This week I take a look as social media gone wrong. Last year in Toronto, Canada a social media campaign for a horror movie had to be taken off the Internet after it resulted in numerous phone calls to the police. The promotion was for the movie The Saw 5 and was run by LionsGate. People could go onto the movies website www.saw5.com and download the recording of a fake phone call, which they then used to prank call friends and even random strangers. The whole problem with the campaign was the user could actually type in a persons name and state they were holding a loved one (whose name they could type in and the voice would generate).
The script went like this, "Hello, [ Your Friends name ] . Do you want to play a game? You think it's over but the games have just begun. I'm here with your friend [ Your Friends Name ]. My work will continue in a way you never saw coming. You won't believe how it ends.”
The people at Saw probably thought that the phone call would be interactive and promote the movie, however this is once social media campaign that backfired and did more damage than good. There are tales of once lady having a stroke after picking up the phone call http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/519775. There were numerous articles in the paper and on the news warning people these calls were not real via a public service announcement. The police ultimately ended up shutting down the campaign.
Why did this campaign go wrong? Not everyone knew about it so they were tricked and worried by it, it verged on illegal activity (threats), the people behind it did not anticipate the results of the campaign. Did Lionsgate really think people were not going to call the police after receiving such disturbing messages? Or maybe they wanted the police to get involved, to generate buzz in the media? This tactic wasted police time that could have been better spent dealing with real crisis. When launching a social media campaign it is very important to look into your audience and consider legal and ethical implications.
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Hi,
ReplyDeletewell i had never known about this before. i've heard about impersonation cases using facebook which i think they were the negative effects of the users' carelessnes in putting their personal data. but this, i think this should've been considered in risk mitigation strategies of that campaign. so any campaigns should think about what social media they use and foresee the impacts.