Skip to main content

Is #AirAsiaScam a competitor driven trend?

By
On 12th April, a popular Indian newspaper published a story, "Who really runs AirAsia India?" It raised some interesting questions about the operations of Air Asia. It stated that "Documents, emails show that Malaysia’s AirAsia Bhd has final say in decision-making, in violation of the  Indian law."

Today suddenly after approximately a week I saw #AirAsiaScam trending #1 on Twitter. This came barely hours after Air Asia announced Air fares starting at Rs 999 for flights across India.

The twitter trend #AirAsiaScam had a huge list of Twitter users who were constantly Tweeting about the story that came a week earlier (with almost similar content). A careful look at the Tweets does indicate that something is amiss. 
In the Tweets Below #DipanG118 suddenly realizes that she has to Tweet something about #AirAsiaScam.
Similarly @ItsNewBeginning  had back to back Tweets about the scam, which of course they had read a week earlier. I'm not sure if it's a scam though.
Farman too had similar thoughts on Air Asia. 
And there's more. Rahul singh too had similar thoughts and decided to Tweet about it within a span of a minute. It's humanly impossible to type that stuff and Tweet it in a minute. (Or may be Rahul is an expert at it)
If you notice a lot of them have similar things to say. First is about the great job done for writing the story (it indeed is) and second is about "Silence of the government". Let's look the the great job stuff.
Silence of the government too did bother them.
In high probability the trending of #AirAsiaScam is being driven by someone. Also the folks who are Tweeting about the issue have in high likelihood been incentivized by someone. It definitely draws attention. If you look closely and pay attention to the content you'll soon realize that this is junk.
Looking at the timing (coming hours after the announcement of fares), it is quite possible that a competitor is doing this (i.e. getting #AirAsiaScam to trend).

If that's the case (in high probability it is), it is an extremely bad attempt at misinforming the public. It is also a colossal waste of money.

One of the biggest challenges of marketing on social media is that while it is an information highway, it can suddenly become a mis-information However one needs to know that the consumer is not a moron. (she is your wife ~ David Ogilvy)



There are a few people who observed and criticized the twitter trend of #AirAsiaScam.

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

7 easy Instagram Marketing tips for beginners

By
Instagram started as a iOS only application and quickly became a huge social networking website with a presence on Android and the web. An active and rapidly growing user base has made marketing on Instagram important for brands, small businesses and startups. Instagram has more than 75 million daily active users, with a total user base of over 400 million. Instagram users in 2015 were sharing over 70 million photos per day.  Given its growing importance we'll explore some easy tips that can help you with Instagram marketing.
Read More...

Marketer's Job: Showing the money

By
A marketer's biggest dilemma is a client who misunderstands his service. " A writer who is in a hurry to be understood today or tomorrow runs the danger of being misunderstood the day after tomorrow ." ~ Johann G. Hamann Most of the times marketers face the challenge of being misunderstood. During the days when I was part of a startup, I felt that even if I'd break my head, the client will not really understand what my firm was offering and the benefits it gave.
Read More...

Rajnigandha Six Word Story Contest - And the winner is...

By
Rajnigandha Pan Masala, one of the sponsors at Jaipur Literature festival every year organizes a contest i.e #RajnigandhaSixWordStory. It's a interesting brand engagement consistent with the theme of the festival.  Users have to share a six word story and they can stand a chance to win. The event being one of the largest of its kind in the world attracts a lot of participation and so does the contest. This year however it did not go as planned and the contest backfired. The narrative on social media was not about the contest, literature or the Jaipur Literature festival. It became a narrative about Rajnigandha, chewing tobacco and oral cancer.
Read More...