Reflection on Social Media Case 10: Miracle Mattress Twin Tower Sale

Did the mattress store in San Antonio overuse capitalism with their 9/11 advertisement? The video was a comical take on the tragedy that happened in 2011 with the Twin Towers. The video used the event to try and make a profit by using a play on words of the tragedy.  

The store that shared the advertisement ended up closing due to the upset the commercial caused to the public. The advertisement did go viral, but not in the way the company would have liked. The video grow in popularity because of the uproar that it created with the public. People were horrified by the advertisement. The attention that the advertisement gained was out of a general upset.  This Walmart display had a similar theme as the advertisement. The display organized boxes of soda into the form of the Twin Towers with a banner that read “We will never forget.” This was not a comical approach as the mattress advertisement, but it does show the over use of capitalism.   

 This article felt like the commercial was condemned due to their “tasteless” approach to advertising. How is bad taste determined? How do we judge this? I think bad taste is determined by the public. This advertisement was ruled as bad taste because it was highly offensive to a large number of people. The timing of this advertisement is also very important. Displaying this aid at the same time as the anniversary of the tragedy was a mistake. This was a time when many are grieving. This reminded me to lecture when we discussed when it can be problematic to schedule posts. Timing of advertisement are very important because you don’t want them to come across insensitive based on when people read or see them.  The timing was not right, (though with this specific advertisement I don’t think there was a right time.) because this was not appropriate for the audience that they received.  

Reflection on Social Media Case 9: Ponderize

The issue of the LDS Ponderize speech caused a lot of diverse opinions of members of the LDS community and those watching from the outside. Social media as we have discussed throughout the entire semester is a powerful tool that can reach a lot of people. I believe what Devin Durrant did was an abusive use of power. He used his privilege of speaking to his community to try and make a profit. It was not until after there was a controversy that that he showed that the money would now be going directly to the church. Even as we can See here that he regretted his decision, it is still problematic.   The website selling the goods was even eventually taken down as can be seen on this website.   

The take away from this case study is that it is difficult to cover up or hide a bad decision once it is released online to the public. We can see that the LDS church tried to take control of the conversations by issuing a new statement of where the money was going.  I think this was a smart decision. I think it would have become more of a problem for the church if they had tried delete the controversy over the merchandize. By adding to the conversation and not taking away from it I believe that they church saved themselves from a lot of grief. From this case study we can access that once something is out there its out there. You can’t take back a public decision. It is now in the hands of the public to discuss. As we can see from the trending hashtag that came out of this case study it is easy for the public to change the conversation into something that the original organization never intended to happen.

Reflection on Social Media Case 8: Pastor's 10% to God

The story of Pastor Bell and 10% to God is an interesting story. Having a server post a picture of the receipt online brought a lot of attention to the story, and Pastor Bell.

I have more of a connection to this Case Study based on a previous experience. I was a server all through high school. I was working on night and had a table of 6 adults come in for dinner. Each of the costumers ordered a drink, a steak and got a dessert. The table was extremely needy and loud during their dinner. The policy at the restaurant I was working at was that you could only charge gratuity of 15% for tables of 8 or more, so gratuity was not included in their bill. They table laughed and slammed their bill and smiled as one of them put it directly in my hand. I walked over to take the check to the cashier and pulled out what I thought was a 5 dollar bill. $5 was already a disappointing tip on over a $100 ticket, but after a closer look I saw that they bill was a fake and written on it was "Some things are worth more than money, trying getting closer to God." This was extremely upsetting. Not only did the table not tip me, they also thought it was funny to leave this prank.

Thinking back on it now, I'm glad that I didn't post a picture of the bill or the receipt online. My policy is similar to Applebee's where the identity of the customer is classified. I don't think it was right for the sever at Applebee's to be fired, although I do believe it was legal. They let the costumers identity get out, which is not legal. I know first hand how frustrating it can be to be treated like this by a table like that.

Both reputations were damaged by the sharing of the picture. I don't think it is possible to change the policy of Applebee's however a different disciplinary action could have been taken.

The Paster did eventually apologiz Seen Here. But the waitress was fired which can be read   here.