Social Enterprise
61,697 Followers 
61,697 Followers Pepsi Social Media Contest Stumbles
Posted On: February 26
Oops, it's happening again. Another corporate charity contest using online social media to raise money and recognition for nonprofits and social causes is being cited for appearing as if it's trying to unfairly influence the competition.Last month,Chase Community Challenge made headlines for allegedly disqualifying three nonprofits - Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Marijuana Policy Project, and an anti-abortion group, Justice for All. According to The New York Times, the groups felt that Chase did not like their missions, despite their popularity among Facebook voters in the contest. Chase organizers did not comment on the allegations but did say contest rules allow contestants to be disqualified at the discretion of organizers. [Contest organizers also took a drubbing in the blogosphere for failing to provide a clear leader board in the competition. The lack of one prevented competing "do-good" groups from knowing how they were faring during the contest.]
Now it'sPepsi Refresh's turn to stumble. According to an article by reporter Stephanie Strom published today in The New York Times, Pepsi Refresh-- which plans to give $20 million to good causes this year -- "accidentally gave a charity currently on top of its rankings a little boost by allowing it to submit some materials after its own submission deadline," Strom wrote.
Materials submitted by the Joyful Heart Foundation,a charity founded byLaw & Order star Mariska Hargitay to help victims of sexual assault, were updated after the submission deadline -- which is against the contest rules. This, Strom wrote, "upset some of the contestants who wondered whether Pepsi was doing favors for a celebrity. 'I can't edit my own submission, so how did she do it?' said one who insisted on anonymity because he did not want to jeopardize his chances" of winning prize money.
Strom quoted Jill Beraud, chief marketing office for the American beverages unit at Pepsi, as saying it was an honest mistake. "We didn't follow our guidelines to the letter," Beraud told Strom. "The bottom line is that we've learned from this and we're moving on." Beraud told Strom that Pepsi, as a result, will give away three $250,000 prizes this month instead of two as originally planned.
Why is it so hard for the managers of these corporate charity contests to resist the urge to meddle? Got any theories? Let us hear from you.
RELATED STORIES
 |
 |
 |
 |
Lavinia Weissman 1 March 2010 Competitions are hard for everyone. I have entered 2 this year and walked away from 1. The time consumption for me is a real abuse in some cases. Especially when I get caught up in marketing a campaign that is designed primarily to market the enterprise running the contest. The first contest I entered brought me a lot of email form my network upset with the difficulty in registering to vote.
I just went into FB to vote for someone Elaine Cohen is campaigning for. The time wasted registering because the FB scrip was not smooth is enough to discourage me from doing this again. I have been looking at this campaign for myself and been swamped and wondered if this was a to time consuming. A mistake by a global company can be corrected. An investment of time for a social entrepreneur can feel like cold calling with a low rate of return. Last night I identified a grant I am going to apply for and I realized I had to make sure I was ethical about it after I sent an email to a friend of a friend who is involved with the grant. Thinking on your toes is something that is becoming on demand skill for me at present. I tend to make more mistakes when I am groping to create something new. So this competition "stuff" has to be clearer for me before I act now. Martin, you distinguished Justmeans.com from FB from a brand perspective. I think you need to focus from a usability perspective as well. You are a leap beyond Linkedin.com and Facebook that is the sustainable in terms of time and cost imho and value of network. I feel absolutely no control over my media on FB and I want to leave, but so many people who are resources for my research are not on Justmeans.com or Linkedin.com. In fact, I have noticed a few people use FB that I wish would use twitter. And I know they won't To me just to have the $10K to get my new website launched, organize myself at a level of expense on Justmeans.com is truly what I want my goal to be. I am a hard sell and now I have to get my sponsors, investment lined up to simplify my life this way. I am now making a list of the top 10 people I will read a week to streamline, and I think that is my compromise for now till I get through my new stage of writing. |
 |
Martin Smith 1 March 2010 Jeff, we will make sure all companies on Justmeans put in details on who is eligible (from which countries) from now on, thanks for insight.
|
 |
peter lapak 1 March 2010 This is a minor stumble and doesn't matter compared to how Pepsi is changing the way advertising is done.
|
 |
Jeff Mowatt 28 February 2010 Another illustration comes from the UK Big Lottery Fund. I submitted a plan for local funding based on the 'profit for purpose' model we've deployed already as a business. Our bid was unsuccessful but we later discovered that another organisation had received funding assistance to replicate our model as the qualifying criteria for the Social Enterprise Mark.
|
|
Jeff Mowatt 28 February 2010 It was a rather minor issue but one of the compettitions here on JustMeans turmed out a bit of a disappointment in that I was informed by Intel that I'd won a flip camera, to then discover that living in the UK disqualified me.
To be honest, I'd been sent T&Cs with my winning notification but being in a more advance Word format than my own, I was unable to read it. with only an online fax account I had to scour the locality and pay someone to return the acceptance form. My winning suggestion had been of working on the ground with grassroots activists. We'd been active in Ukraine and influential in persuading their government that affordable broadband was key to economic development, access to knowledge and elimination of the consequences of widespread poverty. Within a year of delivery, affordable broadband had become a reality, by means of Nortel Tachnololgy. http://jm.ly/1uhA88 http://jm.ly/bC8HG5 Little did I know, as I replied to Intel to say that taking on board what I'd suggested was much more important, that Intel's President was scheduled to appear in a round table at Davos to discuss the very same concepts that we'd been making happen. http://jm.ly/FZpHtF Imagine how much could have been achieved if Intel and others had stood beside our efforts 3 years earlier. |
 |
Nadine B Hack 27 February 2010 Whenever I advise organizations from any sector – private or public, for- or not-for-profit – I explain that social networking will bring them into a gorgeous, messy, fully-democratized space where they can’t control the discourse. I encourage them to take that plunge as I believe it not only is well worth doing but, in fact, absolutely necessary to survive in the 21st century. And, as this latest twist with Pepsi shows, I warn them that if they do anything to interfere with the open exchange of information, they will get called out on that immediately. I had always urged the organizations I advise that for practical and moral reasons they should be completely transparent and honest in their activities. Given the viral nature of Internet-based social networking, this reality has only become more emphatically true. I also agree with Elaine Cohen’s sense that Pepsi’s CRM campaign was in good faith and with good intention. And, in reading their response to the violation of the rules, I think they seem to be taking responsibility for what happened.
|
 |
Marcia Stepanek 27 February 2010 There's also the relatively new experience of the Web fishbowl. If you're a company and you're making an investment such as this and it's high-profile, you can't assume that a little "nudge" won't be "seen" -- regardless of whether it's a matter of following your own contest rules. On a separate point, these contests are new and there's a learning curve around them and Pepsi owned up quickly and clearly--and there's no question that its campaign is a bold step. They stumbled, they said so, they altered some procedures, and now it's time to move on. The hope is that companies venturing into these new frontiers learn from each others' successes and stumbles. Why wasn't Chase's experience and the loud chorus of protest over it from the online cause community enough of a warning to Pepsi's social media team? When you commit to crowdsourcing, as new media expert Clay Shirky says -- (and this contest is a moderated form of it) -- it's tough/impossible to manage the crowd. Safer to manage your own teams around the new realities of "crowd" marketing. Crowds are forcing new levels of transparency on institutions that attempt to engage them -- and this is an example of what transparency means. Says Web expert Don Tapscott -- author of the 2008 "Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World" and the 2003 book, "The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business" -- if you're a company and you're going to play in the Web fishbowl, you're "naked -- and so you'd better be buff."
|
|
Martin Smith 27 February 2010 @marisha - I think companies should run campaigns on mainstream platforms like Facebook and Twitter without a doubt. I just don't think they should have aspirations of coming up with innovative ideas (which may be a unexpected outcome) and should merely treat programs as marketing and advertising spends, which in and of itself is a reason to do it given the ROI.
|
 |
Elaine Cohen 27 February 2010 Hi, whilst I may be accused of being naive, I believe there is a geuine spirit of social mission (as well as business mission) in the bold Pepsi program. I believe they planned to do it fairly. Their admission of an "honest mistake" I feel should be respected. Having said that, as cause marketing campaigns become more and more the norm in marketing, there does need to be some form of ombudsman or eternal auditor (or audit committee) which verifies the integrity of decisions made.This should be best practice for any campaign of this nature. As for Pepsi, one mistake should not be cause for unbridled criticism. More important is how Pepsi prevent this recurring and lessons that other campaigners can learn.
elaine |
 |
Marisha S 27 February 2010 I completely agree, Martin. But do you think that custom platforms will satisfy that short-sighted side of corporate mindset to see quick showy outcome? I suppose if they have enough debaucles they will move to other venues.
|
 |
|
|
|
Marcia Stepanek Justmeans News Writer |
Marcia Stepanek is a regular contributing writer for Justmeans and co-founder of Contribute Media. She also is Publisher of Cause Global, a group blog about the use of social media in social advocacy and innovation. Previously, she was executive editor and co-founder of CIO Insight Magazine and Web strategies editor at BusinessWeek, as well as the national economics correspondent and special proje...
Justmeans Weekly News
sent to your inbox
sent to your inbox
