Join us Dec. 1-3 in New Orleans for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit
Place your right hand on the closest inspirational marketing book you can find, raise your left, and solemnly swear that in 2015, you will stick to the following resolutions.
I will not dogpile on a hashtag before spending at least 60 seconds figuring out what it’s about.
In September, after Baltimore Ravens’ Ray Rice was terminated from the NFL team after video surfaced of him punching his then-fiancee Janay Palmer, a movement with the hashtag #WhyIStayed took Twitter by storm, with women sharing their experiences with abusive relationships. DiGiornio, normally a paragon of perfect brand social behavior, messed up badly by not checking what the hashtag was actually about.
I will not pretend to know what “perfection” looks like.
You can’t expect better from Victoria’s Secret, but the lingerie company that idolizes only one type of body put its foot in its mouth this year where it launched a campaign featuring three gorgeous models and the words “The perfect ‘body.’” The ad was promoting the brand’s new “Body” line of lingerie, but that didn’t matter. A petition by customers called VS to change the copy.
I will not reference Hitler, the Holocaust or the Nazis. Ever.
It wasn’t a good year for retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Sears or Zara, all of which were under fire for assorted crimes — including selling pajamas that looked like concentration-camp uniforms, an image from Dachau’s main gate as a home decor item, and more.
For that matter, I’ll just stay away from political/world events.
That includes Syria, ISIS, ebola, Ferguson and gun control. 
I will think twice about soliciting user-generated content.
McDonald’s got a lesson in this with its #McD stories campaign, but that didn’t stop the New York Police Department from beginning a grassroots social campaign inviting people to share pictures with a member of the department, with the hashtag #myNYPD. Some serious hashtag-abuse ensued.
#MyNYPD are nothing but a band of armed lawless thugs who beat demonstrators and senior citizens #FTP #FTNYPD #ACAB #ANYPDAB — Lover of the People (@freemansullivan) April 23, 2014
More in Marketing
Amazon rebuilds its ad machine for the mass market
Now, the company is reorganizing how advertisers access and operate across that ecosystem.
Ad Tech Briefing: AppLovin’s AI-fueled surge and The Trade Desk’s stumble show where investors are placing their bets
Even as regulators probe AppLovin, investors piled in, while The Trade Desk’s solid quarter drew side-eyes, demonstrating the challenges of ad tech in the AI-era.
Why AI and synthetic social aren’t driving up creator value — yet
Despite the AI hype, marketers say the influx of synthetic social and mounting backlash to ‘AI slop’ isn’t likely to put a premium on human-created influencer content.