Businesses, organisations, governments, etc. for a long time have either employed a “divide and conquer” approach to people, or at least benefited from the inertia that must be overcome to achive a critical mass of concern (or whatever).

Seth Godin had some interesting words (briefly) on this particular situation.

However, it is also an echo chamber. People outside that community go ‘so what?’ or ‘what an interesting case study I can observe objectively’ – without being emotionally involved and engaged.

And that’s something to follow up on – will more Brand’s now suddenly “mess-up” to create firestorms that will generate them free traffic and profits, and then suddenly, clean up their act?

I suspect some companies are plotting some sort of strategy to do the same thing Motrin did by accident – but once people catch on that they’ve been manipulated, there will be a backlash.

Personally, the Motrin video was innocent enough – the problem came about as much because it happened on the weekend and no one was around to respond and update their landing page – but you know what …. that’s an area most companies still aren’t good at.