Amidst the UK horsemeat burger scare, some savvy marketers at Virgin Media decided to capitalize on the momentum, with a spoof apology poking fun at Tesco and the like. For those of you who missed the news in January, a safety watchdog has blown the whistle on Aldi, Iceland, Lidl and Tesco in the UK for allegedly selling frozen beefburgers with traces of horsemeat. The scandal is far from being over: on February 7 Findus joined the accused, for beef products that allegedly contained up to 100% horsemeat. The whole charade is continued by Virgin Media, whose latest stunt involves a spoof apology to customers.
To disseminate the news, Virgin Media used Twitter and an image:
As some of our TiVo customers may have noticed, when searching through our tailor made collections of topical on-demand films, the collection, entitled #Mooovies, which promised a rich selection of films starring cows, did in fact contain films primarily featuring horses.
As expected, the company managed to trigger some interest from Twitter users, but failed to grab enough media attention for its stunt to matter. The only UK media company reporting in-depth on the matter was Digital Spy. This was followed with a short report by The Drum, but the rest of the mainstream publications seem to keep quiet. There were hardly 300 retweets for the spoof apology, still, a good number, considering that Virgin Movies has less than 4000 followers. The engagement ratio is very good, and the public reactions on Twitter, largely positive:
Well played @virginmedia – It takes integrity to own up to having horses in your cow movies virgin.com/media-and-mobi… #mooovies
— Rob Waugh (@robwaugh83) February 8, 2013
bit.ly/11uMckI Virgin Media jump on the band wagon with a spoof of the Tesco apology. #mooovies — Indicia (@Indicia) February 8, 2013
They get everywhere it seems. @moviesonvmapologise for horses, not cows, appearing in #mooovies film collections pbs.twimg.com/media/BCmI5BHC…
— Bruce Stokes (@bruciestokes) February 8, 2013
Virgin Media seems to be horsing around with a beefed up movie line upm.thedrum.com/node/101769#mooovies @moviesonvm — Stuart Madeley (@shmadeley) February 8, 2013
Hohoho! @moviesonvm horses around: “Some of our cow movies contain horses” #Mooovies pocket-lint.com/news/49773/vir…
— Kate Galloway (@katiemay19) February 8, 2013
Just got a press release from Virgin Media apologising for its #Mooovies cow film channel being infiltrated by horse-themed movies. ROFL. — Alex Brownsell (@alex_brownsell) February 8, 2013
The list goes on.
It’s a bit puzzling that this little stunt hasn’t triggered more media mentions – where do you think things went wrong? Was Virgin Media supposed to send a mass email to journalists and customers to get even more attention? Or is this approach the best way to go?