Join us Sept. 14-16 in Miami to connect with top publishing leaders
What’s the point of hiring a pricey social media agency when a chicken will do it for free?
Chicken Treat, an Australian food chain, handed over control of its Twitter account to a fowl-mouth named Betty. Besides being a viral marketing stunt, the purpose is for Betty to obtain a Guinness World Record for the first chicken ever to tweet a five letter word before Oct. 30.
Turns out, Betty is a dirty (and stupid!) bird with mostly all of her tweets consisting of nonsensical characters stringed together.
The closest she came to tweeting a five-letter word was yesterday when she typed in the word “bum,” prompting the chain to tweet out a stern warning:
“Bum”? Keep things clean, Betty. pic.twitter.com/qwLAwmQwKr
— Chicken Treat (@ChickenTreat) October 15, 2015
Judging by the hashtag #chickentweet attached to every message, there is some human assistance involved. The multimedia campaign involves cheeky YouTube videos and daily Periscope tours of her coop.
It was created by Perth-based agency Marketforce as a way increase followers on social media, and it’s obviously working — generating worldwide headlines and increasing its Twitter following from 700 to 4,500. Betty’s fans have actually been following each of her tweets closely with many of them cheering on her spelling efforts.
Chicken Treat’s stunt is the first time an animal has been controlling a brand’s Twitter account, but Betty isn’t the first chicken. Last year, Burger King brought back the Subservient Chicken, a person dressed in a chicken costume that listens to people’s commands on social media.
Obviously, there’s some cruel irony in having a chicken promote a company that kills them for human consumption so hopefully Betty gets a reprieve for all of this free labor.
More in Marketing
Future of Marketing Briefing: The public ad tech era is over
Gone are the days when investors got themselves in a tizzy over ad networks, demand-side platforms and supply-side platforms on their own merits.
By the numbers: Wall Street’s tough assessment of ad tech
Big Tech continues to dominate digital growth, triggering a Wall Street exodus, but are returns imminent?
CMOs are struggling to link AI visibility with sales
Brands are spending on tools that rate their visibility within LLM responses and AI search, but proving the commercial impact of GEO remedies isn’t easy.