Not a good look, Woolies
The Woolworths social media campaigns are often used as case studies, as examples of excellence for the rest of the social media world to work towards. It therefore came as quite a shock to me to see such a disaster unfolding on Tuesday evening.
I follow Woolworths on Facebook and usually in the late afternoons while waiting to leave work I have a browse through my newsfeeds. Yesterday this is what I saw staring up at me like something out of a horror movie:
"...this season's most essential shapes!"
Checking the comments it seemed like all Woolies’ other fans felt the exact same way I did:
“Absolutely shocking!! And we wonder why so many beautiful young girls are making themselves sick and starving themselves.. This should not be allowed!! I think it is shocking!!”
““Is Woolworth’s promoting anorexia. Its ad campaigns like this that make young girls feel inferior and starve themselves. This is not a good image to be putting out there. I’m absolutely shocked.”
“I agree with the comments below this campaign is off putting to not only the range but the brand as well”
Now one would think with such a strong outpouring of rage from one’s target market, Woolworth’s would remove the campaign and issue an apology? Right? I mean that’s social media 101. First you respond to consumers and tell them you understand, and then you take action.
Nope.
Woolworth’s responded to the concerns by explaining:
WOOLWORTHS SA Hi all, please note that this is not the first time we have received this response to this particular campaign. All related feedback has been noted and will be passed on to the relevant teams to be taken into consideration for future Woolies campaigns. We appreciate your concern and your taking the time to get in touch.
Come again?
So what you’re saying is
1. People have already reacted badly to this campaign and yet you’re still running it
2. You’re only going to take feedback into consideration for future campaigns, not this one.
In a comment a little further on the feed, Woolworth’s added that the complaints had been received a week ago. A WEEK?
So let me stop for a second to ponder something. Mistakes happen. We know this. Perhaps no one of sound mind looked at the proofs before you posted. By telling your followers you received complaints a week ago you are basically saying “Yes, we heard you. We don’t really care. It wasn’t a mistake. We like the campaign. We’re keeping it.”
Which is of course the way you had to do things in the old days. I mean when you’ve sent ads into magazines weeks or months in advance or booked time on TV and already spent a fortune producing an advert to run during prime time. Perhaps it still has to be the case in the stores – they can’t very well rip down posters, can they?
But social media is different. Every single person who comments about this campaign has the power to alert other people about it and about the fact that you are supporting eating disorders. Which means that every hour this campaign is up, more people are finding out about it. Online, reaction time is everything. It could very easily turn into a disaster for your brand in a matter of hours – as we saw with DurexSA earlier this week when its Twitter account was spewing sexist jokes.
The nice thing about social media is that you do have the power to halt a campaign half-way through. You do have the ability to pull the content. Which is why I’m incredibly confused as to why instead of doing so with this campaign that was receiving such strong negative feedback, Woolworth’s instead decided to REPOST IT. That’s right – screw the customer.
The customer who has a voice, and it is saying:
“From what I can see, the pics from this campaign were posted only 4 hours ago. If there was negative reaction previously to this campaign then why post it? Do you really think the money paid for this campaign is worth more than the negative publicity? Arrogance to the extreme!!!”
“WW are trying to milk this ad campaign using all channels, came out in print last week, now in social media, same reaction, the models are bad role “models” for the WW brand, what next?”
“WOOLWORTHS SA, your response indicates that you couldn’t care less what the consumer wants; you’ve bought into an abusive ad campaign and your’e going to run it till it’s over. Great way to send customers elsewhere. Great marketing.”
Oh dear, oh dear Woolworths. What on Earth are you thinking?
Reading between the lines, it seems that while your customer has a voice, your social media people don’t. They’ve been appointed to mop up the mess, but are not able to do anything to prevent it from getting worse and worse.
Someone there really misunderstands social media.
Which is ironic considering Woolworth’s head of online goes to many social media events talking about strategy. Perhaps she should spend more time teaching her own company?
Social media is wonderful because it lets your brand get direct feedback, in real time, from your consumer base. The whole reason behind having someone monitoring the account is that you can effect change when something goes wrong. Immediately.
The idea that these poor social media sods have to wait until long after the poo has hit the fan and then do a post-campaign debriefing strikes me as completely crazy.
So, while the Woolworth’s brand is suffering a gigantic blow it has the power to stop, instead it’s got its social media people gagged and bound behind their desks?
Not a good look, Woolies.
Let that be a warning to all of us in the social media biz – have policies in place for disaster management. And if the higher-ups don’t understand? Print out this example for them.
I guess Woolworth’s continues to be a good case study for us, ironically.
Posted on November 30, 2011, in Social Networking, South Africa, The Internet and tagged advertising, brand management, campaign, case study, fail, social media, woolworths. Bookmark the permalink. 24 Comments.
many women are naturally built that way… it’s a slap in their collective faces to call this anorexic…
Point taken. We were discussing this on Twitter and concluded that if you look at it closely she’s not necessarily sick. Her make up is really bad (dark cheeks make her look gaunt) and the shirt gathers in at the waist, making her look like she has protruding ribs. Her bad posture also makes it look like she’s about to collapse. But the fact of the matter is, even if she is just naturally skinny, the first impression – not just mine but of all of the commenters on the FB page – is that she’s too thin and that Woolies is promoting that level of thinness as beautiful.
Eish… No wonder that poor model is so skinny. All you hyper sensitive fatties are putting her out of a job. No job, no food. It’s a vicious cycle. You should all feel bad about your stupid grievances.
Woolworths are idiots. Losing respect fast.
Aye-aye. Did you see today that they fired their advertising company? Just before Christmas with no warning. The company has to retrench 20 people, and apparently Woolworths has been planning it for months. Awful. Makes me sad because a genuinely love shopping at Woolworth’s. I hate thinking of them as stupid and heartless.
I think you are spot on! I agree with everything you said. Woolworths are also alienating their core market (the ones who actually buy the clothes), they look nothing like the models they use. Why not get real customers to feature in the advert. Woolworths are trying very hard to be cool and trendy when their loyal customer base is not looking for cool and trendy.
Thanks so much for the comment. Yes, that’s exactly how I feel. They’re selling a runway look to non-runway people – or so their FB page indicates!
Regardless of the women’s health issue, the fact is in social media if you make a fuckup, you gotta take advantage and pull it quick – scrub hard if you have to.
Exactly!
Totally agree! What you permit is what you promote and it’s not about being too skinny or too fat… it’s about a healthy body image. This girl is lovely but she looks unhappy and slouchy.
Yes, that’s my biggest problem. Was in the store today and saw a picture of same girl in different outfit. She was in a big jacket and different make up and looked so much better… but the whole colour block range is promoted on the backs of really really skinny girls, which is probably the look they’re going for but… doesn’t seem like their customers like it, so surely they should make a change?
I received a similar generic type of ‘we appreciate your concern and you taking the time to get in touch’ reply from Woolworths when I emailed them about how alarmed I was by this campaign. It was originally a print campaign a few weeks ago, the print catalogue came with the Sunday Times newspaper.
I have always been a loyal Woolworths customer and wear a lot of their clothing but they seem determined to continue with this campaign despite many customers voicing strong concerns. There are more customers who haven’t voiced their concerns but share these sentiment.
Or rather now that I think about it, perhaps I am not the target market for the Woolworths clothing as I am not as emaciated as these models.
It seems to me that they’re trying to be hip and couture but if the reaction on the FB page is anything to go by that isn’t their customer base. Which brings up another question… who did their market research?
The whole outfit is awful – would not flatter anyone! She does not look anorexic. It’s just a bad pic with bad clothes that don’t fit.
My first impression was that she was anorexic, but I think you’re right – the line of the clothing is all wrong. That aside, she still looks far too thin to be healthy, even if she isn’t in real life. They seem to be promoting that as beautiful which is concerning – what is more concerning to me is that they aren’t doing anything about the fact that most of the comments on the FB page are negative. Thanks for the comment!
if you look at the head and the body is appears out of proportion – photoshopped much? which is bad enough but ja i agree with the heart of what you have written and it is great that you and others are taking a stand and Woolworths should catch a wake up and apologies if her head/body proportion is actually that way but to my naked eye it really doesn’t appear legit.
My belief now, after looking at her far too long, is bad posture and make-up – but seems most the people commenting on the Facebook album had the same initial impression I did – that she *looks* too thin. It’s their reaction and the fact that Woolworths’ social media peeps don’t seem to be attempting much damage control that really concerns me. Thanks for the comment!
Seriously!? People are still griping over this? How little is going on in your life to start a crusade over something so trivial? I know most of you feel like you’re the center of Woolworths’ universe and that anything not targeted at you directly isn’t targeting their target demographic, but come on, somewhere out there, there’s a naturally skinny person with a big head that likes drab looking, manly clothes. For her/him this image captures him/her perfectly. Don’t be all bigoted and act like your self-image is everyone else’s self-image. This one image isn’t a smear campaign against over-indulging fat people with no impulse control. Don’t turn this little ant-hill into a mountain.
I’m sure you’re right. For the record, this blog is less about the unhealthy-looking individual in the picture and more about the fact that 90% of the comments on Facebook are completely anti it and anti the brand. Now they may all be fat losers with bad self-images but they are still customers and the very reason that the brand has the album up there on the social media site is to supposedly entice customers not alienate them. If alienation occurs then the social media manager is hired to do damage control, which is very clearly not being done here.
Damage control is being done, it’s just not that effective at mollifying the disgruntled “fat losers” as you aptly put it.
Well, as you put it in your first comment. For someone annoyed at disgruntled people you seem pretty disgruntled yourself. Just saying…
Eh, nope. Look again. Never called anyone a fat loser, just over indulging, hypersensitive, lacking in impulse control and fat. I’m definitely disgruntled with people who read too much into everything. Scandal this, scandal that. This wave of irate slacktivism – ranting how they’ll never buy from Woolworths again because they’re so offended – followed by a quick nip down to Woolies to buy snacks for lunch makes me disgruntled. There are far more important things to be upset about than a skinny girl – who is probably 12 and now has a huge persecution complex – in a frumpy outfit captured in bad light.