Doritos Facebook trolling – Content24

Welcome to Content24. What makes this different is that it’s a digest of the stories that have made an impact over the past 24 hours and not just a platform for a recycled content marketing strategy. Today we’re looking at the Doritos Facebook trolling, Red Bull and ad blocking.

Trolling to a new level

Most trolling consists of leaving nasty comments on forums or abusing celebrities on Twitter. As an art form it often lacks imagination, and the only time it gets interesting is when the abuser gets caught. But there are exceptions.

Recently, Doritos created a limited range of rainbow-coloured chips in support of the gay community. The move prompted predictable outrage from the sort of people who get outraged at things like this, and we’re not talking about the use of food colourings.

In response, Facebook user Mike Melgaard created a fake Doritos page called Doritos Askforhelp. He used it to attract various people to comment and wind them up with responses on behalf of the company.

Melgaard has form on this. Last month, he set up a fake Facebook page for retailer Target in response to its decision to create a ‘gender-neutral’ area of boys and girls toys in its stores. The aim was to encourage annoyed consumers to leave messages on the site and troll them back as a Target representative.

From a content marketing perspective, it is interesting that as companies engage with social platforms, they open themselves up to this sort of activity. Although both these sites were shut down in less than a day, there could still be damage caused to the brand.

Fake Doritos Facebook comments

Fake Doritos Facebook comments

Red Bull content marketing

Every once in a while we take a look at recent content by its best-known practitioners. In this case it’s the turn of Red Bull UK. The last content put up by the company’s online magazine was four days ago – a weekly blog about someone trying to keep fit. Elsewhere, there were interesting pieces. This included an interview with Dr Who actor Peter Capaldi.

Overall it appeared to be well-produced and written. But the most interesting aspect to it was the absence of Red Bull and caffeine in any of the pieces we saw. It was obviously a strategic decision to align things like fitness, Dr Who etc with the brand. But the product, or anything about the need for a carbonated drink to keep you awake, seemed conspicuous by its absence.

More about ad blockers

Digiday wrote this analysis of the winners and losers from ad blocking. We have spent a lot of time in these pages talking about the influence of ad blocking and how it could help content marketing. It is worth being aware of as we believe it could be a big opportunity for content marketing.

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