Coca-Cola launched a GIF generator campaign called "GIF The Feeling" that allowed users to share sentiments. However, the company banned thousands of words related to politics, religion, sex, and other topics. Users found ways to circumvent the censors and generated GIFs with banned words. When asked about inappropriate user-generated content, Coca-Cola said the views did not reflect the company's and their intention was positive sharing. Experts note that hijacked campaigns are a common fear for marketers, yet brands continue using risky social media strategies and being unprepared for potential backfires.

1. What The GIF!
Why do brands keep subjecting
themselves to an online flogging?

2. Contd…
Fat, Pepsi, hell, hate, God, capitalism, homosexuality, diabetes, black, white, green, all cuss words,
most words associated with religion, politics, business, sex, drugs and alcohol (though scotch is
okay, beer is not), insults, negative and derogatory words, and any brand name that's not Coca-Cola
are all forbidden, as decreed by the global beverage giant. In case you were planning to share your
feelings in Coke's `GIF The Feeling' generator, bear in mind bananas is off limits, too.
Despite the exclusion of several thousands of words `GIF The Feeling' was hijacked. The user-
generated campaign allows people to superimpose their sentiments on a GIF from the campaign
that broke over a week ago, which is part of Coke's `Taste The Feeling' global marketing initiative.
People found a way to circumvent its censors. And failures to recognise words and accept the GIF
maker's feelings itself generated more shareable content.“Diabeetus“, “diarrhea“, “capital ism“, “see
you aunty“, “Benghazi“ and “sofa king tired of life“ are just some of the GIFs extracted from Coke's
video and shared online.
When we asked Coca-Cola to share its feelings on the matter, we got this GIF-less statement; “Our
intention was to invite consumers to share their feelings in a positive and uplifting way as they
discover our new campaign. It is unfortunate that some people have chosen to use our campaign
materials to do just the opposite.“ The company added, “Their (users) comments do not reflect the
views of The Coca comments do not reflect the views Cola Company.“ We didn't think they did.

3. Contd…
The terror of a hijacked brand campaign is what most 21st century marketers'
nightmares are made of. A nd yet, with what seems to be masochistic
determination, year after year brands volunteer themselves as victims for a public
flogging with risky social media campaigns. Remember #McDStories in 2012? It
backfired spectacularly at the fast food giant when the brand invited people to
share their tales of happy meals. However, after two hours of promoting the
campaign and an onslaught of unhappy and outright unappetizing #McDStories,
McDonald's pulled the plug. Company officials admitted that it did not go as
planned and that they had a contin gency plan if the campaign misfired.
Around the time `GIF The Feeling' entered the `All Time Greatest Social Media
Brand Snafus' list, pan masala brand Rajnigandha's #RajnigandhaSixWordsStory
campaign to promote the brand's association with the Jaipu r Literatu re Festiva l
was trolled widely. Ogilvy & Mather's Karthik Srinivasan believes “Rajnigandha
probably didn't listen to what people on the platform really think about their
brand. The campaign was completely unrelated and had no context.“ One might
even say the brand and its advisors were com pletely tone-deaf in this case.

4. Contd…
Coke, on the other hand, was caught in what was most probably an expected firestorm. It's
no secret that Coke and its ilk have been at the receiving end of criticism over health
concerns. And are popular targets for anti-consumerists. Srinivasan thinks the best
response is to counter the dark with the brand's own Jedi aka brand advocates. But he also
reminds us of the ephemeral nature of these social media catastrophes. People will move
on once the dust has settled on the articles trending on Scoopwhoop and Buzzfeed.
Meanwhile experts can only hypothesise about the damage to the brand, which many
suppose is as hyped as the case for brands to have neanderthal focus on new media, often
at the cost of traditional. But there is a reason brands keep going back more.
Game designer, writer and contributing editor at The Atlantic, Ian Bogost writes about the
hypothetical damage to brand image; “Social-media brand snafus are so frequent now that
the moralising outrage against them sometimes feels worse than the supposed blunders.
The coolest brands are the ones who accept and embrace the inability to control messages
online -even as they make every effort to exert that control -in order to hunt the Internet
wilderness for secret converts. The Taste the Feeling campaign goals even allow for it:
“offering consumers whichever Coca-Cola suits their taste, lifestyle, and diet.“
Everybody drinks a Coke sometimes, even radical Marxists and Nietzschean nihilists.“

5. For Details and Appointment contact:-
Parveen Kumar Chadha… THINK TANK
(Founder and C.E.O of Saxbee Consultants & Other-Mother
marketingandcommunicationconsultants.com)
Email :-saxbeeconsultants@gmail.com
Mobile No. +91-9818308353
Address:-First Floor G-20(A), Kirti Nagar, New Delhi India Postal Code-110015