Red Lobster may have missed a golden opportunity to capitalize on a Beyoncé song on social media.
Lyrics of the song “Formation,” which are not suitable for a family audience, refer to going to Red Lobster. Fans immediately turned to Twitter to comment on the song and view Red Lobster’s response. Some directly asked the restaurant chain for a response using its @redlobster handle and said it was missing the opportunity.
Eight hours later – what seemed like an outrageously long time – the brand responded with the tweet: “Cheddar Bey Biscuits” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? #Formation @Beyonce
A Delayed and Lackluster Response
Fans were disappointed by what they considered a mediocre response. No puns? A “thanks Beyoncé” would have sufficed, one said. Fire the marketing team, said another. Eight hours for a C+, moaned another. JV response, said my grandson.
“Needless to say, it was a greatly missed opportunity and it will remain a mystery which CEO thought it was a good idea not to include a pun on “Beyscuits” in that tweet,” writes BuzzFeed UK staffer Gena-mour Barrett. Southwest Airlines, not even mentioned in the song, out did Red Lobster, she said.
Lack of Social Media Monitoring
Red Lobster’s first mistake might have been not monitoring social media for brand mentions. A social media monitoring dashboard would have shown an obvious spike in brand mentions after the song’s release and enabled it to response faster.
“I find it a little absurd that a brand as big as Red Lobster didn’t have someone on social media to monitor conversations around their brand,” digital strategist Nina Perez told Inc.
“Big and small brands alike should be receiving alerts for brand mentions which ensures they can respond to positive and negative comments in a timely fashion,” agrees Sabriana Pimentelat at Happy Valley Communications.” Social media monitoring is becoming more important for brands than ever before, and is essential to maintaining relationships with customers.”
Lack of Diversity
Red Lobster’s other problem is a lack of diversity on its marketing agency’s staff. Lack of diversity causes a lack of understanding of its social media audience and lack of authenticity, writes Brittany King on Blavity. That’s a common problem. Advertising and marketing agencies are overwhelming white, even while blacks and Hispanics have sizable purchasing power and may be their largest customers.
A study from the Marcus Graham Project reveals that fewer than 6% of people working in the advertising industry are African Americans. A survey by the National Black Public Relations Society Inc. found a lack of diversity at senior levels of public relations at corporations and PR agencies.
Lack of diversity can hurt a company’s bottom line. African American consumers are increasingly affluent and diverse and have become more important to the American economy, notes a Nielsen study.
“I can’t say that there are no black people on Red Lobster’s social media team, but I can draw from my own experiences of being the only black face working on a large brand,” King writes. “The less-than-stellar response speaks to a bigger problem within the advertising industry — a lack of representation.”
Bottom Line: Red Lobster’s belated and pedestrian response to Beyoncé’s mention of its brand offers lessons for social media marketers. Social media monitoring and a better understanding of consumers could have allowed it to capitalize on a marketing windfall.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
