Audi Galway on Facebook

Kenny Logins

anewme wrote: »

Totally agree. I took it up initially that it was FOR THE USE of the car but reading it back now can see that it does not mention USE of the car and that win the car for the weekend Could be misinterpreted as Win it in time for the bank holiday weekend.

Someone else said they would have been better off giving away some audi branded stuff and that would have stopped any misunderstandings.

A competition like that is always going to be a nightmare to monitor as you would have to be very careful picking a winner.

There are third-party services that manage competitions like this for you. In fact I'm surprised a brand as big as Audi doesn't have strict guidelines for marketing in this manner.

The Dogs Bollix

They are run by the Connolly Motor Group which seems to own half of Galway, Mayo and Sligo. They run Audi in Ballina, Sligo and Galway and VW in Ballina and Sligo. They are a big company.

It was a very stupid move by them. It wouldn't have cost them anything to give the car for the weekend.

hatrickpatrick

I am reminded irresistibly of the now defunct NV Nightclub, once my favourite club in Dublin. (RIP )
A simple marketing omission (Groups of 10 get a free bottle of vodka and free entry, but only before midnight - which wasn't advertised) resulted in a rather unpleasant exchange between a birthday party at the door and one of the club's bouncers.
One of the party's guests took to the NV Facebook page and wrote several angry, but well-worded and level headed letters of complaint about what had happened. All of these posts were deleted. Those who wrote the original posts called out their deletion in subsequent posts, and the club's response - using the official "NV Nightclub" Facebook account - was to respond to these later comments with "U CUNT!" and "FUCK OFF YOU MANGY NACKER" respectively.

The chaos which followed was, even by Facebook standards, extreme. A boycott page was set up which overnight amassed more likes than the original Facebook page did, the boycott trended on Twitter (for Dublin), the club's own Facebook page saw its following plummet, and in what was possibly one of the most idiotic moves I've ever seen during a PR crisis, the club responded by shutting down discussion on Adrian Kennedy by forwarding "libel" complaints to the Gardai, and requests Facebook remove the boycott page for the same reason. A second page was set up with a profile picture of Sean Bean angrily proclaiming "One Does Not Simply Shut Down An Irish Boycott" and the club (which I was semi-repping for at the time) was literally half empty the following weekend, where it had previously commanded a queue down Leeson St as lengthy as Krystle's or Coppers'.

Venue went into receivership approximately four months later.

Unlike this current situation I personally took no amusement from watching NV crash and burn as it was my favourite nightclub and was being run by friends at the time, but I'll always remember the incident as my first Irish lesson in just how badly a silly PR response can f*ck you up. I'd heard of it before in other places, this was the first time I'd seen it in a brand I was close to, and I make no exaggeration when I say that the whole business utterly decimated the club's reputation, even among people who had been regulars there every single weekend from the time it had opened.

If I were Audi, I'd be seriously concerned right now and thinking about damage control ASAP. Someone in their marketing department is going to have more than a bank holiday hangover to deal with on Tuesday morning, that's for sure.

EDIT: Contemporary write-up of the above story, for those interested
https://loveniamh.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/nv-nightclub-this-is-how-not-to-deal-with-a-pr-disaster/

myshirt

Christ lads, this is not Audi. These guys have the dealership, it's to be taken off them soon, they'll either be selling just used cars, or Ssangyongs.

hatrickpatrick

myshirt wrote: »

Christ lads, this is not Audi. These guys have the dealership, it's to be taken off them soon, they'll either be selling just used cars, or Ssangyongs.

In media terms, where X is an entity and Y is a geographical location, the buck stops with X for anything done under the name of X Y. 'twas ever thus.

jimmii

myshirt wrote: »

Christ lads, this is not Audi. These guys have the dealership, it's to be taken off them soon, they'll either be selling just used cars, or Ssangyongs.

I don't think anyone thinks this is coming straight from Germany. Everyone knows this is just some random issue coming from Galway.

Menas

myshirt wrote: »

Christ lads, this is not Audi. These guys have the dealership, it's to be taken off them soon, they'll either be selling just used cars, or Ssangyongs.

But they are hurting the brand with this carry on.
The garage and facebook page are called 'Audi galway'....so it is Audi that will get hurt by this.
Which makes you wonder why the mothership has not told them to come clean and sort this mess out before it gets print/tv media attention.

anewme

Menas wrote: »

But they are hurting the brand with this carry on.
The garage and facebook page are called 'Audi galway'....so it is Audi that will get hurt by this.
Which makes you wonder why the mothership has not told them to come clean and sort this mess out before it gets print/tv media attention.

Best PR advice in cases like this. Do nothing and let it blow over.

laughing at the nightclub one where they called people manky nackers and abused them!!!

Kenny Logins

myshirt wrote: »

Christ lads, this is not Audi.

Yeah, we all know that this is just a dealer in the West of Ireland and not the €50 billion German car manufacturer itself, but thanks for the reminder. :rolleyes:

hatrickpatrick

anewme wrote: »

Best PR advice in cases like this. Do nothing and let it blow over.

laughing at the nightclub one where they called people manky nackers and abused them!!!

I forgot to mention in my post that one of the club's marketing managers responded to the sh!tstorm with a first reasonable, then farcical FB post which began with offering people the opportunity to meet him to discuss any grievances......... And ended with him saying something like "but I'm sure none of you will come and meet me because you're a bunch of cowards" or something to that effects.

Menas

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I forgot to mention in my post that one of the club's marketing managers responded to the sh!tstorm with a first reasonable, then farcical FB post which began with offering people the opportunity to meet him to discuss any grievances......... And ended with him saying something like "but I'm sure none of you will come and meet me because you're a bunch of cowards" or something to that effects.

I had honestly never heard of this disaster, but it would make a great case study for marketing students on how sh1t happens so easily.

anewme

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I forgot to mention in my post that one of the club's marketing managers responded to the sh!tstorm with a first reasonable, then farcical FB post which began with offering people the opportunity to meet him to discuss any grievances......... And ended with him saying something like "but I'm sure none of you will come and meet me because you're a bunch of cowards" or something to that effects.

Yeah I saw that in the article or another one I googled. It started off grand and then he just gave up and lost the plot and turned vicious.

Still think F off you mankey nacker is priceless!!!

Melisandre121

Couldn't find the Audi Galway page just there, have they deleted it? :-0

Oryx

Its still there.

delahuntv

myshirt wrote: »

Christ lads, this is not Audi. These guys have the dealership, it's to be taken off them soon, they'll either be selling just used cars, or Ssangyongs.

sounds like some of the posters on their page - probably the stupidest post of all.

Have you even read the issue, or like most of those who whined, you read one line and made up your mind on everything else.?

Prize was car for bank holiday weekend - if people read the competition, it was as clear as day. Problem was many didn't read and then started posting wrong info.

Winner was chosen. He decided that his mother would have the prize (decent thing) and Audi galway made a sort of error by naming his mother as the winner rather than him and saying that he's giving it to his mum.


How it happened - they probably use a third party compnany to manage their facebook page (usually appointed by Audi themselves) and information just got muddled up between a couple of people.


Remember the prize has a value of LESS THAN €200!!!!

FFS - you and others have got yourselves a problem if such a minor issue gets you worked up!

As for saying Audi will take the dealership off them - Ah jaysus, you've a lot to learn.

Flippyfloppy

delahuntv wrote: »

sounds like some of the posters on their page - probably the stupidest post of all

FFS - you and others have got yourselves a problem if such a minor issue gets you worked up!

.

You must be the Delahunt from the Audi Facebook page

The Dogs Bollix

delahuntv wrote: »

sounds like some of the posters on their page - probably the stupidest post of all.

Have you even read the issue, or like most of those who whined, you read one line and made up your mind on everything else.?

Prize was car for bank holiday weekend - if people read the competition, it was as clear as day. Problem was many didn't read and then started posting wrong info.

Winner was chosen. He decided that his mother would have the prize (decent thing) and Audi galway made a sort of error by naming his mother as the winner rather than him and saying that he's giving it to his mum.


How it happened - they probably use a third party compnany to manage their facebook page (usually appointed by Audi themselves) and information just got muddled up between a couple of people.


Remember the prize has a value of LESS THAN €200!!!!

FFS - you and others have got yourselves a problem if such a minor issue gets you worked up!

As for saying Audi will take the dealership off them - Ah jaysus, you've a lot to learn.

Why delete May Lydon's Facebook page that was created on Friday?

They even posted from the account. "This is real. I really won. I joined up after my sister showing me the competition and I won".

A few more people were also creating Facebook profiles for May Lydon. But the suspicious account has been deleted.

Some jackass taking the p creating a Facebook profile for May Lydon has no reason to delete the account.

Did people tell Audi in Galway that their new May Lydon account was created after the competition was won. She even posted from it.

Delete.

They needed a new story.

Along comes her son. Who apparently was in touch with them on Friday by pm. But couldn't like one post.

I think people understand what it was for. It was in their add.

It was the companies lieing deceiving ways that people aren't happy about. They were caught out.

But it doesn't make it okay for them to do that if it was only for the weekend.

Riskymove

The Dogs Bollix wrote: »

Why delete May Lydon's Facebook page that was created on Friday?

tbh my thoughts were that someone created a false account to troll people after it was pointed out that there was no account

given the account had a picture of a man and a link to a named male person, that seemed more plausible to me than the dealership pretending to set up an account when the actual May Lydon arrived the following day and had pictures of her pout up.

Flippyfloppy

The Dogs Bollix wrote: »

Along comes her son. Who apparently was in touch with them on Friday by pm. But couldn't like one

The oddest thing about this was that they announced May as the winner at 3.50pm, and asked HER to private message them.

Then at 6.50pm changed the story to 'they contacted David who wanted to give the prize to his mother. She doesn't have a Facebook account'

So why pretend they want her to pm them? The whole thing seemed like a scam when everyone was online waiting to find out the winner at 3pm as promised, and no winner was announced. People were even ringing the garage to see if it was real.

Also the (since deleted) rules clearly stated 'like & share to win' like and share competitions are prohibited by Facebook as it is. Yet the winner they announce doesn't have a Facebook account?

Redgirl82

Just to keep this going. I find it really funny

The "Have you heard of a May Lydon in Galway?" Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Have-you-heard-of-a-May-Lydon-in-Galway/1478243899157571?fref=ts

and May has opened another of her own pages
https://www.facebook.com/pages/May-Lydon/1613892188865695?fref=ts

Flippyfloppy

delahuntv wrote: »

sounds like some of the posters on their page - probably the stupidest post of all.



How it happened - they probably use a third party compnany to manage their facebook page (usually appointed by Audi themselves) and information just got muddled up between a couple of people.


Remember the prize has a value of LESS THAN €200!!!!

FFS - you and others have got yourselves a problem if such a minor issue gets you worked up!
.

You're doing a lot of presuming here. Do you not think that any reputable 3rd party company that specifically run these competitions would be aware that Like & Share competitions are not allowed?? They're seen as spamming. Which is exactly what happened here and exactly why Audi Galway gained 30,000 likes from this competition.

Furthermore, do you not think a 3rd party company would have announced the winner on time & not made such a balls of it? I doubt they would have been passing info back & forward to the garage, thus allowing for confusion.

They also would have worded the competition more clearly. It should have actually been clear on the prize in question 'A weekend test drive' not 'a car' thus reducing spamming.

The Dogs Bollix

Riskymove wrote: »

tbh my thoughts were that someone created a false account to troll people after it was pointed out that there was no account

given the account had a picture of a man and a link to a named male person, that seemed more plausible to me than the dealership pretending to set up an account when the actual May Lydon arrived the following day and had pictures of her pout up.

That's what I thought first.

Jackasses taking the piss and trolling people. Why delete the account? Why not leave it up to continue taking the piss.

But then it looked as if they wanted all traces of their lie gone.

What are the chances named male person works for Audi? There is someone with the same name in Galway... Absolutely no reason for the deletion of the account if you were taking the piss.

Audi Galway were in touch with the journal on Friday evening to clarify things. And they were saying that May and David will be collecting the car on Saturday. No picture of David.

Along with everything else. The whole thing stinks. There isn't one thing believable in their story.

anewme

The Dogs Bollix wrote: »

That's what I thought first.

Jackasses taking the piss and trolling people. Why delete the account? Why not leave it up to continue taking the piss.

But then it looked as if they wanted all traces of their lie gone.

What are the chances named male person works for Audi? There is someone with the same name in Galway... Absolutely no reason for the deletion of the account if you were taking the piss.

Audi Galway were in touch with the journal on Friday evening to clarify things. And they were saying that May and David will be collecting the car on Saturday. No picture of David.

Along with everything else. The whole thing stinks. There isn't one thing believable in their story.

Even jackasses taking the p might realise though that they could be done for defamation and decide best off deleted in case anything kicked off.

There is some very defamatory material published on that page, people should read up on what is covered by defamation.

For example, there are all types of allegations not only against Audi Galway, but Audi Ireland and their staff at head office, and Audi AG. You cant just publish sweeping generalisations like that and expect no fallout.

delahuntv

The Dogs Bollix wrote: »

That's what I thought first.

Jackasses taking the piss and trolling people. Why delete the account? Why not leave it up to continue taking the piss.

But then it looked as if they wanted all traces of their lie gone.

.

That what Facebook do - if your account is false, they delete it and everything attached to it.
At one stage there were 3 May Lydon profiles - all arguing with each other (it was quite funny too)

Annasopra

Kenny Logins wrote: »

I bet there's a high percentage of people that still think the car was the prize.

Huh? The car wasnt the prize? When was that announced?

delahuntv

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

You're doing a lot of presuming here. Do you not think that any reputable 3rd party company that specifically run these competitions would be aware that Like & Share competitions are not allowed?? They're seen as spamming. Which is exactly what happened here and exactly why Audi Galway gained 30,000 likes from this competition.

Furthermore, do you not think a 3rd party company would have announced the winner on time & not made such a balls of it? I doubt they would have been passing info back & forward to the garage, thus allowing for confusion.

They also would have worded the competition more clearly. It should have actually been clear on the prize in question 'A weekend test drive' not 'a car' thus reducing spamming.

The wording was quite clear, an open top car for the august bank holiday, but many people did not read it - they just looked at the picture and then assumeed what they wanted to assume and told others. - Quite easily done aka, the Primark breastfeeding issue a couple of weeks ago (totally 100% false and she is now facing criminal charges)

Yeah, like and share comps are not allowed - its as policed as carrying drivign licence when you drive. Only if you totally abuse it, will FB take action.

As for the winnerbeing announced - this is where I'm presuming based on my own experiences of running a few FB pages.
Winner picked.
Winner contacted
Winner says he'll give prize to his mum and gives Mum's name.
Company announces winners name as per the Nominated person.

Fairly simple and for such a small prize, nothing should have been noticed, except sooo many people had eb=ntered and sooo many had not actually read what the prize was.

Yes, they handled it badly afterwards allowingitgo viral - there'd be 2 thoghts on this.

1 - bad pr and it may affect them (doubtful)

2 - those who would be seriously looking at a new audi would be able to see it was a storm in a tea cup and get some entetainment out of it, so massive free publicity.

How I would have done it? - Said that due to the huge number of entries an extra 3 names would be choosen for each weekend in August and then if anyone had an issue, delete their comments and ban them from the page instantly.

btw - there is a David Lydon from Galway on FB, but he is based in stutgart. Its possible that this is the David Lydon that won (hardly a prize worth travelling home for! )

Menas

delahuntv wrote: »

How I would have done it? - Said that due to the huge number of entries an extra 3 names would be choosen for each weekend in August and then if anyone had an issue, delete their comments and ban them from the page instantly.

Yeah, that would have been a good thing to do.

I think that they should have realised that something was amiss when they got 30,000 people entering this comp from all over the country.

That should have set alarm bells ringing that people were mis-interpreting the competition and they should have taken steps to clear up the terms of the competition.
And with so many entering they should have known lots would be watching this like hawks to the 'winner' should be drawn and announced on time and should have been traceable.
This sounds like a comp they ran themselves and they made a hash of it.

anewme

delahuntv wrote: »

That what Facebook do - if your account is false, they delete it and everything attached to it.
At one stage there were 3 May Lydon profiles - all arguing with each other (it was quite funny too)

Saw that, it was so funny, one or two of them had a good sense of humour, it was funny to see people challenging them as well, not copping on it is someone having a laugh, you are a fake and the profiles coming back arguing

I am talking more about people alleging the likes of corruption etc that they are defaming quite a lot of people who could take action against them as individuals.

Larbre34

Lol the fake May Lydon stuff on FB is priceless.

This IS the Garth Brooks sage of 2015. Audi-gate, Lydon-Gate, they wish they could close the farm gate!

Redgirl82

delahuntv wrote: »

The wording was quite clear, an open top car for the august bank holiday, but many people did not read it - they just looked at the picture and then assumeed what they wanted to assume and told others. - Quite easily done aka, the Primark breastfeeding issue a couple of weeks ago (totally 100% false and she is now facing criminal charges)

Y.........

Sounds good but I would say it is more like this

Put up prize and didn't really think it would get much notice. Started to see a huge influx of people wanting the prize. majority of those people outside the Galway area. So questions like "How will we get car to them, back from them", "what if they bring it up all around Dublin/Cork/anywhere for weekend", "they could bring car joyriding for weekend" F**K we didn't think this through.....

Plenty of head scratching been done. So come with idea that they just announce a winner. Maybe a distant relative/friend of someone that works in garage. Far enough away that nobody would pick it up....

Release the name with generic comment about "PM please" not really thinking as they where already late with winner announced. Quickly delete the original post thinking they are been clever so nobody can check.

Crap 1: Someone has read all of the people that "liked & shared" the post and the winner is not on the list
Crap 2: The winner is not even on facebook
Crap 3: It is spreading like wild fire on internet.
Crap 4: Press have it
Crap 5: Audi HQ on phone asking "what the f**K is going on"

Sh*t hits fan in office. Everyone running around trying to work out what to do. The old delete everything off page will work.

Crap: everyone has screen shots of it

Ring distant relative, get them to agree to say they won prize and gave prize to mother. Throw him a couple of hundred quid. Ring press with new story.

Ring around and get someone's mothers sister to take photo with car(make sure she is unrecognisable from photo. Here comes in stupid sunglasses

Everyone sits back in office. Everything over

:P:P:P:P:P:P

I deal with Audi Athlone so I dont really care but I think it is a major f**k up by Audi Galway and lying there way out of it was stupid