Coca-Cola scraps #MakeItHappy Twitter promo following Gawker hijack
Coca-Cola has been left fizzing after its #MakeItHappy Twitter campaign, designed to replace negative tweets with positive imagery, was hijacked by gawker into quoting passages from Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
The automated algorithm used the ASCII character coding system to translate tweets containing the campaign hashtag into cute visuals such as a smiling mouse, or dancing bananas.
Subverting this system Gawker created an automated Twitter account of its own, @MeinCoke, which tweeted lines from the infamous text to the drinks brand which were reproduced in the form of pixel art.
These antics continued unchecked for several hours before the campaigns social media team clocked what was happening and pulled the plug.
In a statement passed to AdWeek the soft drink giant said: “The #MakeItHappy message is simple: the internet is what we make it, and we hoped to inspire people to make it a more positive place. It’s unfortunate that Gawker is trying to turn this campaign into something that it isn’t.
“Building a bot that attempts to spread hate through #MakeItHappy is a perfect example of the pervasive online negativity Coca-Cola wanted to address with this campaign.”