A social media experiment launched yesterday by Coca Cola has fallen flat, as consumers began using obscenities and lambasting each other on Coke's Australian Facebook page.
Coca-Cola Australia invited fans to create a “happy story” in a comments stream, but instead people resorted to negative comments.
Coca-Cola's post said: “Here is a little social experiment... Add a word to the person above you to create a happy story!”
At the time of writing, the post had led to 808 comments, several of which are nonsensical, obscene or inflammatory.
One string of posts says, “eating”, “Adele's”, “hairy”, “Bulging”, “veiny”, “LOL”. Another comment speaks of a “collapsed love tunnel”.
One person wrote: “The perfect way to some [sic] up society and media - run a stupid experiment like this to reveal the morons, then report its obviously expected failure as front page news.”
Coca Cola is not the first company to run into problems with social media. Qantas launched a Twitter campaign last year which led to angry consumers posting comments about their frustration with the brand.
Westpac was also hit with a deluge of negative comments on its Facebook page last year when it increased mortgage rates.
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