Schadenfreude (noun, scha·den·freu·de): enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others
So, the CEO and HR head of Astronomer decided to go on a date to a Coldplay concert with a Jumbotron and act so cute and cuddly they got the Kiss Cam pointed at them, and acted so shocked and guilty they got a comment from Chris Martin from the stage, and I’m sorry, y’all, but just play it off. Not a person would have recognized either of you, and the Kiss Cam would have just drifted off to someone more interesting, if you hadn’t looked horrified and ducked behind your cardboard DON’T LOOK AT ME I’M HAVING AN AFFAIR sign.
Anyway.
As one might have predicted, the social media world woke up the next day and chose violence. I mean.
But any time a social media trend pops up, brands just have to get in on it, because they’re, like, cool and edgy and you should totally shop at our discount grocery store, no cap. And that has a different energy, because now you’re literally capitalizing on an event has, like, betrayed spouses and broken marriages and stuff behind its colorful candy shell. Under such circumstances, a win is a win and a whiff can be a nasty shot to the brand image. It looks like most brands have wisely stayed away from the mess at hand, but some of them did decide to wade on in. And some of them probably should have left their shoes on.
Betty Crocker’s divorce cake
W’s
- Not their own post — just a comment on someone else’s
L’s
- Brand doesn’t remotely relate to the scandal at hand
- Not even uniquely tasteless or anything — just “meh”
- Manages to land directly on one of the most unfortunate aspects of the scandal and try to make a joke out of it — “Ha ha, two broken marriages, amIright?”
- “Divorce cake” isn’t going to mainstream, no matter how hard you try
- Serious “I’m a cool mom” energy
Grade: C-. Almost not worth mention. The worst thing that happened was Betty Crocker campaigned to be one of the ooh so edgy brand social media accounts and came out desperate.
Aldi’s “Aldi light”
W’s
- Gave some junior art director a break from resizing digital ads
L’s
- Similar to Betty C, brand has no connection to the event in question
- And no, cramming in a random-ass Coldplay lyric doesn’t suddenly make it fit
- It might even make it worse
- Junior art director probably had to go back to the exact same amount of work after being pulled away to work up the meme
Grade: D. Y’all, you don’t have to jump on every social media trend just because it’s a trend.
Tampa Airport’s ode to workplace sexual harassment
W’s
- Closer to relevance than cakes and groceries, at least, I guess?
L’s
- Frames the situation with even skeezier implications than it already had — “Your girlfriend’s boss is sexually harassing her, and with the power imbalance on his side, you need to step up your game to be able to compete with him” isn’t really social media-ready messaging
Grade: D+. I’ll admit that I did initially get a chuckle from it, but the fact that no one said, “Hey, you realize that’s not actually an okay thing, right?” (or someone did say that and was ignored) tells me your famously saucy social media team is missing some important representation. (Am I a humorless, woke SJW buzzkill? Yeah, sometimes, and?)
Stubhub’s ticket promo
Now we’re cooking with gas.
W’s
- The brand is actually relevant to the actual scandal
- Legit funny
- Jumped on it expeditiously
L’s
- I don’t know… capitalization?
Grade: A
Bonus snark: Chris Martin’s warning to concertgoers
Now, listen. We’d like to say hello to some of you in the crowd. How we are going to do that is, we are going to use our cameras and put some of you on the big screen. So please, if you haven’t done your makeup, do your makeup now.
W’s
- SAVAGE
L’s
- [TBD]
Grade: N/A
Overall grade: See me.
Obviously, a week after The Event, none of the brands have felt any lasting impact for their social media choices — Stubhub got some attention for its sauciness, and all the others got about as much attention as they warranted. (None. The implication there was none attention.) But I think we can all agree on who really came out the winner of this whole thing:
Coldplay.
Welcome back to the front page, guys.
On a quasi-related note: I’ve never cheated on a partner, so it’s tough for me to get into that headspace, but I can image that if I were the CEO of a $1 billion company having an affair with my head of HR, I wouldn’t think, “Hey, we should have a date where there are 50,000 people and cameras literally everywhere.” I’d think it would be better to go where there’s not that many people and no Jumbotron.
Probably easier to just, y’know, not bang people who aren’t your spouse.
What do you think? About the responses from brand social media, I mean. Or I guess also about better places to cheat on your spouse? We at Caperton Gillett Creative strive to provide educational value.