Jell-O’s Colossal Social Media FAIL on Twitter #FML

This morning while perusing my Twitter feed I stumbled upon an interesting promoted Tweet from @jello.

Oh man…I’m not sure where to start with this one. This type of promotion by a major iconic brand always leaves me scratching my head. At first I thought that Jell-O didn’t realize what they were doing. I event tweeted to them

@JELLO I’m not sure you fully understand the comedic potential of your incorrect usage of #FML oh boy….

But after I took a closer look at the tweet, it seems that they know full well what they’re doing. They wanted to find all of the people Tweeting #FML and reverse it into something positive – in this case “Fun My Life.” Noble, right?

NO NO NO!!!

Why on earth would a major brand want to be included in the same feed as millions of Twitter users complaining about the minutia of their day? Even in a tongue in cheek manner it’s just seems like it’s a fully brand diluting exercise. For those who live under a rock, and aren’t aware – the acronym #FML usually indicates the sentiment “F#ck My Life.” If you don’t believe me, why not head over to internetslang.com and see that they have to say about #FML

JELL-O!!!

I have to ask – why on earth would you want the @jello brand to be associated with the Queen of all curse words, and such negative sentiment? Who manages your social media? When will you be firing them? Please follow this link to my company Silverback Social. We’ll be happy to help you engage in social media properly.

Why would you open yourself to the ridicule? This promotion smacks of a senior executive who’s looking over his teenagers shoulder seeing #FML and thinking it would be cool to be a part of that conversation. To me this feels forced, and horrible.

H-o-r-r-i-b-le.

I guess I need to calm down and see the irony in a brand who in my minds eye will forever be associated with Bill Cosby and his commercials for them in the 80′s. This association with the “F” word makes me think that if Eddie Murphy were to put out a new stand up comedy movie he would have a ton of new material about Bill Cosby being offended by his cursing. #FML