Commentary

In Really Stupid Move, DDB New Zealand Spams Twitter Users With 'Game Of Thrones' Promotion

I mean, you really have to wonder what goes through a person's mind when they come up with a marketing promotion that calls for the spamming of individual Twitter users with thousands of repetitive messages. Apparently, no one at DDB New Zealand pondered this before they created a Twitter campaign that did exactly that. 

In an effort to promote the airing of Game of Thrones on Sky TV, the agency came up with a Twitter campaign that would send an "army of tweets" to anyone who used the hashtag #ComandTheUnsullied. The promotion is an ode to the show's character, Daenerys Targaryen, who, in the show, commands the Unsullied Army. 

The agency created thousands of Twitter bots that would be called into action in reaction to the use of the #CommandTheUnsullied hashtag. The Twitter bot would then send thousands of repetitive tweets to the user because, you know, that's kind of like thousands of armed soldiers doing the same thing.  

The original tweet that started it all:

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Tweet an order with #CommandTheUnsullied and have an army of thousands do your bidding. #GameOfThroneshttps://t.co/3qha6n4UrM

— SKY New Zealand (@SKYNZ) May 16, 2016 

Reaction to the campaign was swift and resoundingly negative with Tickled documentary maker Dylan Reeve tweeting "@SKYNZ @Xenojay @AndreAlessi @twitter Your campaign is TERRIBLE. It is a fundamental abuse of Twitter."  

Another Twitter user, @matthewjpb, tweeted, "@Xenojay Terrible social? This has to rank as one of the worst ideas to come out of corporate social media ever? @SKYNZ" 

Even in the face of such negative reaction, no one at DDB New Zealand seems to get that spamming Twitter users isn't really a good thing. An unnamed DDB New Zealand spokesperson told Stuff: "It's certainly got people talking. I think the sentiment's generally been very positive. There's a lot of Game Of Thrones fans who are really behind it and know exactly what it's all about. I think for those who aren't quite Game Of Thrones fans it's a bit harder to grasp, but the reaction's been generally quite positive. Because it's all monitored and all tweets are checked - it's not like it's just done automatically, we've actually got people downstairs checking it - someone that doesn't want to be followed by 2000, we can then unfollow them again." 

They've actually got people downstairs checking! Well f*ck. That makes it all perfectly OK, right? 

 

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