The brand Mikado created a great buzz in 2015 with the promotion of Mikado Stick. This product is simply a Mikado without chocolate (while if a customer buys Mikado this is actually for the chocolate).
With this advertising campaign, the company clearly created a big buzz out of a bad buzz. The campaign was launched via three videos on Youtube, posters in the cities and a huge presence on the social media (especially on Twitter).
Obviously there has been a huge reaction on Twitter from the part of the Internet users and customers. The reaction was so big that the hashtag “LeMikadoSansChocolatCestAussiConQue” (the Mikado without chocolate is so dumb that) became the third most discussed topic in the world on Twitter!
On Youtube, the promotion videos received many dislikes; for example on the video “Mikado – Le gâteau” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI44hTC1jxk) there are 50 likes and 92 dislikes (dating from 21/08/2017).
Clearly, Mikado created a big bad buzz because the customers dislike the Mikado Stick concept…and this is normally a big failure. Nevertheless, two days after the advertising campaign of Mikado Stick, the company launched a fourth video (Taking the idea of Mikado Stick) to announce Mikado King (which contains twice as much chocolate). In fact, Mikado King was launched for the first time in 2013 but the turnover wasn’t really good.
Since the beginning, Mikado Stick was a joke. It was a fake campaign to promote, in a roundabout way, the real product, which was Mikado King.
It was a big risk for the company because firstly, if Mikado Stick hadn’t created a bad buzz, all this would have been of no interest. Secondly, if Mikado Stick had really worked and the customers liked the concept, this would have made the very existence of Mikado King disappear.
At the end of the advertising campaign, the customers were amused of the deceit and the campaign had benefits (more than 8.000 tweets regarding the topic and more than 900.000 views in total for the four videos posted on Youtube).
The management of communication via the social networks was effective for Mikado Stick. The fact of creating a fake evidence to show that Mikado Stick was being sold in the supermarkets and the response to each person complaining on Twitter about the lack of chocolate, allowed the trap to look even more true.
(Source: https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=minoritweet%20&src=typd )
What should be remembered is that, without a good overview of the Internet all this campaign would not have worked. The Mikado Stick / King campaign was successfully completed thanks to the strong presence on Twitter and the viral videos.
This advertising campaign is a good example of the marketing technique “Bad to good buzz”. Indeed, firstly you create a bad buzz, to reveal a good thing for the customers afterwards. The bad buzz is effective because many people talk about it even if they don’t care about the product, while the good buzz reassures potential customers and amuses everybody.
Mikado Stick / King showed us the power of the “bad to good buzz” and now the Mikado King is doing very well in the market. The sales of Mikado King increased 30% after this advertising campaign.
(source of the main picture : https://oeildecom.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/mikado-le-biscuit-qui-en-dit-long-sur-vous/ )
