Nissan Australia is fighting a social media backlash after awarding a car as a prize to the friend of an employee managing the contest. Picture: AFP Source: AFP
AUTOMAKER Nissan Australia was trying to put the brakes on a social media backlash today after handing out a car as top prize in a Facebook competition to a friend of the employee managing the contest.
The PR disaster came only a day after iconic national airline Qantas experienced a similarly negative reaction when it tried to gain some positive social networking buzz with a Twitter competition -- and badly crashed and burned.
The trouble for Nissan started when it announced Monday that its "Micraspotting" competition, which involved entrants finding hidden pictures of cars on selected Facebook pages, had been won by digital strategist Zac Martin, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Unfortunately, Simon Oboler, the staffer who runs Nissan's social media pages, is described by Martin, who won a $20,000 car, as his "BFF" [best friend forever] on his blog.
And if that wasn't bad enough, a lesser prize of a $1250 voucher was won by Nina Igel, who is also Facebook friends with Oboler.
Announcing the prize winners, Nissan was up front about Martin's connection but said, "The reality is that he won fair and square and all is fully above board."
Nonetheless, the reaction on Nissan's Facebook was not pretty.
"Shame on you Nissan Australia Dodgy Micra competition I should have stuck with Toyota now I'm stuck with one of your cars - never again," David King wrote.
"Dodgy Nissan, runs a facebook competition for a free car and they give it to the friend of the person who runs the page. Have decided not to buy my wife a Nissan Micra, Ill buy her a Toyota Corolla now. Nissan = Dodgy," ranted Dave Greaves.
Nissan itself has not yet responded to the backlash, while Oboler has locked his Twitter feed and removed his Facebook profile from search results, the Herald reported.
One company who can no doubt share Nissan's pain is Qantas.
Yesterday morning, the airline launched the "Qantas Luxury" Twitter competition asking users to describe their "dream luxury inflight experience" in return for a pair of Qantas First Class pajamas and a toiletries kit, only to have users hijack the initiative with negative comments.
Using the #qantasluxury hashtag to quickly share the promotion around Twitter, thousands of users captured the discussion with disparaging comments over the airline's recent shutdown and its intransigence with unions.
Twitter user Martin Milne summed up the anti-Qantas sentiment, tweeting, "#qantasluxury an airline that respects its staff. Pays them accordingly, doesn't outsource their jobs or lock them out when they strike."
The anger spread across Australia, with the hashtag soon trending nationally - for all the wrong reasons.
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