Its so frustrating when someone works on something so hard and thinks its the best fruit of all their efforts, they think its the best thing that ever happened or will happen to the world.. Unfortunately not everyone would agree.. exactly what happened to the Vodafone Shokran campaign..

Apart from the actual copy that personally didn't register much with me, and the smaller cutdown of just Nelly and Samir Ghanem playing funny with eachother, which was also a disaster.. VF extended their Shokran campaign onto a radio program and a TV program for everyone to thank everyone else.. and we all live happily everafter..

But what VF didn't think of is that the internet population behaves completely differently than consumers of any other media; if someone doesn't like your ad on the internet they will say it right in ur face.. w elli y7assalni ykassarni... and this is what exactly happened when they decided to roll out that campaign on Twitter.. Last night, VF started a hashtag to encourage people to thank whoever they think is worth thanking; #vodafoneshokran.. It started off peacefully with people thanking their friends and family for being so supportive...etc.. Looks perfectly normal and on track of what they thought would deliver best on their campaign..
Then the tables turned COMPLETELY, with people using the hashtag to remind Vodafone and all the other telcom operators that cut off communication on Jan 28th; and "thanking" them for that... Here's a sample of some of the Tweets..



متشكرين .. انكوا اعلنتوا ان ولائكوا لمن يحكم .. خلوا الحكام ينفعوكوا #VodafoneShokran

Shokran for putting my life on the line on Jan28. Shokran for the panic you've created in every single house @VodafoneEgypt #VodafoneShokran

#vodafoneshokran شكرا، من كل شهيد، ماعرفناش نجيبلة إسعاف أو دكاترة يوم28 يناير، عشان مافيش تيليفونات


Adding more fuel to the fire, renown cartoonist and activist Carlos Lattuf actually drew about it...



Its very dangerous to think you can communicate normally at times of turbulence and major heat about your brand... We can bluntly say that Vodafone hasn't been a fan favorite this year.. So they should've thought a million times before telling people "HEEEEEEEEEEH E7na Geenaaaaaaaaa" :)))))
They should've been more careful about their communication message and how they'll approach it.. I'll quote a friend's status this morning that explains this beautfully: ‎#vodafoneshokran a typical example of " el may3rfsh yesref el gen may7daroosh"

Expected backlash quite honestly... Good luck to the PR team covering up for that!
fa ne2dar kda n2ool en this Ramadan.. Vodafone 2alet shokran!!!

Cheers
3omdaz