For cable channel AMC Television, August 26, 2008 was a difficult day. Some fans of the show “Mad Men,” a property of AMC TV, had taken it upon themselves to establish Twitter accounts in the names of the show’s characters. Not only that, but they were twittering in character and had created an alternate world of “twittertainment” for fans of the show between episodes. Doesn’t seem like such a bad thing, does it? Well, that wasn’t the cause of the difficulty. The day went south not because of the fans’ actions, but because of how AMC Television responded. It appears that AMC TV demonstrated its complete misunderstanding of the benefits of grassroots viral marketing and social marketing channels like Facebook by issuing a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notice to Twitter. They claimed copyright ownership over the characters’ names and the fan fiction that was being created in “an unauthorized manner” on the microblogging site.
As expected, Twitter suspended the accounts and began an investigation of them. Twitter really had no option in this case because the Act requires that Twitter take the action it did.
Of course, also as expected, it took less than one day for the fans of the show to explode in anger across the Internet on blogs, Facebook, and of course on Twitter to show their displeasure over the heavy-handed tactics employed by AMC. To be fair to AMC, there is some confusion in the public about what actually happened during this kerfuffle. In several articles, AMC claims that they never sent any DMCA takedown notices to Twitter. At the same time, Twitter isn’t talking about what happened or why the accounts were suspended. So while it is difficult to ascertain with any certainty what was happening in the background at AMC and at Twitter, what is clear is that a show about advertising had been created by people who didn’t understand that the issues faced by the Sterling Cooper Agency in the world of Madison Avenue in 1962 was very, very different from the issues a similar agency would have faced in 2008. The issue at hand here being that, say it with me, you no longer control the brand.
According to a piece in Business Week, Deep Focus, AMC TV’s web marketing agency, stepped up and pointed-out to its client that all this fan activity and positive attention towards the show was, how do you say, “good” for the show. NYMag.com (http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/08/mad_men_twitter_wars_end_peace.html) put it best, ”AMC's Web-marketing group knocked some skulls together at AMC HQ. "IT'S FREE ADVERTISING!"”
After some back-room discussions about the benefits of fans providing free buzz for the show, AMC’s decision-makers apparently rescinded the DMCA take down notice that they claimed they never sent. Twitter restored the accounts and all was right for fans of the 1960’s world of Madison Avenue once again.
Now fast forward a year later. Has AMC TV changed its mindset in regards to social media? If so, how effectively are they using channels like Facebook to promote their product, grow their community, increase their fan base, and most importantly for AMCTV, drive eyeballs to the boob tube so they can sell advertisements during the show?
AMC TV’s current mindset in regards to social media has completely changed since that cold PR day in August of 2008. Let’s be honest, if the end of the story was simply “another big media company doesn’t get social media, sticks foot in mouth and head in the rear,” then the episode about this event wouldn’t be in this book. Reason being? There are far too many of those stories out there today. Not one of them stand alone any longer. Anytime the end of the story is “so-in-so screwed up and went away,” there’s nothing to learn from that event.
Today, AMC TV is using online marketing channels like Facebook to promote “Mad Men” and other shows with a successful, comprehensive strategy that covers several social media platforms and drives new, measurable interest in the show daily. Any agency executive at a 1960‘s Madison Avenue would be wise to sit up and take notice.
What’s the state of the Mad Men Facebook community?
AMC has created a focused, vibrant community filled with dynamic content which is not only popular with the show’s loyal fans, but also entertaining for the casual observer. Building a large following for your Facebook presence requires a network of other platforms, microsites and offline campaigns, working in conjunction to drive visitors to your fan page.
As you can see, on AMC’s Mad Men landing page (http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/) they have a link to their Facebook fan page, their blog, their Twitter profile, and iPhone app. AMC leverages the traffic their Mad Men landing page gets and pushes them to their Facebook fan page along with other social platforms.
Many social media campaigns lack this level of integration. They assume their consumers on other social networks will find them on their own. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. AMC understands this and actively courts users to visit one platform from others.
Has the fan base for Mad Men been increased? Yes. According to AllFacebook.com (http://statistics.allfacebook.com/pages/single/-/140731500326/) a site that, among other things, tracks growth of fan pages on Facebook, The Mad Men Facebook fan page is seeing growth of about 25,000 new fans per month as of October, 2009.
The fact that the demographic targeted by the marketing team for Mad Men aligns well with the demographic that is most active on Facebook has been helpful in this area. After the Twitter debacle, AMC has learned that connecting all your social platforms with the brand website acting as a hub can not only help introduce consumers to your other marketing channels, but can also help grow overall brand awareness.
In the next post we'll ask and answer the following two questions.
Has AMC increased awareness (buzz) around the television show and the brand for Mad Men?
How does AMC use Facebook to drive attention so they can sell advertisements during the show?This post is from a draft for "Facebook Marketing - An Hour A Day." I am writing it with Chris Treadaway for Wiley Press (Sybex). The release date is February 26, 2010. You can reserve your copy now if you like.
