TROLLS- A blessing and a curse for marketers
- s3629065
- May 19, 2020
- 2 min read
At first thought, trolls can be seen as frightening for a business as they can negatively impact a brands image and drive away customers.
Trolling involves 'deliberate, deceptive and mischievous attempts to provoke reactions from other online users.'
Or if we want to be a bit more relatable to our young internet generation: Urban Dictionary defines trolling as “trying to get a rise out of someone…either through wise-crackery, posting incorrect information, asking blatantly stupid questions, or other foolishness.”
However, over time marketers have learnt to overcome the negative impact that trolls try to have on a business and have actuality found a way to use them to their advantage. Adapting and evolving at its finest- Introducing 'Troll Marketing'. Yes this is actually a thing and it is amazing.
I'm sure you've definitely seen a lot of this being done due to the fact that it's sole purpose is to not only turn a negative into a positive, but also gain attention and go viral. Moreover, with the saturation of mass marketing these days, troll marketing makes it easier for brands to cut through the noise as well as relating to a younger generation- Millenials (meme obsessed kids essentially).
Author of the tech blog "Keywords" for the Wall Street Journal, Christopher Mims explains:
'Trolling is so ingrained in the internet that, without even noticing, we’ve let it shape our most important communication systems.'
And it's true- It has now created a whole new style of marketing that actually works. Consumers will perceive the brand voice as funny, relatable and young- Like a friend rather than just a company and consumers will be more likely to follow and engage with posts.
Ok I bet you're all hungry for some spicy memes and internet trolling content now so I've compiled a few pretty decent examples below:
While the brand presents itself with a logo of a sweet little girl, it's online voice is anything but that, Wendy's has become one of the leaders in this Troll marketing through the use of sassy, witty humour.
Spotify introduced a campaign where they essentially 'exposed' users strange listening habits and gained a lot of attention:
Netflix has also successfully adopted this technique to connect with users:
So, to wrap things up I want to leave you with a few questions:
Firstly, what do you think of this technique? Do you follow particular brands and companies purely for their funny/ relatable content? Where do you think this technique will go in the future? Should certain brands stay away from this tactic? why? why not?
Do you follow woolies memes on Facebook? Because you should
Thanks for reading!
Grace
Interesting to see that trolling occurs with brands too. It seems that these brands mainly use twitter. It's a strange strategy actually but I can see the fun in that especially if their competitors take part in the discuss, it's almost like an informal way of marketing their brand, I can also see that this strategy would gain a lot of engagement from people.
Great post!
Really engaging read Grace! I think that trolling it an eye catching marketing technique because it is a relatively new concept and is different to what you would normally consider marketing material. Although trolling is maybe not as effective in actually generating sales or capturing future consumers because it might be a little offensive to some, in the case of Wendy's it may be that perhaps they are taking it a little too far with all the sass! - Alex Carey
Great blog, this was very funny to read. I was laughing wendy's response about selling edible food unlike Hungry Jacks. i love it. I think it's funny when companies show a sense of humour, i know Nandos' is really good at that as well, they make all these memes and it's just hilarious. i think it's so effective, especially for customer engagement, you'll tag a friend and then others can see that you've replied so they'll see the post etc. it's a good thing for companies if done right.
Hey Grace, a great blog post! I personally think this technique that businesses such as Wendy's being 'trolls' on Twitter are hilarious! I saw a couple of their tweets a while back and found it super entertaining and humorous as I feel like not many people think tweeting a business or fast-food chain would respond. I think this will go decently far in the future if there are individuals who have similar humour or understand that poking fun at users or even other companies are all fun and games. I do believe that if brands are wanting to build a strong customer relationship then to keep it going, but if they do then to keep the jokes inoffensive.
Such great examples! I personally love when brands do this! I think it really shows that a brand knows its target audience and is able to create content that not only works well but is relatable and memorable. Recently Netflix called for brands to tweet in reply to them, bringing together a number of brands, whilst capitalizing on humour. This is very on-brand for Netflix as they are not a serious company and are targeting a younger demographic.