When a Social Media Campaign turns into an epic fail — The #Zexperience

We all know how powerful social media is. Take the ALS ice bucket challenge for example, it went viral in no time.

Businesses take advantage of this power to market products, boost sales, engage with customers, establish channels of communication with potential clients …

On the Lebanese market, we have recently witnessed two chain restaurants creating a real buzz with their social media campaigns:
1- Roadster’s Diner is offering a trip for two to the US
2- Zaatar w Zeit is giving away five iPhone 5s

In order to participate in Zaatar w Zeit’s Instagram campaign, all you have to do is snap a picture, tag @zaatarwzeit and hashtag #Zexperience. Lots of awesome photos were taken everyday. Who does not want to win an iPhone 5s anyway? Older photos on Zaatar w Zeit’s IG account used to get an average of 500 likes. After the campaign and the high number of new followers, a picture now easily gets 1000 likes. This one has hit the highest record with 1.91K likes. It has also been liked by over 2K likers on Facebook.

Everything was going super until today when the second winner (out of hundreds of entries) of Zaatar w Zeit’s #Zexperience competition was announced. It was a real bummer to everyone. Some say it lacks creativity others say “wasta”, and no one really gets why the people in the photo have menus and paper sheets since it is a delivery not a dine in.

It is a photo contest after all, the winning picture must at least look good! We hope the third winner will be chosen based on some creativity or a good nice shot of the food.