Congratulations to DiGiorno for becoming the newest case study that will be discussed about in marketing classes for years to come. And congratulations for generally just being complete jerks in the middle of a serious discussion about domestic violence. Really, that's a level of prickery that not even the most seasoned trolls could dream of attaining.
The big news in the sports world was the "surfacing" of the video of Ray Rice beating the crap out of his then fiance, which was finally enough inspiration for the Baltimore Ravens to cut him and for the NFL to suspend him indefinitely. I find it highly unlikely that neither the NFL nor the Ravens had previously seen this video, so I'm sure more will come out about the kind of scumbags who are calling the shots. But this is a food blog, not a football blog.
In the wake of the Ray Rice video, two phrases were trending on Twitter: #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft, Both served as an outlet for discussion of victims of domestic violence. Women worldwide were participating, were supporting each other, were forming as one...and then the little 12 year old dillweed who manages DiGiorno's Twitter chimed in with this: #WhyIStayed You had pizza.
Needless to say, there was a massive outrage aimed right at DiGiorno and the Tweet was immediately deleted. That was two days ago. Their stream has been very quiet since then with the exception of two BS apologies that if you do a little research on you could probably find out the joker who was managing this page knew exactly what he was doing:
Let me break it down for you here: a lot of corporations do not yet understand the critical importance of social media and a solid digital marketing strategy and for a second I actually believed them about not reading the hashtag beforehand. But then I looked at their stream from the previous several days and found that they are EXTREMELY active on Twitter and their page looks like it's run by some idiot 12 year old. A technologically savvy 12 year old, but an idiot nevertheless. This guy knew EXACTLY what he was doing when he posted that Tweet. It's possible the above apology was written by someone else in the company, but the "You had pizza" Tweet was posted because the hashtags were trending. A day later they posted this next apology:
This one seems more accepting of their mistake and acknowledging that they did something really, really stupid but it doesn't forgive that a major brand like this just made themselves look like a giant ass in the crack. These are the only two Tweets they've had in the last 48 hours since the blowup. I'm guessing the social media manager, who is likely Mr. DiGiorno's son, got his ass fired and rightfully so. What's shocking is the majority of the company's tweets are WRITTEN IN CAPS LIKE THIS HAHAHAHAHA AND JUST LOOK REALLY IMMATURE HAHAHAHA. I mean, I'm all for a certain tone and humor with social media but keep it professional. My guess is the company has no clue what digital marketing is all about and were doing Mr. DiGiorno a favor.
If I were Mr. DiGiorno, here's what I would do for damage control: make several sizable donations to groups for victims of domestic violence, donate a surplus of your products to women and children's shelters including Baltimore since that's where Ray Rice played, and then hire me as your social media manager and I'll make sure you get everything back on track. This company needs to learn2internet.
Don't fight or lie to the Internets, it just doesn't work. My guess is the company will come out with some kind of damage control in the next day or so and then you're gonna see a whole new voice on their Twitter.
