Or screw around with your good name?
I never thought you’d fall for this,
Oh tisk, tisk, tisk,
How did you go astraaaayyy??
As the Marketing Blog Father of 2 little girls, I know every word to “Do You Wanna Build a Snowman” (and “Life is an Open Door”, “Reindeers are Better Than People” and “Let it Go”). Frozen 2 was remarkably on par with its global sensation predecessor. My only critique was that the music wasn’t nearly as good.
But now, there’s one other thing to criticize unfortunately .. their marketing campaign. Twitter influencers are experts at engaging audiences on Twitter, and each one is focused on a slightly different topic. Or, they are just paid Brand cheerleaders. Worse, sometimes they are pretending not to be. Disney just yanked a promotional campaign for Frozen 2 on Twitter because it was discovered that praise for the film was coming from influencers without disclosing the fact that they were “promotional” (PAID for). My first question is, “why?”. How did Disney get talked into such a dumb idea when they are … DISNEY? They don’t need to pay anyone to talk about them when they are already the talk of the globe!
You see, in real advertising, it is clear and explicit who the messages sponsor is. But in today’s tangled web of digital marketing tactics, there are many more implicit ways to hide those pulling the purse strings and present a product or service in an obtuse manner so as to not disclose the marketers role in paying for the ad (covert). The ability for a consumer to discern between Explicit and Implicit marketing tactics is called Persuasion Knowledge. Not only is it getting harder and harder to make these distinctions but as consumers spend more and more cognitive overhead trying to, they simultaneously default to the trusted type of mass advertising while walking away from the garbage with a bad taste in their mouths. As integration, product placement, native advertising, influencer networks and blogs (I don’t’ trust any blogger as far as I can throw them) proliferate, so does the likelihood of incidents like this. The FTC says that influencers on social media sites such as Twitter should clearly and conspicuously disclose any paid work to promote a product or service. Disney of all brands ignored that recommendation and as a result left many consumers with ice in their hearts. Only an act of True Love can thaw a frozen heart! Ok, sorry. I had too…
Want some straight talk about influencers? A Gfk study in collaboration with the TVB confirms that TV remains the primary influence through all stages of the purchase decision process and that social media ranks dead last in Trustworthiness*.
In response to the Disney debacle, Professor Atsushi Osanai at the Waseda Business School said, “Companies need to remember that the benefits from this kind of ad campaign don’t really balance out the risk of damage to their brand image”. Knowing Disney, they’ll never make that mistake again.
No harm in Letting this one Go.
*Source: GfK TVB Purchase Funnel 2019 A18+, N = 8191. B2 “I trust the news that I see/hear on this media source.” (Agree Strongly + Agree Somewhat)
