Now before I start, people have used this name before and after for all sorts of unrelated issues, so more correctly one could say it's ONE of the Keurig effects. Namely the marketing one.
So in 2017, Keurig (a manufacturer of coffee machines among other things) decided to pull their advertisments from Sean Hannity's Fox News show, not just for his general personality, but over his coverage of the rape of a 14 year old. Coming at a time when many people were already boycotting Keurig over their non-biodegradable coffee cups, or the "pods" for their coffee machines which had the same issue, basically someone in their PR department decided that their corporate image can't take any more controversy and distanced themselves from one source of controversy.
Note that Keurig didn't really become some leftist company over night or anything. They still weren't doing anything about their biodegradable coffee cups or pods or anything. And AFAIK even about Hannity they didn't actually go on record to say that he's wrong or anything. They just cancelled their advertisments.
And what happened next was a publicity boost that nobody expected. A bunch of idiots were flooding Twitter and YouTube to post photos and videos of them smashing up their Keurig coffee machine.
And Keurig's sales, which had been continuously falling since 2014, suddenly spiked.
Millions of people who hadn't even heard the name Keurig before, now couldn't go anywhere online without being constantly reminded that (A) they make coffee machines, and that (B) they must be pretty good machines, if all these ultra-conservative types had had one, and their ONLY complaint about it was the lack of advertisment money for Hannity. It was more exposure and in fact downright advertisment in just the first week than Keurig's marketing budget would have gotten them in a whole year.
Better yet, one might suspect that SOME of the lemmings queueing up to show that they too are smashing a Keurig coffee machine, just like the rest of the brainless bleating herd, may have just bought a new one just to smash it.
And other companies' marketing departments were starting to take notice too.
If you ever wonder what was with the Gillette and Nike ads that provoked a similar reaction, and similar spikes in sales, yeah, that's what. Again, neither company had actually become any more environmentally friendly, or less using sweatshops in poor countries, or anything. Or Gillette may have been ok with being less stereotypical about genders in one ad, but they sure as f-word weren't cancelling their 'pink tax' for their products aimed at women.
But that didn't matter. What mattered was that thousands of idiots who probably didn't even see the actual ad when it aired, were looking for the next thing to be offended about, were informed by others that there's something they may want to be offended about, had a look, and were dutifully offended. And proceeded to manifest that offense by providing the company they were offended by with unprecedented levels of exposure.
So anyway, why am I saying all this? Well, because it seems to me like idiots on both sides of each issue are currently embattled over exactly that, except it's about other products. For example, movies.
If you ever thought that a multi-billion dollar international corporation is willing to make a loss and ruin their brand just to promote some woke idea (*cough*"the force is female"*cough*), and that made them either your heroes or your villains to fight for or against on the interwebs, congrats, you too might be the kind of useful idiot they hoped you'd be. In reality they were most likely hoping you'd dutifully take to the interwebs to provide them with more exposure. Like thousands dutifully did.
And if you just idly wondered "what were they thinking?" well, now you have a reasonable guess at that.
Of course, the major difference is that Keurig, Gillette or Nike weren't actually changing their actual product to create a controversy. People flocking to YouTube or Twitter to bash Keurig (quite literally, bash; they were smashing their coffee machines) weren't actually saying that Keurig coffee machines sucked. Quite the contrary, obviously all of them had seen no reason to replace theirs before being offended by the company. Anyone who didn't care whether they not they supported Hannity could only take away the conclusion that their coffee machines at the very least worked well enough.
In the case of several recent movies, well, that was a different story.
Will it work as well for them as it did for Keurig? We shall live and see.
So in 2017, Keurig (a manufacturer of coffee machines among other things) decided to pull their advertisments from Sean Hannity's Fox News show, not just for his general personality, but over his coverage of the rape of a 14 year old. Coming at a time when many people were already boycotting Keurig over their non-biodegradable coffee cups, or the "pods" for their coffee machines which had the same issue, basically someone in their PR department decided that their corporate image can't take any more controversy and distanced themselves from one source of controversy.
Note that Keurig didn't really become some leftist company over night or anything. They still weren't doing anything about their biodegradable coffee cups or pods or anything. And AFAIK even about Hannity they didn't actually go on record to say that he's wrong or anything. They just cancelled their advertisments.
And what happened next was a publicity boost that nobody expected. A bunch of idiots were flooding Twitter and YouTube to post photos and videos of them smashing up their Keurig coffee machine.
And Keurig's sales, which had been continuously falling since 2014, suddenly spiked.
Millions of people who hadn't even heard the name Keurig before, now couldn't go anywhere online without being constantly reminded that (A) they make coffee machines, and that (B) they must be pretty good machines, if all these ultra-conservative types had had one, and their ONLY complaint about it was the lack of advertisment money for Hannity. It was more exposure and in fact downright advertisment in just the first week than Keurig's marketing budget would have gotten them in a whole year.
Better yet, one might suspect that SOME of the lemmings queueing up to show that they too are smashing a Keurig coffee machine, just like the rest of the brainless bleating herd, may have just bought a new one just to smash it.
And other companies' marketing departments were starting to take notice too.
If you ever wonder what was with the Gillette and Nike ads that provoked a similar reaction, and similar spikes in sales, yeah, that's what. Again, neither company had actually become any more environmentally friendly, or less using sweatshops in poor countries, or anything. Or Gillette may have been ok with being less stereotypical about genders in one ad, but they sure as f-word weren't cancelling their 'pink tax' for their products aimed at women.
But that didn't matter. What mattered was that thousands of idiots who probably didn't even see the actual ad when it aired, were looking for the next thing to be offended about, were informed by others that there's something they may want to be offended about, had a look, and were dutifully offended. And proceeded to manifest that offense by providing the company they were offended by with unprecedented levels of exposure.
So anyway, why am I saying all this? Well, because it seems to me like idiots on both sides of each issue are currently embattled over exactly that, except it's about other products. For example, movies.
If you ever thought that a multi-billion dollar international corporation is willing to make a loss and ruin their brand just to promote some woke idea (*cough*"the force is female"*cough*), and that made them either your heroes or your villains to fight for or against on the interwebs, congrats, you too might be the kind of useful idiot they hoped you'd be. In reality they were most likely hoping you'd dutifully take to the interwebs to provide them with more exposure. Like thousands dutifully did.
And if you just idly wondered "what were they thinking?" well, now you have a reasonable guess at that.
Of course, the major difference is that Keurig, Gillette or Nike weren't actually changing their actual product to create a controversy. People flocking to YouTube or Twitter to bash Keurig (quite literally, bash; they were smashing their coffee machines) weren't actually saying that Keurig coffee machines sucked. Quite the contrary, obviously all of them had seen no reason to replace theirs before being offended by the company. Anyone who didn't care whether they not they supported Hannity could only take away the conclusion that their coffee machines at the very least worked well enough.
In the case of several recent movies, well, that was a different story.
Will it work as well for them as it did for Keurig? We shall live and see.
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/31DWUaU
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire