It’s of common approach that online marketers employ a strategy of disrupting the online space to garner attention among unexpected viewers. Consider the documentary film Fyre, which debut this holiday season. In the film, social media agency Jerry Media/Fuck Jerry shared their approach towards visualizing the breakdown of the Internet by flooding Instagram with images related to the Fyre logo. The Internet never fails to locate marketing “geniuses” attempting to locate unique approaches towards directing our eyes towards their products. Unfortunately, this year The North Face will join Fyre as a company that somehow found a way to publicly embarrass itself while trying to market itself on the world stage.
For the last few weeks, The Internet has been buzzing about the failed marketing attempt from the outdoor brand. As the month of May came to a close, the brand decided to fool Wikipedia users by swapping out images of popular tourist attractions on Wikipedia with images of its own products. The stunt was an effort to increase the appearance of the company’s brand in online Google searches.
After conducting this stunt, the company marveled in its accomplishment. They boasted about the limited cost or free cost of completing this action. “We hacked the results to reach one of the most difficult places: the top of the world’s largest search engine,” North Face said in the video. In the following days, the company stated that they worked with Wikipedia staff to bring this action to life.
The company did not know how the web would react to this action. Online users were quick to chastise The North Face by clarifying that the online network is run by an online community of editors who volunteer their time to edit each page’s content. On June 5, the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that host Wikipedia, condemned the action stating that act was “unethical” and attuned to vandalism.
The North Face directed their ire towards the branding company Leo Burnett Tailor Made for coming up with the marketing plan of manipulating the Wikipedia page. This is not the first time that Leo Burnett Tailor Made has caused a stir online. The company has received backlash from United States Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for altering her speech. Her video might an early indication of where advertisements might be heading.
Of interest to this course and this program, I’m intrigued by the roles of marketers who are encouraged to push the marketing envelope to break through the online noise. Today, I feel like ads are in two spaces. At times I feel like marketers are trying to be progressive and motivational with a unique idea and points of view with their storytelling. And in other moments, I feel like marketers are trying to find ways to literally break the internet to achieve their desires.
When I start to think of this approach of trying to outdoing the other, I start to think about the X games sport of Moto X Best Trick. In this competition, the motorbike riders would try to do the next best trick to win gold. These riders, often risk life and limb to achieve victory. After so many years of tricks, we’ve landed at doing variant versions of the front flip. And, let me not trivialize this action it’s a feat to accomplish. In other cases, there are riders that push the envelope often inflicting wounds to themselves. In this long drawn example, I’m not saying marketers should not move forward, but maybe we should slow down. Maybe they should avoid driving 60+ miles down a ramp without thinking about how they are going to land on the other side. We all like seeing the next best thing, but we don’t like seeing our favorite companies being hurt in the aftermath.
References:
Diaz, A. (2019, May 28). The North Face used Wikipedia to climb to the top of Google search results. Retrieved June 9, 2019, from https://adage.com/creativity/work/north-face-top-imagens/2174261
Lee, D. (2019, May 29). North Face tried to scam Wikipedia to get its products to the top of Google search. Retrieved June 9, 2019, from https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/29/18644158/north-face-wikipedia-hack-leo-burnett-top-imagens
Mervosh, S. (2019, May 31). North Face Edited Wikipedia’s Photos. Wikipedia Wasn’t Happy. Retrieved June 9, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/business/north-face-wikipedia-leo-burnett.html
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