Lisa Kimmel, Canada

There has been much online and media chatter over the past few weeks in Canada about an innovative campaign launched by Nissan Canada entitled “Hypercube.” It was the first time that a Canadian automotive manufacturer had launched a new product – the Cube – with no traditional advertising campaign; instead, only social media was used. The premise of the campaign was for “creative Canadians” to compete and audition to win 1 of 50 $25,000 Nissan Cubes. They were given online ‘canvases’ on the site to display their creativity around the brand, and were asked to use their know-how of social media to gain votes.

More than 250,000 online votes, 117,000 unique visitors, 3,000 Twitter followers and extensive media coverage later, the campaign was deemed a massive success…until someone posted an anonymous wiki page on Encyclopedia Dramatica, accusing Nissan of entering into an ethical grey area around judging contest and creating transparent rules and regulations.

There’s no question that Nissan could have managed this issue more effectively. They were slow to respond to the controversy, and when they did, many were dissatisfied with the response.

That said, it does raise some very real and legitimate concerns for brands who want to engage with consumers through social media. While initially lauded by consumers for its innovative approach to involving them in a product launch, many of those same consumers have been extremely critical, vocal, and have even taken action by filing formal complaints with the Competition Bureau of Canada in vilifying Nissan for its mistakes. This reinforces for me that:

a) Brand marketers should never assume that they are in an equal relationship with their target consumers. As they say, “the consumer is king,” and let’s never forget it. However, just like in a personal relationship, brands need to acknowledge when they’ve erred, and do so in a timely fashion, because, with the advent of the digital age, they now have more avenues than ever to voice their discontent.

b) PR agencies are truly in the best position to lead digital engagement programming for brands and organizations. The Nissan example clearly illustrates the need to have experts in issues and crisis management involved in social media programming. This was simply an issue, not a social media one per se, and therefore, when we develop any consumer brand engagement campaign, we should involve the Corporate practice in developing mitigation/contingency plans. This will also help to differentiate our offering from those of interactive and advertising agencies.

c) The growth of social media engagement varies by global region. Those that tend to be less developed, like Canada, should learn from the mistakes of brands that have executed in other more developed markets, like the U.S. and the U.K.

Interestingly, the next phase of the Nissan campaign – the launch of CubeCommunity.ca – has been put on hold indefinitely. No surprise that the company is skittish about moving forward – it’s obviously concerned that by launching it, it will be creating a forum for people to continue to express their unhappiness with the contest. But Nissan can’t walk away from the relationship now. I look forward to seeing how it decides to mend the consumer relationships it has potentially damaged in this age of consumer actionism.