When I started writing for AdFreak in 2007, social media barely had a name, much less a consistent playbook for brands.
Just about every day, we were covering brand missteps and fails that, in retrospect, seem outright baffling. But the reality was, marketers just didn't know what to do with all these emerging platforms. So they kind of barreled into a brave new world, tweets blazin', and gave us plenty of face-palm fodder along the way.
These days, such stories are a lot more rare. Brands have taken a tighter rein with their social feeds, which have evolved in priority from fringe pursuits to core marketing functions.
But that doesn't mean global brands are always on top of it, as we saw today with news that LG Poland had to apologize after posting a sexist video to its official TikTok account.
As the video, created by a "viral prank" guy, exploded to about 20 million views, the brand got blistered by viewers around the world. Then it was deleted, along with the rest of the brand's TikTok postings–except for one big apology noting that it was "not properly filtered by LG Poland Digital Marketing team."
There's a reason this probably happened on TikTok specifically, and it's the same reason we used to see so many moments of flawed judgment back in the 2007-2009 days. It's an emerging platform, and some brands are either trusting the early adopters (the creator of the controversial video at issue here has more than 4 million followers) or winging it.
So welcome to the TikTok era of corporate apologies! Hopefully (for marketers) it won't last long. But in the name of schadenfreude and ad journalism, I personally hope it at least lasts a few more months.
David Griner
Creative and Innovation Editor, Adweek
David.Griner@Adweek.com
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