Can you imagine a world without internet trolls?
For those lucky enough to not know what “trolling” is, it’s the act of deliberately making a controversial statement with the specific purpose of frustrating the living hell out of their target. Usually, trolls don’t even really believe their own statements – they just want to get a rise out of someone. For the typical internet troll, the more outrageous the statement, the better (as long as someone takes it seriously enough to get ticked off). Done well, troll marketing can be an incredibly effective way of generating a buzz around your brand – and can potentially lead to major virality. Done incorrectly, troll marketing will still lead to virality…but not in a good way.
In this article, we’ll discuss the fine line you must tiptoe across if you decide to implement trolling into your marketing playbook. We’ll also provide a number of examples of troll marketing done to perfection, as well as some examples of brands who completely missed the mark in their trolling efforts.
The Fine Line of Troll Marketing
Trolling isn’t exactly a great way to go about increasing and maintaining your customer base. On the contrary, playing with your customers’ emotions is a surefire way to get them to defect to a competitor’s company. When you think about it though, a lot of traditional commercials and advertisements were created with the intent of playing with viewers’ minds and heartstrings. From that old Nuveen Investments commercial that convinced viewers Christopher Reeves could walk again, to Dodge’s recent Super Bowl commercial featuring the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., marketers have long used people’s emotions as a pawn in their game of gaining visibility and buzz. Note, though, that these efforts have failed miserably as of late. Consumers are catching on!
At any rate, the point is that true trolling is a terrible way to market your brand. On the other hand, trolling can be an effective marketing tactic…if it’s clear to your audience that you’re trolling them. As opposed to the mean-spirited nature of “true” trolling, troll marketing needs to be much more playful and tongue-in-cheek in nature. While the objective is still to have a bit of fun at someone else’s expense, the trolling message should always be in jest – and be rather innocuous in terms of its offensiveness. If you’ve ever watched a celebrity “roast” – and have seen the difference in the way the guest reacts to clever ribbing and to mean-spirited digs – then you know where the line should be drawn in troll marketing. The point of marketing is to draw people in, not drive them away. While “true” trolling is meant to be divisive in nature, the goal of troll marketing is to bring people together via inside jokes, tongue-in-cheek comments, and good, old fashioned fun.
Now that we have a good idea of what, exactly, troll marketing should be, let’s take a look at how some major brands have implemented this strategy successfully (and unsuccessfully). Let’s start with a more recent example from the past holiday season.
Troll Marketing Done Right
Netflix Calls Out Its Sappy Viewers
This past December, Netflix tweeted the following message out to its followers:
I’m not sure about you, but I know at least a few people who shamelessly admit to binge-watching those way-too-sentimental-for-life Christmas movies every holiday season. They don’t just shamelessly admit to doing so; they take pride in it and these friends of mine would absolutely love to get “called out” by Netflix for their sappy viewing habits.
A few things to note about this example:
- The message was not meant to insult the people it applied to. In fact, if anything, it made each of those 53 individuals realize there were at least 52 others out there doing the exact same thing.
- This tweet is just one example of Netflix’s personable and silly approach to social media (for example, the company’s Twitter bio reads: “learning to play the tambourine”)
- If you take a look at the replies to the tweet, you’ll see that the people behind Netflix’s Twitter account replied to a number of other audience members in the same tongue-in-cheek manner
The big question, though, is:
Did it work?
Yes, yes it did. Not only did the initial tweet generate 453k likes and 116k shares, but it was also the subject of a ton of articles on various pop culture-related websites and such. But, aside from these engagement metrics, it’s also worth noting that Netflix’s troll-style social media humor simply adds to the overall experience of being a Netflix user in the first place (as if giving us an unlimited amount of movies and shows to watch isn’t enough).
Spotify Knows Your Guilty-Pleasure Listening Habits
In a similar vein to the above example, in 2016 Spotify used the data it collects on its users to poke fun at their listening habits. Rather than taking to Twitter, though, the company bought billboard space:
(Source / Just a couple examples of Spotify’s troll marketing campaign)
As with the Netflix example, those who saw these billboards likely had one of two reactions:
- “I would definitely do something like that!”
- “I’ve definitely done that!”
Okay… in both cases, there were some people who reacted with “Ugh, I can’t believe they’re using our data against us.” But these cases were few and far between. And, anyway…c’mon, these people don’t know by now that companies track their every move? Again, the messages certainly aren’t mean-spirited or anything like that. Rather, they’re meant to bring people together by getting us all to collectively laugh at our silly listening habits – which we all have, whether we admit it or not.
No One is Safe from Wendy’s Twitter Wrath
If you have some free time in the near future, do yourself a favor and Google “Wendy’s Twitter roasts.” Here are just a few examples of the fast-food company absolutely roasting the heck out of both its competitors and its followers:
Whether “clapping back” at a follower for a ridiculous statement or calling out competing fast-food restaurants for any number of reasons, whoever’s in charge of Wendy’s Twitter account knows exactly how to toe that line between having fun with people via silly banter and making fun of people via mean-spirited insults – and erring on the side of the former. Which is exactly how effective troll marketing is done.
Troll Marketing Gone Wrong
Of course, because the line of what’s acceptable in terms of troll marketing is so thin, it’s easy to imagine how brands can end up on the wrong side of the equation. There are no shortage of examples of deleted tweets and terminated employees available on the web to make our point clear. Let’s look at some of the attempts that simply missed the mark.
LG’s Twitter Pokes Fun at Apple…While Using an iPhone
A bit of background:
In 2014, Apple faced a ton of backlash from consumers after they found that the newly-released iPhone 6 Plus tended to bend under minimal pressure. In an attempt to capitalize on this misstep, LG posted the following tweet:
(Source / Translation: “Our smartphones do not bend, they are naturally curved.”)
Did you catch the faux pas? Hint: Check the bottom right corner of the screenshot above. That’s right: LG posted a tweet meant to troll Apple…while using the Apple product the company was making fun of. Needless to say, Twitter users jumped all over the mistake, and the tweet was soon deleted; of course, not before hundreds of people took a screenshot it. The lesson here is, if you’re going to use troll marketing to poke fun at your competition, make sure you don’t give them an easy way to come back at you.
Wendy’s Pepe Fiasco
It seems even the queen of Twitter roasts isn’t immune to making mistakes when trolling. In January 2017, in response to a follower requesting the fast-food chain reply to their tweet with a meme, Wendy’s posted the following:
(Source)
If you’ve never heard of Pepe the Frog, the above picture is a “Wendy-ized” version of the popular meme, which originally had a rather innocuous connotation (typically an expression of smugness). Unfortunately, the person in charge of Wendy’s Twitter account was unaware that the “Pepe” meme had recently been “adopted” by members of the alt-right, a group which is all but synonymous with hatred and bigotry. As expected, the tweet was deleted as soon as possible, with Wendy’s offering a sincere apology via press release. The takeaway here is: If you’re going to troll, make sure you know the connotation of your messaging. As was the case here, even the most innocuous post could end up truly offending a huge portion of your customer base.
The Verdict
One of the things the modern consumer looks for most in a brand of any kind is authenticity and personability; they want the brands they do business with to “get them.” To that end, troll marketing can definitely be effective – as long as it’s done so in a harmless manner. Think of how you might poke fun at your best friend: you might bust their chops here and there, but only in a way that lets them know that you know them, you get them, and you care for them. But, it’s also rather easy to go overboard with your troll marketing efforts. And, just as is the case when poking fun at your best buddy, going overboard with troll marketing can be absolutely disastrous to your relationship with your customers.
So, as we’ve alluded to throughout this article, if you feel as if you know your customers well enough to hit them with some gentle ribbing – and you know they’ll take it in stride, and as a sign that you want to build a relationship with them – go for it.
Just tread carefully.
