When Social Sourcing Goes Sour

On June 28, Fuel Partnerships, which bills itself as “an idea an activation agency,” launched a promotion on behalf of Walmart to help launch a new product called Energy Sheets. As part of the promotion, Energy Sheets spokesperson and popular rapper Armando Christian Pérez, also known as Pitbull, agreed to visit the Walmart location in the U.S. that garnered the most “Likes” by July 15. Seems harmless, right? It could have been, until David Thorpe of Something Awful and The Boston Phoenix decided to hijack the contest. As Thorpe said in his column on July 3: “Infected by Pitbull's enthusiasm, I decided to get involved. With the help of some friends on Twitter, including the incomparable @fart (fellow SomethingAwful.com writer Jon Hendren), I started a campaign to exile Pitbull to the Walmart on Kodiak Island, an icy, bear-infested locale just south of Alaska. As of now, the Kodiak Walmart has over 22,000 new "likes" on Facebook, putting it far ahead of any other Walmart in the nation — far ahead of Kodiak's actual population, in fact.” Armed with the #ExilePitbull hashtag and a large number of followers, Thorpe has successfully launched his own social media campaign to derail the original Walmart campaign. Currently, the Walmart of Kodiak has over 77,000 likes and, as we quickly approach July 15, it’s looking more and more likely that Pitbull will be packing his bags for Alaska. On top of Fuel Partnership’s campaign being turned on its head, Tim Nudd wrote in AdWeek’s AdFreak column that the advertising campaign for Energy Sheets could be one of the worst of 2011. While we couldn’t immediately reach Fuel Partnerships for a statement, Walmart is taking the whole snafu in stride, with company spokesperson Sarah Spencer saying “(Pitbull) is definitely coming to Kodiak if Kodiak wins.” Even though this is a perfect example of how social marketing can go wrong, the whole debacle has certainly raised the profile of Walmart in the media. Do you think it was all worth it? Comment below! by Ben Heinemann