Category: Twitter

Uber surge pricing during Sydney hostage crisis causes PR disaster

The week has barely started yet, but we can already crown the worst corporate tweet of the week. A crisis is taking place in Sydney, Australia as an armed man holds several people hostage in a Lindt café. The busy district is in a lock-down and mass evacuations created an increased demand for taxi services. So Uber, the taxi service app, quadrupled prices and at one point charged a minimum fare of AU$100. According to Quartz, this type of surge pricing is automatic but the tweet from @uber_sydney that followed was not.

uber_sydney_tweet

 

Of course, Uber was immediately slammed on Twitter for its cynic decision to charge a higher price during a crisis situation. Here are just a few reactions:

Uber soon had to backtrack to damage the PR disaster it had caused. A new tweet announced that rides out of Sydney now where free and that the company instead would refund passengers who had taken the expensive rides earlier this morning. A good move, but the damage to the company reputation had already been done.

uber_sydney_tweet2

 

Nissan’s brilliant Twitter response to #breaktheinternet

The web has been buzzing the last few days about Kim Kardashian’s rear end after it appeared on the cover of Paper magazine’s winter issue. Not surprisingly, some brands jumped on the bandwagon trying to not be left behind in the discussion. The practice of real-time marketing is a difficult one, but one brand that really got to the bottom of the issue sent out a tweet to end the discussion.

Here’s Nissan’s first Twitter rear-time marketing effort.

Touché Nissan, or should I say, tush?

Love without locks when Paris wants you to show digital love

For some years it has been a tradition among tourists to express their love by locking a padlock to bridges like Pont des Arts in Paris. Typically lovers write their names on the lock and then throw the key in the river Seine. But this practice has become a big problem for the city of Paris. This summer, a cause rail on Pont des Arts even collapsed under the weight of the padlocks and the bridge had to be closed for a few hours.

aux cadenas A lot of the rails on the bridge also appear to have been vandalized. Railings have been cut and the bridge has been protected by ugly wooden boards. The eyesore has been documented on this site with both images and video.

To put a stop to these acts of love, the city of Paris has started a campaign in order to get couples to go digital. On the ground at Pont des Arts there are signs urging visitors to show their love without locks using the hashtag #lovewithoutlocks on different social networks.

There is a campaign site on which images that use the official hashtag are displayed. There are currently more than 500 images on the site. And although that may not be much, I suspect that many couples who choose the digital route just simply share images with friends without the hashtag.

It’s a logical solution to a real problem. Encouraging people to show their love online instead would unburden the bridges of the growing weight of padlocks.

Free wifi at Pont des Arts would encourage more tourists to share #lovewithoutlocks

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Free wifi would encourage tourists to go digital
But I think there is one thing the authorities are missing to make this move really succesful and that thing is free wifi! Tourists are always in constant search of a free online connection and if the city would install a zone of free wifi on Ponts des Arts (and of course communicate this clearly) then I am sure more people would seize the opportunity and share their images online instead of with a real padlock.

Best social media responses to arrogant Layvin Kurzawa celebration

Last night, Sweden and France played the second leg of the play offs for the U21 European Championship in football. France had won the first leg 2-0 but now Sweden were heading towards the 2015 championships as they were up 3-0 at home. But in the last few minutes of the game, France scored the crucial 3-1 goal that would take them through. The goal scorer Layvin Kurzawa decided to celebrate the goal in the worst possible manner, running up the Swedish players like striker John Guidetti and mocking them with a gesture that said “see you later boys”.

kurzawaguidetti

But justice was served just a minute later when Sweden scored 4-1 on a corner, sending the Swedes to the UEFA Euro U-21s at the expence of the French team. Rarely has a footballer had to eat his own words sooner and the Swedes celebrated by getting back at Kurzawa with his own medicine.

JohnGuidetti

Througout most of the day, Twitter and other social media sites have been mocking Kurzawa for his bad behaviour and in particular for celebrating too soon.

In France, the hashtag #Kurzawa was even the number one trending topic today.

Here are a few of the best responses so far.

Class / no class:

Today is Didier Deschamps’ birthday. L’epique offers him a Layvin Kurzawa cap:

Laddar

#Bleuets#Kurzawa#football#Espoirs#Equipedefrance#Thauvin#Bahebeck#Euro2015#Qualifications#Psg#Om#Benzema#Chelsea

Visa på Instagram

And finally this one which is definitely NSFW: https://twitter.com/fc1932/status/522323254686797824

14 percent of Swedish teens use Vine

Twitter’s video sharing service Vine recently announced that it has 100 million monthly active users. Until now we have not had any statistics about how many local Vine users there are in Sweden, but according to a new survey by GlobalWebIndex, at least 3% of Swedish mobile internet users age 16-64 use Vine on a montly basis. Among teens (age 16-19) the penetration is much higher as 14% say they have used Vine last month.

The highest penetration among teens in the surveyed countries can be found in USA and Canada (25% and 22%).

teens-using-Vine

 

There are no further details about how the survey was conducted.

McDonald’s tweets to Luis Suarez: bite a Big Mac instead

Uruguay striker Luis Suarez is a controversial football player to say the least. His history of scandals on the pitch is lengthy and another chapter was added today during the FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil.

During the game against Italy, Suarez suddenly bit Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini in the shoulder. This was the third time he bit someone during a game as he had previously bit PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal and also Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic. Both times he got lengthy bans.

Suarez was immediately mocked on Twitter by football fans. And as often happens these days, brands also try to seize the moment and piggy back on trending events. McDonald’s Uruguay tweeted the following tweet tonight:

mcdonalds_uruguay_tweet

The tweet reads in English:

“Hi @luis16suarez, if you get hungry come and take a bite from a BigMac;) “

Reactions to the tweet were initially mixed but it quickly got thousands of retweets. What do you think? Genious or tacky?