40 Times Companies Got Roasted With Such Witty Comebacks On Social Media, This Twitter Page Just Had To Share Them (New Pics)
Brands and corporations around the world have embraced social media as a tool to communicate directly with their current and potential customers, but the public hasn’t always embraced them back. There are lots of reasons why a brand’s social media communications might fail, but when they do, accounts like Brands Owned on Twitter are always there to take pictures and appreciate the damage.
Some of these burns might be cheap shots or just innocent witty banter, but in some cases, internet commentators take the opportunity to highlight very real issues with these brands’ and corporations’ operations.
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Always kills me when big companies try to pin climate change on the regular individual
Twitter accounts like Brands Owned are about more than just celebrating witty and snarky clapbacks. They tend to represent a cluster of different political value systems that can unite over a shared distrust of corporations. On a more basic level, they also give voice to some social media users’ discomfort over the idea of brand and corporations trying to pretend that they’re people.
This approach to corporate/brand social media communication is a relatively recent phenomenon with a few different names, including brand humanization, personification, and anthropomorphism. In a practical sense, each of these practices seek a similar goal: making a brand, product or corporation seem like it has an individual character/personality.
What even is the concurrence? Apple is overpriced büllshit and Linux just exists without anyone ever giving it attention. It's Windows or nothing at this point
Social media isn’t the first or even the most culturally prevalent way in which companies have tried to achieve this. In the past (and to this day, some companies relied on charismatic or influential leaders to give them a human face. Consider Steve Jobs at Apple or Elon Musk at Tesla. Other companies have opted for mascots, like Mr. Clean, most child-oriented breakfast cereals, or the M&Ms mascots.
I do love seeing this one again and again on BP... there are no official government or council-level rules on parent and child parking in the same way you’d get for disabled parking spaces. Parking in a supermarket car park is managed and enforced by the supermarket itself, or by a private parking management company. That means it’s not illegal to park in a parent and child space without a child. But you could get a Parking Charge Notice (PCN), the same as you would if you overstayed in a car park. Who knows why they parked there - car park could have been full when they arrived in an emergency or they could be totoal kn0bheads...
What’s different about the social media trend is that it’s happening in a space where the public is being engaged. Brands are inviting people to respond to their questions, but some of them aren’t getting the responses they were hoping for! The creation of a brand identity that people can engage with and talk to opens a whole new can of worms in terms of brand communication.
These entities, at their core, are powerful profit-oriented enterprises. Naturally, this means they can make ethical missteps that the public will disapprove of, and when they try to later represent themselves as affable individuals, the public can still remember and address their past injustices.
Where I am there are so many great independent coffee shops that I think the only reason anyone still goes to Starbucks is that is another illusionary status symbol.
Well, the CEOs do need their massive bonuses and gargantuan salaries... how on earth could they buy a bigger yacht than their neighbour otherwise? Would be terrible for them.
Despite these risks, there is research out there indicating that this strategy can provide positive results. According to a study republished on Science Direct, “The results indicate that brand anthropomorphism is a valid predictor of outcomes such as brand trust and brand commitment. Finally, in support of incremental validity, it is identified that the [brand anthropomorphism scale] explains variance in brand trust and brand commitment above and beyond the measure of brand anthropomorphism commonly employed in the literature.”
I blocked Penguin Random House when they announced they would be censoring/ altering 100 year old books.
What all of this means is that IF a brand manages to successfully create a friendly or otherwise memorable and pleasant public-facing personality, they can count on that impression to influence consumers’ decisions when they decide how to spend their money. This is a goal that many brands hope for but, as we can see in this list, few actually achieve!
Whether or not we like it, this is a trend that is growing in many different industries. If you have a smartphone, it is likely that you can also use a digital assistant on it that has a human voice and can speak to you in full sentences. Websites are experimenting with using ChatGPT so they can provide every single visitor the impression of communicating with a human representative - without actually having to provide the customer service reps to do so.
This might sound weird from someone who is white af, but I am SO happy to see Asian representation in Hollywood finally. A24 does fabulous work, and I'm so glad that Everything Everywhere All at Once took Best Picture in this year's Oscars and that Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Daniel Kwan also took Best in their respective categories. (I'm not a huge fan of the Oscars, I'm kind of against them, but still am happy to finally see Asian actors/directors get the acknowledgement they deserve!) Simu Liu is a great actor and Shang-Chi is a pretty entertaining movie, even if you don't like superhero films!
For great liquid cooling, try iced water. Coffee will just make you thirstier.
I heard they were making a live action of Angry Birds movie, the villain does look scary
Eddie/Suzy Izzard has been one of my favorite comedians for decades. She's hilarious and smart and was wearing heels on stage way back in the 90s.
Why do people keep hating on oatmeal raisin! Its just a freaking cookie
Note: this post originally had 76 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
Wendys Twitter account scares me, I'm glad I don't have Twitter or I'd be roasted alive
Wendys Twitter account scares me, I'm glad I don't have Twitter or I'd be roasted alive
