I admit I’m pretty snarky. When a company’s marketing is slightly off kilter, or completely off balance, or just plain stupid, I have to chime in.
Then there are times, like today, where I am so completely taken aback by what is before me I literally stagger trying to think of what to goof on first.
Last week, the New York Times did a story on Tupperware starting a social media campaign. Well, we’ve heard of companies doing this before – so what’s different here?
NOTHING! Not a single, solitary thing! Tupperware wanted to jazz up their brand’s image, so they decided to sprinkle a little magic social media dust on it and watch as it turns into The Dougie.
So how does The New York Times have space enough to write such a non-story about a company finally finding social media? Wasn’t anything else going on? It’s not like US Special forces shot Osama Bin Laden in the eye or anything… oh wait! US Special Forces DID shoot Osama Bin Laden in the eye! I’m pretty sure that effected the economy somewhat, didn’t it, New York Times!?! Even a little bit more than yet another company finding social media? Even if they did it about three years too late?
Just to make things worse, the NYT article didn’t include a link to Tupperware’s Facebook page. Perhaps they did this so they could say, “this isn’t an advertorial.” That’s a bad piece of luck for Tupperware, though. If you do a search for “Tupperware” on Facebook, you get a number of pages – none of them, apparently, Tupperware’s.
Because they got to the game so late, their own brand and several versions of it were snatched up by more enterprising people. If you want to get to Tupperware’s own profiles, either on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll need to use the button on their corporate site.
In other words, if you want to do them the favor of following their profiles, you need to leave Twitter or Facebook, then go to their site, then press the buttons that take you back to Twitter or Facebook.
The purpose of either of these sites is ostensibly to get you to follow a link from them to their website. So there’s not only added steps involved in becoming a fan, but one of them requires getting people to do something they weren’t planning on doing anyway. Yikes.
Oh! Something else – here’s a great blurb from the aforementioned article:
“The goal is to find ‘more disruptive methods’ to dispel perceptions that ‘we are your mother’s Tupperware,’ said Rick Goings, chairman and chief executive of Tupperware Brands in Orlando, Fla.”
To prove this point, today they posted this:
"Tupperware is Made for MOM's!"
So this isn’t your mother’s Tupperware – it’s just that Tupperware was made for Mom’s. That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
Finally, after their unprecedented NYT article, the number of people who have Liked their page is 8611 as of this writing. A nearly 100 year old, world-famous company, with a write up in the New York Times, only has some 8600 fans.
And don’t get me started on their Twitter account! There, the name is TupperwareUS – not TupperwareUSCA, which may be confusing to people who know of one and are trying to find the other. But we’ve all got to make a stand against Canada some time, and Tupperware seems to be making it on Twitter. Facebook is for US and CA, but Twitter will just be for the US. I guess. I’m not sure. It’s all a little too poorly thought out for me to get all at once.
But again, great success – because they now have 186 followers on Twitter.
Welcome to the party, Tupperware – you’ve got a LOT to learn.
Ciaoenrico 