The great ben & jerry’s twitter heist

So as I was unwinding from a busy day of laundry and other household chores, I was followed by @benandjerrys.   This is ordinarily something I’d ignore or block – but this time something was different.  This time, something wasn’t right.  Can you guess what it is?

Oh no! They let an intern run their twitter! My first thought was that Ben and Jerry’s twitter had been hacked – plenty of news stories with a similar lede have been published recently – but with further research it turns up that B&J were sadly just too glacially slow to claim their brandspace on Twitter.  (B&J has multiple feeds for each of its most popular flavors, instead).  In fact, an untraceable, sinister shadow organization of militant anti-GMO organo-terrorists some devoted kossacks and self-appointed “Freaks, Uppity Women, and Politicos” at OBrag.org have had the space parked since at least June 11th, according to Google’s cache.  Or so I’m inferring from the evidence at hand.

It was at some point in this last month – I’d love to know when – that the owners deployed their defamation package.

Following 272 with 19 followers, @benandjerrys doesn’t hold a candle to the official B&J flavor pages, and ranks far below them on google even when specifically searching for the domain. But this is bound to become a bigger deal if the owners of the fake account continue to friend at a fast pace and garner publicity for their little pet project.  I’m not well versed on the legal aspects at play here but I’m not sure it’s fair game to be falsely representing yourself as an organization, even if it’s satire.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Can Ben and Jerry’s stomach a fake twitter page that bears the obvious intent to malign its brand? What should they do, and what will they do? Will Twitter intervene? Does it even matter, if the page isn’t ranking on google anyway, since fewer people navigate by direct addresses these days anyway?

Regardless, it could end up being a pretty good example of guerrilla counter-marketing, if the follow-through is executed well.  As for the anti-corn syrup campaign, I’m all for it, but I also think it’s a little naive to transfer all the problems of our nation’s agri-industrial complex onto one ingredient—especially when pure, natural sugar isn’t so great for you anyway.  But that’s a story for another post, when I’m feeling more Pollan-esque.