However, if I was a marketer at KRAFT, I would take note of this story, at least. They could have gotten some residual attention for sure. The comments being made about the product were overly positive so why not fan the flames a bit? The costs of doing that and getting some viral attention would pale in comparison to the professionally produced TV spots of a smiling family enjoying their triscuits.

As it turns out, their form letter response represents the first “negative” associated with the story.

What I don’t see is the upside/halo effect for Triscuits. They just happened to be the “prop”. There’s no reason for Kraft to wade into this from a PR perspective.

The story was company from a (almost) halfway round the world sends something unexpected and fun to client. It could have been beef jerkey or motor oil, the product didn’t matter in this case.

Hearing the story doesn’t make me want to eat triscuits, but it doesn intrigue me about Freshbooks & their customer service…

I’m the guy in Fiji they sent the Triscuits to. For me, living in a place where good customer service is about as common as a snowstorm, this touch from Freshbooks was just awesome. They might has well have sent me a kidney. Business should be evolving into the kinds of personal touches represented here by Freshbooks.

I didn’t know anything about KRAFT’s response until reading Mark’s post here and I share his disappointment. That random blog posting I made about the effort Freshbooks put into making me smile resulted in an extraordinary amount of traffic on our little south pacific blog. The story obviously resonated with some people for a reason. KRAFT should have seen the value in it. I received a number of notes from people who went out to buy the product just to see if it was worth it. The verdict from the people that wrote me was a thumbs up.

jonathan

The post is based on my experience with Kraft, as opposed to Freshbooks trying to milk things.

Mark

If they make one mis-step they’ll have bloggers hopping up and down ranting and raving about authenticity & “not-getting it” … yada yada.

“Social Media” PR for many of these guys has far more risks than benefits.

A company creating what amounts to an in joke with one of their clients rates pretty low on the scale of “global importance” – but it also sets a very low bar if they respond to future “requests” what happens when there’s a minor disaster somewhere? How could a company ever say no to anything else if they start shipping cartons of free product around for such trivial stuff?

There’s no PR benefit for Kraft here. Just look at the flack they’re getting and they haven’t done anything…

It’s not like they sent they sent a spare kidney to the guy in fiji.

nope, a $3 box of crackers.

Is Kraft alone in wondering why this publicity stunt is newsworthy?

http://www.keystonemarketing.net/clients.asp?client=1

To me, Kraft should be using social media (blogs, etc.)as another way to communicate with its customers. In fact, I think it makes sense for most consumer-facing companies to embrace social media, which is why I find so puzzling that Canadian companies such as Canadian Tire and Loblaws are playing in the game right now.