Not Lovin’ It: Twitter Users in Revolt Over McDonald’s Promotion

A Twitter campaign that was supposed to reveal positive stories from McDonald’s suppliers turned into a nasty hashtag hijacking, as unhappy customers tweeted a variety of unpleasant tales — such as finding fingernails in their food.

The hashtag #McDStories started last week with a few tweets from the brand, promoting tales from suppliers. “Meet some of the hard-working people dedicated to providing McDs with quality food every day #McDStorieshttp://t.co/BoNIwRJS,” one of the tweets said.

What ensued was less laudatory. “I haven’t been to McDonald’s in years, because I’d rather eat my own diarrhea,” read one. “One time I walked into McDonald’s and I could smell Type 2 diabetes floating in the air and I threw up,” said another.

In an interview with PaidContent, McDonald’s social media director Rick Wion, said, inevitably “fans and detractors will chime in.” That they did.

“Within an hour, we saw that it wasn’t going as planned,” said Wion. “It was negative enough that we set about a change of course.”

Check out the video above to learn more about the fiasco. How do you think McDonald’s could have handled this differently? Was there any way to stop the damage? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Bill Gates Recalls Final Talks With Steve Jobs

Bill Gates reflects on the death of his longtime friend and rival Steve Jobs in an upcoming interview with Nightline’s Bill Weir.

“You gotta pick important stuff because you only have a limited amount of time,” Gates says, reflecting on Jobs’ passing, mortality and his own philanthropic goals in a segment posted to Yahoo.

Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography of Steve Jobs noted that Gates visited his house and the two would have in-depth conversations about their lives, work and families.

In Gate’s official statement after Jobs’ death, he said it was “an insanely great honor” to work with Jobs. Gates said the two were, “colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.”

Jobs was well-known to have an obsessive, sometimes abrasive personality, which the world became privy to when Isaacson released the biography of Jobs shortly after the Apple co-founder’s death.

Jobs stepped down from Apple in August 2011 and died that October. His passing was marked by his family, friends and colleagues — as well as untold millions fascinated with Jobs’ work — who paid tribute to him through eulogies, books and shines.

The full Bill Gates interview is scheduled to air Tuesday at 8:35 p.m. PT on ABC.

2012 Superbowl ads top 20

With the Super Bowl less than two weeks away, advertisers are following one of two plays: Remain completely mum about what they’re going to do, or attempt to maximize that $3.5 million ad spend with teaser videos on YouTube.

Actually, there’s a third option as well: Run a contest with consumer-generated ads and them put those on YouTube. Usually, Doritos (or a PepsiCo sibling) is the only brand to go the crowdsourced route, but this year Chevrolet is running a similar contest.

While we haven’t heard from a few Super Bowl advertisers — including Honda, Best Buy and Coca-Cola — there are at least 20 teasers out there, only a fraction of which are getting serious traffic at this point. That will no doubt change now that the two teams have been chosen and the general media will start focusing on the game.

As the list below illustrates, there will be lots of familiar creative motifs this time around: Doritos ads will feature grown men acting like animals to the strains of (licensing fee-free) Italian opera, while Go Daddy will continue to tease the T&A. Perhaps the most ambitious advertiser this time around is Bridgestone, which is trying to weave a narrative about a mysterious announcement during the game.

Which teaser is your favorite so far? Let us know in the comments — and tell us about any ads that we or our partner, Unruly, have missed.

Worst Product Launches Ever: What Can You Learn From Them?

We all (hopefully) learn from our mistakes. Entrepreneurs, especially, are bound to make them -- and it's those early stumbles that can make (or break) them.

Of course, it's always better to learn from other people's mistakes. The business world is full of blunders, and watching them can be great sport. As 2011 drew to a close, we saw obituaries for ill-conceived gadgets like the TouchPad, HP's attempted iPad killer. And who can forget Qwikster, Netflix's brief, doomed spinoff DVD service? Looking ahead to the coming year, here's our prediction -- products will flop, mergers will fail and ad campaigns will fizzle. We've seen it all before.

With that in mind, we decided to take a look at some of the worst product launches ever -- and pull out the lessons that entrepreneurs of all kinds can learn.

1) The Hula Burger

The idea: Back in the 1960s, McDonald's owner Ray Kroc recognized he wasn't selling as many burgers on Fridays during Lent. It's part of McDonald's lore that the Filet-O-Fish was created as something Catholics could eat, but what's often forgotten is Kroc's other idea: the Hula Burger. It was a slice of pineapple between two slices of cheese on a bun. While the Filet-O-Fish is with us to this day, good luck trying to find a Hula Burger.

The lesson: Don't trick your customers. Until the end of his days, Kroc talked about the merits of the Hula Burger, and while it may have been delicious, even he admitted in his memoir that perhaps it should have been called something else -- say, the Hula Sandwich? Customers, Kroc reported in his memoir, would say, "I love the hula, but where's the burger?"

2) Celery Jell-O

The idea: Back in the 1960s, someone decided the world was clamoring for celery-flavored Jell-O. Actually, it was part of a line of Jell-O flavors for salads. Apparently, you'd eat the Jell-O on your salad -- not only could you get celery Jell-O, but also an Italian Salad flavor, Mixed Vegetable Jell-O and Seasoned Tomato. Yum.

The lesson: Know your customers. There was no harm done in giving it a shot, but the misfire might have killed a smaller, less durable company. Jell-O may be universal, but it's primarily beloved by children and families, and with other flavors available like cherry and grape, what kid in his right mind is going to clamor for flavors like Mixed Vegetable and Celery?

3) Windows Vista

The idea: Vista was designed to replace Windows XP and, of course, make scads of money for Microsoft -- and it did. But the operating system was clunky and full of bugs and was greeted almost immediately with negative buzz. Vista was released on January 30, 2007, but by April, Microsoft essentially waved the white flag, allowing Dell to keep offering XP on new computers. Meanwhile, not coincidentally, Microsoft sped up the development of its next, much more well-received, offering: Windows 7.

The lesson: Customers will buy your product based on your reputation, but they won't love it solely because of it. Quality counts.

4) Gerber Singles

The idea: Gerber had conquered the baby market. Next, it wanted to go after the parents. So in 1974, it came out with these meals in a jar, aimed at college students and single adults living alone. But with the name Gerber attached to these jars, consumers felt they were being asked to essentially buy baby food packaged for grownups.

The lesson: Sometimes your brand is so successful, you're stereotyped and locked into a certain persona. Hey, there are worse fates.

5) Clairol's "Touch of Yogurt" shampoo

The idea: Yogurt has a lot of vitamins and minerals, and yogurt-based shampoos are now actually on the market. However, when this came out in 1979, it thrived in the test marketing phase, but actual consumers weren't so interested in putting yogurt on their scalp.

The lesson: If you're going to challenge a conception that, say, yogurt is a food and not something you put in your hair, you need to invest a lot into educating the public first.

6) Pepsi A.M.

The idea: In the fall of 1989, Pepsi evidently felt it could boost its sales if it served up a reason for drinking soda in the morning. At the time, it was estimated that sodas were only consumed at breakfast in 2 percent of the households across the United States. Pepsi A.M. would try to improve upon that. The breakfast soda would have 28 percent more caffeine per ounce than a regular Pepsi, but it would be 77 percent less per ounce than coffee or tea. In any case, by August 1990, Pepsi began quietly killing this beverage.

The lesson: It's awfully difficult to change a nation's habits and lifestyle.

7) Spray-on condoms

The idea: The reason for creating spray-on condoms is sound. They were invented by German entrepreneur Jan Vinzenz Krause of the Institute for Condom Consultancy. Typical condoms can be difficult to put on. In this case, the male consumer was expected to spray paint on a fast-drying latex liquid. But it took a few minutes for the latex to dry, dampening the moment, and it cost twice as much as a traditional condom. The product never quite made it out of the testing phase.

The lesson: As with Pepsi A.M., it's awfully difficult to change a nation's habits and lifestyle, and if sex is involved, all bets are off.

Source Geoff Williams 

Rumor: Apple partnering with Target to open 25 mini-stores

Apple is rumored to be planning to latch on to Target by opening up 25 new mini-stores within certain locations.

It looks like Apple may be extending its retail reach soon. The company is reportedly planning on latching onto the 2nd largest discount retail chain in America, Target, and will be opening up mini-Apple stores within select Target locations.

According to a report by Apple Insider, a “source familiar with Apple plans” said that the company will be opening 25 Apple-branded shops within Targets in areas that “can’t support a standalone Apple store.” Target hasn’t officially commented on the matter.

Apple is no stranger to the store-in-a-store concept, with Apple Shops currently operating at over 600 of Best Buy’s 1,000 locations. It’s also worth noting that Apple has had partnerships with stores like Sears and Circuit City in the past. The mini-stores offer a slice of the look and feel of what you can find at Apple’s retail stores.

25 Apple mini-stores isn’t that large of a deal considering Target has about 1,750 stores within the US. The move may be small, but Target has been working with Apple for many years already. The iPod made its way to Target in 2002, with then executive VP Tim Cook playing a role in the deal. Target then began selling the iPad in October 2010 along with Best Buy, and of course Apple. Target also capped its Apple product line by agreeing to sell the iPhone, but with these new mini-stores we could see all sorts of Apple gadgets; some Best Buy mini-stores have actual Apple Solution Consultants to help explain products, which we might see at Target along with the Apple store displays.

Apple currently has around 359 retail stores within 10 countries; one of the newest and largest Apple stores opened last month in New York’s Grand Central station.

Source JEFF HUGHES