I do not work for Magnum nor Chowking. I also am not a fan of either. What I am is an active Twitter user who has seen both brands do “hashtag marketing.”
#Magnum Trends on Twitter PH
If you’ve been on Twitter a lot the past couple of weeks, you might have seen the buzz on this Magnum ice cream bar.
February 28 was when they had their press event and had their brand ambassadors, together with food bloggers, tweet about how ridiculously delicious this ice cream is.
Of course, the #Magnum hashtag had to be there.
Yes, I will admit, I was one of those who got suckered by this marketing tactic.
To be fair, I wasn’t alone in this.
There were a lot of other tweets but I won’t include it here anymore. I’m thinking you’ve already seen a lot.
But yes, #Magnum trended for a few hours that day and even my Facebook news feed picked up on it.
Of course, you can’t please everyone and so naturally, Magnum also had some people feeling they were ripped off or that this is a ridiculous campaign that just used celebrities and food bloggers.
I’m not here to judge the product as I am by no means an ice cream connoisseur.
If you appreciate marketing or you’re a marketer though, you’ll know that if brand awareness was your objective for this product, then this campaign truly succeeded.
I don’t know just how many of these things were bought that day but based on the number of people I’ve seen tweeting that they’re going to Ministop, the 7-Elevens that “ran out” of Magnum bars, and the number of people I’ve seen walking around with chocolate popsicles, I’d say they’ve sold a significant number.
But yes, whether or not you liked it, if you tweeted/Facebooked/Instagrammed your experience, you just helped them create even more buzz.
As for reaching 10 million tweets, I wonder if they included all the other non-ice cream Magnums out there?
I actually had a friend from the US ask me why I was tweeting about condoms. LOL. Turns out Magnum is also a well-known condom brand. Interesting.
Spotted: A Copycat?
Five days after the #Magnum tweeting first started, I see around 2 tweets for this Chowking Chef SuperBowl Specials promo.
I do a quick Twitter search and find the following: (I am not even going to comment on the #ExtremelyLongHashtagThatTakesUp1000Characters)
1. They used Twitter bots.
I’m not sure if this is something they’re proud of but the way I see it, it just looks… sad.
If you don’t believe me, check out this Twitter user named Andre Pitt. In case he deletes his account, I also took a screenshot.
2 They spammed users.
Obviously, they have not heard about what happened to Ragu in the US. This tells me they don’t care whether people get annoyed by what they’re doing or if they’re labeled as spammers.
As long as people see this #superlonghashtagabouttheirbrand, they’re fine.
3. They don’t even understand what they’re talking about.
How exactly do you trend on a Twitter fan page? I suppose if it’s your fan page, you’ll be trending on it 24/7?
I understand Chowking may not have the same budget as Magnum in that they couldn’t afford to have brand ambassadors or have nice press events but I really think this could have been done way better.
You know, without the spamming, the bots, or the #extralonghashtagyesishouldprobablystopdoingthis.