[left] Bayern fans furious as ‘spectacular’ marketing stunt backfires
By James Whelan
Friday, January 27, 2012
Bayern Munich claimed “a spectacular name” would be signing for the club yesterday, but provoked an angry response from their fans when it was found to be a marketing stunt.
The German club attempted to gain interest in their new marketing tool — an app — by creating a huge wave of speculation over who the new signing would be.
Fans were invited to log on and watch the deal unfurl on their official Facebook page, but were let down when general manager Christian Nerlinger revealed an envelope with the users’ own Facebook profile pictures on it. In addition, the users also saw their own name appear on the back of a Bayern Munich number eight shirt.
“Dear fans, you probably already noticed, that we did not sign a new player,” a statement on Bayern Munich’s Facebook page read.
"This app is for our fans to show the importance of you for our club.
“Every single FCB fan is the ‘spectacular new signing,’ our 12th man!”, announced the club on their official site later. However, within minutes, an angry backlash from Bayern fans appeared as over 5,000 users (and climbing) accused the club of wasting their time and getting their hopes up for nothing.
Bayern are still believed to be interested in bringing in a striker in January, with Dortmund’s Polish international Robert Lewandowski top of their wishlist.
Was following that Bayern thing on twitter yesterday. There was great excitement when they announced the press conference - 45 minutes or so notice they gave I think - but it backfired horribly on them.
I just had to explain to someone that a Private Message on FB is in fact Private and not viewable by anyone who visits that persons page. It took 3 attempts to do so, at which point I spelled out the word private in an effort to explain the privacy part of the PM aspect to FB. I swear people are getting dumber.
Did I not explain it right? She believed that when you sent a Private Message to someone, a preview of that message popped up on someones FB wall and she wanted to know was that viewable to all. Honestly, I am not making this up.