Comments on: How To Royally Lose $120,000 In Social Media

By: Bharat Patel

Bharat Patel — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 18:53:45 +0000

I am actually shocked to hear that even there are companies like Slim Fast who are burning out there money like this. If you had not explained the connection between the wedding and slim fast it would have been really not linkable at all. This is really a lesson for all Internet marketers out there who thinks they are the best.
This will Really make me think at least twice before starting any campaign. What a wastage of money.

By: Rick Glaser

Rick Glaser — Tue, 10 May 2011 23:58:06 +0000

Sweet, I love great examples of reverse investing, and dumping money out the window. Maybe they can recoup some of their waste by having people blog about how dumb they are. Or maybe they just a new set of marketers.

By: Stephen Johnston

Stephen Johnston — Mon, 09 May 2011 14:37:29 +0000

I would not expect $120,000 to get me visibility with every Twitter user regardless of how those users use Twitter. I didn’t follow the Royal Wedding on Twitter. Why would I see the sponsorship? Slim Fast didn’t sponsor the TV coverage where I did see some of the wedding. Twitter isn’t the be-all-end-all communication medium.

By: kd kelly

kd kelly — Sun, 08 May 2011 03:13:46 +0000

It seems to me they were but a few (rather large) details away from relevance. If the tweet had been worded as @Aussiewebmaster suggested, with a landing page had been a contest for brides-to-be to win a royal wedding dress replica (perhaps by submitting a video of how Slim-Fast was helping them to their goal?) that would have been pure gold. As mentioned in the comments above, surely the percentage of brides-to-be who tuned in to the royal wedding was very high, and there are few times in life women are more weight-conscious. They had the right idea, really, and a very appropriate moment, if only they’d made that connection. And contest submissions, buzz, and the romantic story of the winning entry would have kept Slim-Fast rolling in tweeting material for months to come.

They were close, though! Maybe when Prince Harry gets married they’ll do better :)

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 08 May 2011 00:08:49 +0000

Slim fast blew this one big time. Their marketing guys are not worth the money.

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 06 May 2011 18:38:47 +0000

I agree the execution could have been better, but I think the targeting was spot on. Yes a small percent of the total viewers were brides to be, but, what percent of the total brides to be (on twitter) do you think were watching (I’ll bet it was above 90%). I also agree it was pricey, but a company the size of slimfast can throw that out without even measuring the results and call it branding (think about how many super bowl ads pull in a positive ROI).

By: Lisa Barone

Lisa Barone — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:53:28 +0000

I didn’t even realize Slim Fast sponsored it on Twitter, yet here I am reading your blog about it and learning that.

And for $120,000, do you not think that’s a major problem? Because, I do.

By: Lisa Barone

Lisa Barone — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:50:19 +0000

Ooooh boy, can you imagine if Catherine had been on the bigger side and they ran that ad? Oh, the angry tweets! I almost wish that had been the case. :)

By: Lisa Barone

Lisa Barone — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:49:19 +0000

No, that may have been relevant. It was something about wedding dress designers…which then went to their FB page that had nothing to do with dresses or designers.

By: Lisa Barone

Lisa Barone — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:47:00 +0000

But what percentage of the people watching the royal weddings were currently in the process of planning a wedding?