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British Airways Twitter Promoted Tweets

Disgruntled British Airways customer uses Twitter's promoted tweets to bombard brand with bad PR

By Angela Haggerty | Reporter

September 3, 2013 | 6 min read

An unhappy customer has harnessed the power of promoted tweets to slam British Airways for losing his luggage.The nameless Twitter account user goes by the handle @HVSVN and is thought that Hasan Syed is the president of Illinois cosmetic products company Salon Commodities, makers of Uberliss and As I Am. In his tweets, he ‘thanked’ BA for “ruining my EU business trip” and said he’d never fly with the airline again.He added he would not stop running promoted posts until BA found his lost luggage and proceeded to bombard Twitter with posts and pictures criticising and mocking the brand over the issue.BA eventually responded to the disgruntled customer, claiming they couldn’t send a private Twitter message to him because he didn’t follow them on the social network – which irritated him even further when he claimed that was not true and asked if BA had bothered to check.Twitter’s promoted tweets function is designed to allow advertisers to target an audience either by placing tweets at the top of any Twitter searches made by users searching for a brand or related topics; placing tweets in timelines designed to reach users who are likely to be interested in the brand; or by placing tweets on the timelines of users in a specified geographic area.A spokesman for British Airways told The Drum: "We would like to apologise to the customer for the inconvenience caused. We have been in contact with the customer and the bag is due to be delivered today."

Unhappy: The customer's Twitter profile

The customer also retweeted a stream of other users who had contacted him to express their own dismay with BA customer service and congratulate him on his promoted tweets initiative.
British Airways Twitter Promoted Tweets

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