Comments on: Viral video disaster: what NOT to do

By: Secrets to writing a social media policy that actually means something

Secrets to writing a social media policy that actually means something — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:40:47 +0000

[...] May, The Langham Hotel in Hong Kong unwittingly created a firestorm of controversy on the internet. A series of three videos were produced to present the hotel as a safe haven for [...]

By: HhotelConsult

HhotelConsult — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:26:21 +0000

I know… that always floors me, and I am contributing on that other post. I love memes, and find them intriguing. Viral = negative connotation of meme, I think… or at least a less academic viewpoint. I can’t wait until serious data is exposed about how much thought vs. luck goes into viral. I know some ad campaign people have said they built viral campaings… nothing happened. They threw it away online, and then that same campaign… sitting in the dark unnoticed… goes viral 6 months later. It is always interesting… your stuff always makes me think. That is VERY good… thanks!

@hhotelconsult

By: Josiah Mackenzie

Josiah Mackenzie — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:54:39 +0000

Michael and Keith,

Thanks for bringing objective viewpoints to this. You are both right: marketers can tend to be an introspective bunch, and maybe we over-reacted here. To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a significant protest outside the blogging or marketing circles.

When I posted this, I honestly had no idea people would respond as they did…I just thought it would be a good thing to point out.

As you say, the irony is that the hotel has achieved name recognition to some degree. Is no publicity is bad publicity?

Cheers
Josiah

By: Keith West

Keith West — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:27:51 +0000

What’s interesting to me are not the videos themselves, but the pile on effect once a blogger or two expresses a negative opinion. If we were to all be honest, we would admit that however much we enjoy travel there are times when unfamiliar circumstances can be trying. In those times a refuge can be most welcome.

Another thing to keep in mind is that not everyone travels to a destination because they want to. Think business travel. Remember “The Accidental Tourist”? With that in mind, the concept is spot on.

My impression is that this “backlash” is an insider phenom.- a bunch of marketers. OK, so you didn’t like it. Maybe it didn’t work. But the hotel was trying to be just a bit edgy, and you can’t do that while simultaneously making everyone happy. Imagine the next time you try to get a client to push the envelope just a bit. Why would they bother if it’s going to be a big risk with only a limited upside?

I am not convinced though that this didn’t work for the hotel. It got attention. It’s now the only hotel I have specific knowledge of in Hong Kong. I can only imagine that I would be more likely to stay there as a result.

Keith West
http://www.HotelMarketingSeminars.com

By: hhotelconsult

hhotelconsult — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:49:45 +0000

I gotta chime in, somewhat as a hypocrite. That’s because I really don’t think this deserves any attention at all, but I will post two seconds worth of thoughts here in light of that….

The videos were horribly done – so amatuerish that I almost believe that was a component of their inception and execution…. if not they struck gold with making something horribly good… like a b-movie, or mystery science theatre type stuff. It isn’t even that “bad good”, though . They weren’t offensive in any way. I cannot imagine how far of a stretch someone’s insecurities would take them to get to that point…

Dissect the specimens:

1) The guy’s stressed in a shopping area. That is a worldwide experience. Has zero to do with culture. He got stressed. Why he would run to an H&M is beyond me, but hell – who cares. Dude gets flustered, and runs home. That happens in all countries. How could that be racist?

2) She wasn’t hip on the cultural idiosyncrasies & differences of the cuisine. WHO CARES?!?!? Seriously. Just because she isn’t into culinary adventure doesn’t mean anything. She could be there for a conference from the midwest and just want a Hamburger.

If they really used the “dirty locals” wording, well.. bad choice of words, but it was obviously a joke. Hotels *DO* need to ingratiate themselves to the community and surroundings because that is what bolsters it locally…. but it isn’t like the locals would be totallly offended. I am sure they were just fine with it, or unlike us… ignored it completely.

Just my two cents. Hi everyone!
Michael
@hhotelconsult

That being said it was gold in the end because people like me, who don’t even want to talk about it, are. I didn’t know the property prior to this, but now I do.

By: The Twitter Effect: How last week’s post reached 100,000+ people in 36 hours

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:46:28 +0000

[...] last post last week – Viral video disaster: what NOT to do – was a good example of [...]

By: Michelle, Synthesio

Michelle, Synthesio — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:18:53 +0000

This is truly a viral campaign gone wrong that makes me wonder if they are monitoring their online reputation image. It does seem as though they are responding rather quickly as they have already removed the videos from their site and issued a statement. There are numerous free tools available that allow people and companies to track what Internet users are saying about them in the blogosphere, or otherwise there are other more robust tools such as ours at Synthesio where we continously monitor various sources worldwide.
Hotel managers and executives need to be alerted immediately when something like this happens; it truly is a shame the way this campaign played out.

By: Sherman

Sherman — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:59:11 +0000

As marketers, irrelevant to whether on traditional, digital, or social mediums, a key component to a campaigns success is by really knowing our audience.

They obviously didn’t know their form of satirical humor was not really funny to many.

By: Jeremy Yiu

Jeremy Yiu — Fri, 29 May 2009 05:52:42 +0000

WOw, those were 2 very horribly made “viral” promotional videos, or in this case, de-promotional. It felt almost as though it were made from some fresh graduates from a local college, and wasn’t checked by a supervisor before being released (Yes, i’ve had similar experiences seeing other students producing this S*** from studying at Vocational Training College here in Hong Kong).

I completely agree with Ms McGregor, it is a nice concept but with horrible execution.

By: Madigan Pratt

Madigan Pratt — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:15:02 +0000

I don’t know of too many people who choose a hotel and then decide on the destination. It’s usually the other way around – destination first.

A hotel or a PR firm that thinks they’ll get ahead by denigrating their destination, or thinks of themselves as bigger than the destination are clearly out of touch with marketing reality.

Poor concept. Poor execution. Bad result!