ExxonMobil situation shows “brandjacking” is for real
ExxonMobil’s experience in the Twittersphere should serve as a wake-up call for organizations dragging their feet when it comes to paying attention to the social media space. It took only three days from the first time a tweet appeared from a Twitter account called ExxonMobilCorp to capture the attention of mainstream media and investment analysts.
This interest in ExxonMobil’s participation in the conversation was certainly amplified by recent coverage of Comcast’s ComcastCares activities on Twitter, including feature articles in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Suddenly, any company engaging customers with an official voice on Twitter is intriguing, and to be sure, there are other companies doing it, like Southwest Airlines.
The ExxonMobilCorp account, though, should have raised some red flags immediately. The graphic image on the account shows service stations, an odd choice since ExxonMobil has announced its intention to sell its service stations and get out of that business altogether. The person behind ExxonMobilCorp—who identified herself only as “Janet”—began answering questions that came from followers. Some were answers no self-respecting communicator would have given. For example, when someone raised the Exxon Valdez issue, Janet noted that, while tragic, the Valdez spill didn’t rank among the top 10 such incidents. Clearly, Janet has had no communication training, since that response would provoke anger and hostility.
Still, I was excited when I read Jeremiah Owyang’s account of the ExxonMobil Twitter stream, since I’d been out to ExxonMobil to talk about social media with the Public Affairs team. So, after reporting about it on FIR, I sent off a congratulatory note to my contact at ExxonMobil, only to learn in the reply that Janet and the account weren’t part of Public Affairs and the company was trying to track her down.(I want to be clear here: I didn’t alert anyone at ExxonMobil to the Twitter account; they already knew about it.) I tried to send a direct message to Janet, but since she had not opted to follow me on Twitter, it wasn’t possible.
Ultimately, I was able connect Jeremiah with Alan Jeffers, who works in Public Affairs and is an authoritative spokesperson for ExxonMobil. Jeremiah’s account of the conversation is here.
To their great credit, ExxonMobil never considered legal action aimed at Twitter (for trademark violation), opting to address the issue carefully and within the context of the social media culture. Jeffers also agreed, in his conversation with Jeremiah, that ExxonMobil needs to be diligent about those things that are being said “about you, by you, and (by) those pretending to be you.”
Jeremiah calls what happened to ExxonMobil “brandjacking.” He tells Janet that she should turn the Twitter ID keys over to ExxonMobil and own up to being something other than an official spokesperson for the company. (She may be an employee making a sincere effort to communicate in this space, but we won’t know until she fesses up, which I’ve asked her to do now in a public tweet.)
In the meantime, any company should be acquiring the Twitter account names that are most likely to be construed as official accounts; the same is true, now, of Identi.ca account names and the names of Friendfeed rooms. Far too many organizations shrug off emerging social media channels like Twitter and Friendfeed. The Janet incident should make it painfully clear just how easy it is for somebody to step in and represent your organization with inaccurate and even damaging information using these very channels.
I’ve had senior managers ask me in the past why I was registering brand names on platforms we were unlikely to use at the time. And this was the type of situation I raised as a concern.
Some still thought it was a waste of time - after all, how many people would actually use a social network or microblog platform?...*sigh*.
Luckily they’ve got me, and an increasing number of people who do understand some of the risks!
Posted by Dan Thornton on 08/02 at 03:17 PMShel - Thanks for the post. Seems there’s an opportunity for a company to offer a service to help businesses acquire their corporate names for social media “tools.” With new social sites launching every 30 seconds it could be very a lucrative business! All joking aside, brandhacking, as Jeremiah terms this, has been a challenge since the first corporate website went live. ExxonMobile situation reinforces the need for monitoring conversations on social platforms. Will be interested to see how Twitter handles this and if their actions will it set precedent.
Posted by Toby on 08/03 at 12:14 PMYour concluding paragraph brings up the following intellectual property question: As ICANN recently voted to relax its rules and allow any company with the right moolah to buy a top-level domain, e.g. .exxonmobil, how do you suggest companies buy such domains if they don’t have the capital for the buy?
Posted by Ari Herzog on 08/03 at 02:36 PMThat’s an excellent question, Ari. How much will these top-level domains cost? I can see all kinds of issues arising around domains being out of reach for smaller companies, leaving them prey to domain squatters…er…speculators. Or ICANN may need to implement rules that prevent anyone BUT the company to acquire the domain.
Posted by Shel Holtz on 08/03 at 05:59 PMThis is all conjecture of course, but what if Janet is an independent station owner or representative? What rights would she have in that case, if any?
Thanks for checking this out with your personal contacts Shel. It has implications for many of my clients.
Posted by Kami Huyse on 08/04 at 05:53 AMShel, thanks for the great article. Some fantastic comments as well. This will now be required reading for many of the people on my team.
Posted by johnrhopkins on 08/04 at 07:09 AMBased on a recent post of mine about ICANN, the cost of a company-specific TLD could be $50,000 and up.
Posted by Ari Herzog on 08/04 at 03:04 PMKami raises a good point, and one we’re watching, too.
Our company is a nationwide marketing franchise, and as you can imagine, our franchisees are marketing and PR pros who realize the value of social media. Maintaining brand ownership and brand consistency across so many platforms—while not discouraging our stores from getting engaged—is a delicate operation.
Shel, any idea whether this is the first “fake” corporate Twitter account? First to go active instead of just squatting?
Posted by Scott Hepburn on 08/04 at 06:15 PMIt’s an excellent question, Scott. It’s the first one about which I’m aware, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find there are squatters on accounts bearing corporate or brand names.
Posted by Shel on 08/05 at 02:57 AMI’d love to dig into this a little. I’ll let you know if I find anything, Shel.
We have someone squatting on our name at Twitter (@prstore), but that could be one of our franchises, one of their employees, one of our employees at corporate…hard to say. The account hasn’t Tweeted, and it’s been live for months, so I’m reaching out to Twitter to see if they’ll release the account.
The early days of domain names all over again…oh good.
Posted by Scott Hepburn on 08/05 at 04:33 PMI’m happy to report Twitter was very helpful in finding out who registered the Twitter username @prstore. Turns out, it was one of our franchisees. She gave me the password and we’re working on a plan for meaningful, transparent conversation via Twitter.
Some stories do have a happy ending! Here’s hoping we use the account responsibly now.
Posted by ScottHepburn on 08/18 at 12:43 PMThanks for the update, Scott. Some of these situations can certainly be resolved amicably. I’m glad it turned out that way for you.
Posted by Shel Holtz on 08/18 at 03:43 PMBoth as consumers and marketers, we have been quick to state that humanizing a brand makes it more likely we will engage with the company, product or service. And we have demonstrated that is the case in many public instances. We pay attention to brands and that is reflected in brand rankings.
Posted by contract on 08/19 at 07:25 AMInteresting that these companies are all of the sudden using something like twitter. Its almost a joke in a way. I mean common, do corporate entities have any business playing with a service like twitter?
Posted by Sarah Teedler on 08/20 at 12:27 AMWhile the original Exxon account on Twitter is no longer available (at least not for me anymore), there is a new Janet on Twitter who appears similar in MO to the original one.
# Name Janet
# Location Irving, Texas
# Bio Taking on the world’s toughest energy challengeQuote from August 1, “I belive we are the first major energy company here, ExxonMobile is trying to lead the way in Corporate Citizenship”
Posted by Anne-Marie Faiola on 08/24 at 03:51 PM