A good chunk of the people I follow on twitter are comedians. More often than not, especially sarcastic tweets are faced with backlash, but if you’re a celebrity or prominent twitter figure (or brand!), your public feuds can get blown out of proportion and entirely public to anyone with a wifi connection.

Last week, Honda started series of “fun” twitter feuds with prominent snack brands, many of which responded with snarky replies.

The feuds were started to promote the new in-car vacuum for the Honda Odyssey, and accompanied a series of TV spots, which featured actors Rainn Wilson and Neil Patrick Harris voicing snacks and other small forgottens on the floor of a Honda about to be vacuumed. Despite being “the first of its kind,” you have to admit that a mini-van with an in-car vacuum is nothing worth jump up and down about.

But here’s why I think Honda’s marketing efforts are so exceptionally smart: The parents of today are pretty hip, but they’re not as interested in cars as their parents used to be, let alone mini-vans. Millenial parents don’t have the same financial security as their parents did, are more open about alternative transportation, and are simply less excited about owning a car. 



Honda understands this and have used creative mediums to reach Millenial parents:

•  The recognizable voices of Rainn Wilson and NPH are worth paying attention to. Just as when The Office’s John Krasinski narrated esurance’s ad which took a jab at Geiko customers for “trusting animal characters,” these hilarious men of primetime are young parents themselves (both IRL and on TV) and are recognized as trustworthy poster dads for the parents of today. 
• Twitter feuds are something you jump at. Whether it’s your “No spoilers!” friend who thinks the entirety of the Internet is under his authority, or some celebrity getting mad at another celebrity, you can’t help but follow the conversation. Yes, the Honda vs. Snacks “feuds” aren’t real, but a corporate twitter account with an inkling of a personality is refreshing isn't it? 

By leveraging the power of all these big food and snack brands, Honda created an interactive and social ecosystem around a product you wouldn't expect to be talking about. What are your thoughts? 

As marketing students, we know twitter as a medium for brands to connect with consumers and build communities, but as a twitter user, I know it as a Pokemon binder of entertainers making social commentary, having ridiculous insights, and complaining about internal struggles. In flipping through my twitter binder of 570 accounts, I noticed that the corporations I follow fall along a scale from “Meh” to “Doritos Ontario…” I should explain.

The majority of corporate Twitter accounts I’ve come across are just that – corporate. Unless you’re a passionate brand advocate, it can get tiring following a corporate twitter account because their tweets feel more like advertisements than entertainment. As Brian Solis put it, social media is merely a tool. It is a platform to foster meaningful conversation between firms and consumers. In an AYTM survey, 63% of respondents followed corporate accounts and 26% of them preferred accounts with personality. So why are there still corporate twitter accounts out there that still fall under the “Meh” category?

A couple months ago it was revealed (to nobody’s surprise, really) that the region-specific @DoritosOntario twitter account was a fake. The account poked fun at hokey corporate accounts that lacked personality by aggressively promoting Doritos (in Ontario) to its 2682 followers, but that’s not all! The account (now inactive) was self-deprecating, questioned its mortality, occasionally referenced rap lyrics, and gave the best/worst advice to its followers.

We're interested in connecting with the Ontario community through social media but not really please buy a few bags of Doritos™ today.
— Doritos Ontario (@DoritosOntario) July 8, 2013

Don't forget to eat Doritos™ today. There's still time. Crush Doritos™ into your toothpaste and go to bed with fresh Doritos™ breath.
— Doritos Ontario (@DoritosOntario) July 11, 2013

@SaddestTiger What you're feeling is the actual universe. This is existence. A brutal, unrelenting, laborious drudge. Pls eat Doritos.
— Doritos Ontario (@DoritosOntario) July 5, 2013

And my personal favourite:

Does your sadness level correspond to the # of Doritos bags consumed? What's your #sadnesslevel? Enjoy the Doritos.
— Doritos Ontario (@DoritosOntario) July 19, 2013

I know, the account was a parody and there is no way a real corporate account could pull this off, but the point is that Doritos Ontario had a personality. It engaged with its “consumers” in a humanistic way. Doritos Ontario put out content you wanted on your Twitter stream, not just static sales pitches. Firms that use a structured and traditional approach to social media will not develop meaningful conversations because their relationships with their followers will feel shallow and inauthentic.

And by the way, there are corporate accounts out there that are approaching the “Doritos Ontario” end of the spectrum:

Couldn’t have been one bird, @adtothebone. Sounds more like 4.5 million. (Seriously, we did the math.) pic.twitter.com/aLYScFR3
— Official smart USA (@smartcarusa) June 19, 2012