Branding is in your Hans (Brinker)

Why have services like Yelp, Four Square and Trip Advisor gained popularity? Yes, it’s because in today’s world, we are surrounded by groundswell thinking. The everyday person’s opinion actually matters. A very interesting case, the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel in Amsterdam leveraged bad reviews and the fact that they were voted worst hotel. Consequently, they were able to make humorous ads that worked to their advantage. Below are two hilarious examples of their digital campaign. 

There is so much you can do with satire in the world of digital advertising. Using satire, dark humor and puns is an interesting strategy. This can also be another attempt to make things go viral, if you remember my last original post that attempted to analyze a science behind viral content. Guess what the deduction was, it's not a science at all! Brands try different techniques and strategies every day and satire is one of them. Meanwhile, the internet is like... 

Johnna Gattinella tried this hilarious fake ad experiment on Craigslist. She posted a photo of her tattoo that said “Roy” and said she’s searching for a man named Roy and she documented the mock-worthy responses. You can read all about it on the NY Times article (it’s actually from 2007!). She’s a pretty humorous woman herself. She ends the article by saying “I don’t want to be forever banned from Craigslist. That would be terrible. I still have a lawn mower I need to get rid of”. So where do we draw the line between parody and fake news? 

There also brings up an interesting topic, censorship in the age of the groundswell. I read this really interesting quote on another NY Times article. In fact, it caught my interest because it is titled The End of Satire. It is an opinion piece that details how social media is resplendent with “toxic disinformation” and as a result, there’s a question whether traditional forms of humor are now futile. “One person’s satire is another person’s propaganda”. So, while social media and other digital technologies has expanded the blogosphere and made sharing so much easier, do we still see censorship? 

An obvious example is the French magazine Charlie Hebdo that published controversial cartoons of Muhammad and was targeted in two terrorist attacks, in 2011 and 2015. The cover you see above has been one of much conversation and debate. “All is forgiven” it said, which leaves a lot of room for ambiguity. L.V. Anderson wrote an article on Slate about it if you want more information. 

Anyway, the crux of the matter is that in the past, we would see a one-to-many form of communication. It was all about mass media. Communication has fundamentally changed in the age of the groundswell with communication. We now live in a many-to-many realm of communication where everyone tries to get their voice heard. It’s a tough world out here.  

Like it’s said in Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, it’s not about “shouting”, it’s more about knowing the strategy to talk to the groundswell. Marketing is literally in your Hans (Brinker)! It’s also exciting as we meander through this labyrinth of new age digital marketing. If you found those Hans Brinker ads in the beginning funning, you’re in for a treat. Buzzfeed has a list of the hilarious Hans Brinker hotel ads. Click here to enjoy the whole gamut of self-deprecating humor. 

As always, thank you for taking the time to tune into this week’s update on Simrants: Social Media Edition. 

Try not to get sucked into the black hole of satire, keep it real!
Hope you are having the best day,
Simran