Guinness Viral & Brand Management
Hat tip to Neville Hobson.
Guinness issued a statement to Brand Republic which said: “Guinness is in no way associated with this video, and approached YouTube to have it removed. We are proud of our brands, and our commitment to responsible marketing, and this is not how we want our brand portrayed”.
Now, first of all it’s impossible really difficult to pull any kind of content out of the Internet. By the time you take something down there will be something up again somewhere else.
My suggestion? Face the issue and make your next steps smartly.
Good or bad, viral videos give visibility to brands. What would I do if I was the Brand Manager for Guinness?
- I would contact the video creator. Whoever made this video did a technically great job and without any question has a good dose of creativity. So why not to use this potential?
- Embrace the social media space. Use this momentum to launch a new creative and original video, but this time on an official Guinness Youtube channel. This would also show a brand that care about its online presence and take challenges as opportunities rather then problems that could obscure the brand perception.
Anyway… this is something that should make brands think (again) about the power of social web, community dialogue and user generated content.
Your thoughts? You are welcome to join the conversation via Twitter / Jaiku / Friendfeed
Andrea