Batman (the city) wins condom contest, thanks to the Internet

Published 5:00 am Sunday, June 9, 2013

LONDON — Holy prophylactics, Batman!

In a recent online marketing campaign, Durex asked Facebook fans to vote on what city should get SOS Condoms, a service meant to allow amorous — but unprepared — couples to click on a smartphone app for a rush delivery.

The voters chose Batman, the capital of an oil-rich and conservative-Muslim province in southeastern Turkey, and social media experts say the contest was almost certainly decided by Internet pranksters. Batman received 1,577 votes, besting Paris and London, according to the contest’s Facebook page, which has been dormant since the two-month promotion finished in April.

The snafu for Durex, owned by Reckitt Benckiser Group, illustrates the risks for brands that embrace social media. Marketers expect to devote 22 percent of their budgets to such campaigns over the next five years, compared with 8 percent today, according to a survey from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

“Any brand that wants to remain engaged with its audience has to have a social media presence,” says Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at researcher EMarketer. “But any time a brand engages consumers in social media, there is the opportunity for abuse.”

Just ask McDonald’s, which in January 2012 paid to sponsor the Twitter hashtag #McDStories, seeking feel-good posts about eating at its restaurants. Instead, commenters made jokes about obesity and dog food, and the company ended the promotion less than two hours after its debut.

Mondelez International fared better during the Super Bowl in February. When the game was delayed due to a lighting failure, the ad agency behind Mondelez’s Oreo cookies wrote on Twitter, “Power out? No problem” and included a link to an ad that said, “You can still dunk in the dark.” Although Mondelez hasn’t said whether Oreo sales got a boost, it reports the post was retweeted more than 15,000 times.

Durex, the world’s best-selling condom brand, might have avoided the hijacking if it had allowed voters to choose from just a handful of cities rather than letting them name any place they wanted, according to Mark Stone, strategy director at London advertising agency Recipe.

“In a digital environment you want to make sure you have precautions in place to prevent any disruption, as hackers are always looking for an opportunity to cause trouble,” said Stone. “There needs to be a contingency plan.”