Negative WOM worth $50,000?

By Molly Flatt

Most Badly Handled WOM Reaction Of The Week award goes to Horizon Realty, a Chicago apartment company who have initiated a libel lawsuit for $50,000 against tenant Amanda Bonnen for her tweet:

This girl has 20 followers. As much as I’d love to agree that a negative episode of WOM that reaches 20 others is worth $50,000 – how’s that for WOM ROI? – it’s quite evident that Horizon have simply amplified its negative impact enormously by launching this ridiculous response. How much more effective and easier would it have been to quickly arrange a maintenance visit with Bonnen via tweet and if necessary upload twitpics of the mould-free flat? You can’t stem personal opinion – it’s called freedom of speech – and even if Bonnen is wrong, taking legal action against every complainant is a completely unsustainable response model; knowing tweeps, they’d purposefully flood the web with negative WOM. The whole scenario just goes to show how dramatically power over brands has shifted to consumers’ hands – and voices. This is epic fail on an awesome scale.

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Brought into the world on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 and filed under Uncategorized.

  • http://wisemarketing.wordpress.com Ehsan

    I believe many people (including of some businesses) haven’t yet understood the concept of SM and how SM should be used. The culture of SM should be respected and educate those thinking that they can say whatever they want to under the freedom realm that they can not actually behave as such. This is because SM has its own rules and culture which indeed have a direct affect in what we do in life. Remember what is said online won’t stay online… think of the consequences and the future effects of what saying on SM platform; it is not a game thing!!!

  • http://www.kristofermencak.com Kristofer Mencák

    I totally agree – epic fail!

    You probably have to add 2 or 3 zeroes to the $50 000 to calculate the loss in goodwill for Horizon Realty. Bad move!