrong? Many are blaming Axl Rose for the poor sales numbers for Chinese Democracy, claiming that he did not do enough promotion for the album. But, here are a few interesting facts:

1.) "Chinese Democracy," "Guns N' Roses," and related terms were all in the most-searched terms on places like Twitter, Google, etc around the week of release. People were talking about it.

2.) The album was streamed millions of times on MySpace in a few days. People were listening to it.

3.) Axl has been talking about new songs for Chinese Democracy for over 15 years and promising an imminent release more than once. People did know about the album.

I have more than one guess as to why the new Guns N' Roses did not blow the world out of the water with sales numbers. I do not believe this was an issue of poor promoting. My best guess is that the content was not there. The songs were outdated and simply could not live up to the hype created. After millions listened to the album on MySpace, they realized that it wasn't that special, and therefore did not rush out to purchase it. Sure it has its moments, but the album simply became a victim of too much promotion spread over 15 years. Agree or disagree?