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Shell reacts to online brand hijacking

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Shell has responded to an elaborate social media scam campaign put up by activists protesting its proposal to drill in the Arctic, but experts say the latter have already gotten their point across.Earlier, Greenpeace activists put up a fake website, closely mimicking Shell's official site and inviting netizens to submit ideas for advertisements for its "Let's Go! Arctic" campaign. The ads (pictured) also closely mimicked Shell's official campaign tagline "Let's Go", but with sarcastic twists, for instance, one ad features a picture of the melting Arctic ice with saying "Some say catastrophe, we say opportunity. Let's Go!"Activists also created a false Twitter page, sending out both pleas to stop reposting the fake ads and conversely, threats to take these users to court if the former was not done.According to the site's managers, since June, over 12,000 ads have been submitted, garnering over three million page views. The news has also circulated on various news sites such as CNN, the Guardian, Forbes and more.Shell put out a series of press releases on its official website, clarifying that the website in question and videos were not done by Shell or any of its employees and that it would not be taking any legal action, conversely putting up releases arguing its own rationale behind the proposal to drill in the Arctic.Meanwhile, Greenpeace has put up its own Save the Artic website, asking web users to sign its online petition for its cause. This site has received 96,000 likes on Facebook and 52,100 follows on Twitter.Kelveen Soh, operations & client engagement director, Yolk says that while it would be obvious when the ads are circulating on social media channels, that they are fake, it does make its readers question how Shell would deal with the dilemma."With that, they (Greenpeace) already met the objective of this fake campaign, to set the readers thinking about the subject and brand. How this would this affect the brand depends on how Shell responds."He added that the company should be monitoring the crisis and buzz volume. "The longer the battle is drawn out, the more critics will jump on it. So they'll need to find that strategic point in time to respond and address it."

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