The executive director RJ van Spaandonk of Core Group, Apple‘s representative in Southern Africa, earlier this week slipped up trying to use Twitter to engage with his detractors.
Instead of appearing witty, thoughtful and creative, he came across like “a ranting and raving idiot”, as he admitted himself in today’s issue of The Weekender.
All in all, I think a great recovery from what some have called a “PR disaster“.
The article:
“Always”, I would venture after an unfortunate incident earlier this week, which culminated in Business Day rightfully taking me to task for going on to Twitter to “issue a stream of sneering, sarcastic updates”.
After a tug of war with a rather recalcitrant reseller of grey products during a contentious radio interview on 702 last Monday, the radical blogosphere was fuming with anger. Why had Redi Direko let me off so easily? Why had we been talking about the technicalities of distribution when ephemeral scribes wanted to hear only one thing: “Why do Apple prices seem so much higher in South Africa than in the USA?”
Not entirely happy with the interview myself, I decided to venture into uncharted territory: Twitterverse. “Let me engage with our detractors on their territory and on their terms”, I thought, “under one condition: let’s have a bit of fun.”
I concocted what I thought was an ingenious strategy; in fact quite paradigm-shifting. The idea was to spin a narrative that would begin outrageously, interlacing facts with sarcasm, and then develops into a coherent argument that proves that our company is not overcharging South African consumers. Surely, with a bit of guidance everyone would understand how volatile exchange rates, the cost of forward cover and VAT play havoc with international price comparisons.
Content with what I thought was my brilliance I sent my missives into cyberspace. I deployed hyperbole to the extreme, making outrageous claims in the belief that acquaintances and journallists would recognise the sheer genius of what I was doing, whilst at the same time raising the blood pressure of bloggers and twitterers alike.
My aim was to attract attention, get tongues wagging, and then present the indisputable fact that Macs are technically speaking only 12.5% more expensive in South Africa compared to the USA – exactly the same difference seen in most European markets. Case closed, or so I thought.
Alas, I quickly found out that I had overestimated the wit and sense of humour of my audience – well, at least of the individuals that cared to engage. Not one of them understood that I was ‘poking fun’ at Twitter activism – or did, and would have none of it. Venomous attacks were the result, with one person lamenting: “is your plan of action to alienate everyone?”It turned out I had completely misjudged the intricacies of the medium and my ability to master it. I had slipped like a PR novice.
So, what is the lesson in this for others, and especially for businesses that feel the pressure to embrace social media?
My advice: stay away from Twitter. You may think that after careful deliberation you are able to capture the essence of your message in 140 characters, but anything more complex than halftime rugby scores is bound to be misunderstood. Irony, as we saw, easily backfires. It is just not a channel for nuanced conversation, especially not when your brand is already under fire.
More importantly, I had forgotten that entries can be ‘retweeted’ individually, and thus out of context they can look rather stupid. I learned to my detriment that tyrants lurk around, trying to exploit your every mishap, and Twitter has rapidly become, like unmoderated blogs before it, the preserve of anonymous agitators trying to look clever at the expense of others.
None of this, by the way, is an excuse for my mistakes: I should have known better.
Seeing that my plan was going nowhere, I decided to pull all the updates from my page, thinking this would be the end of it. But, a twitterer with an axe to grind had taken a screenshot of the first half of my exposé; indeed the part where I deliberately passed myself off as a ranting and raving idiot. A contrived blog entry was created around it, ranking first in Google searches of my name, and which now serves as a fitting testament to a misguided Tuesday morning experiment on the fringes of Web 2.0.
Please don’t make the same mistake.
What do you think?
Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
July 4th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
If I were Steve Jobs, I would truss this cigar smoking cretin up, put an apple in his gob and roast him gently over a fire as an example to others!
Steve, be careful whom you entrust your precious brand to.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:56 am
It’s not over RJ van Spaandonk.. you’re passing off this little incident as if it’s a once-off mistake, when in fact it is typical of the attitude you have displayed for some time. If you had engaged your audience in a mature, rational way, your company would be loved. Instead Core Group is widely despised and has been for some time. Why is that? It’s not about your Twitter mistakes is it?
July 5th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
RJ, What utter drivel. You duffed it, looked like an idiot, and you’re now trying to make it seem deliberate. As they say, “a poor workman always blames his tool” Best you stay well away from social media in future.
July 5th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
He failed … and now he has the audacity to question the intelligence of twitterati? Wonder if he would have the guts to say this to for example Richard Branson who uses twitter quite often to get information across. I really feel that his shortcomings is being exposed and maybe he is the reason the Core group is failing. He harps on about price, forward cover, the Rand etc etc. ( all poor excuses least I remind you the Rand has been at R 8 for at least 2 months if not more ) but what about the very poor service Core gives its clients and which they in turn pass on to their clients i.e. us.
July 5th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Just lower your prices (to within 10% of the US price at *current* Rand-Dollar exchange rate) and all will be forgotten.
July 6th, 2009 at 7:46 am
This is just stupid… how on earth can Apple trust their brand to such a cretin? Mr Spaandonk, you have to easily be the most ignorant business man in SA… its even scarier that you work with technology.
Shit, if was sitting at Apple HQ and heard about you…well lets just say you would never sell another Apple again.
July 6th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Retcon retcon retcon!
I didn’t know anything about the guy or the controversy until someone sent me a link to his Twitter page and I just thought he was a douche. “Wit”? he says. Looked like sarcastic kvetching to me and his little mea culpa here just makes him look more stupid. What kind of MD jumps feet first into social media without thinking about the consequences of his actions? It just shows that he’s totally out of tune with the audience.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Gosh,to think I actually used to be an Apple convert involved with one of the first Apple-based tech companies in SA, Aztec Information? Sorry, I was wrong, the Apple revolution turned into a sadomasochistic relationship with a snide piece of condescending metal. Who wants to be handcuffed to the Core Group? Updating OSX is like getting updated by a dominatrix with her eyes on your credit card. I need DRM like a hole in my head. Nevertheless there are those who don’t mind being drilled by the BSD licence which gives Jobs a hard-on every-time one of his minions makes a sale. At least make it easier to get ripped off in South Africa. This way, only the rich suffer.