Top 15 Best (And Worst) Bendy Iphone Tweets Based On My Speed, Story and Surprise Criteria

Jon Burkhart
4 min readSep 26, 2014

After our book Newsjacking was published, I’ve been in damage limitation mode for the last year or so. Why? Because brands have taken a shiny new toy — real-time marketing — and used it as an opportunity to shoe-horn their product in an overt over-salesy way to disastrous effect. Then sometimes, brands get it right. I’ve been leading workshops with brands and agencies for 18 months and what I love about the latest bendy iPhone scandal is the fact that brands had to act fast. It wasn’t a live event that they could prepare for a variety of eventualities and still screw up.

I’ve looked at loads of executions from brands and individuals and measured them on the three qualities I always judge everything on: Speed, Story and Surprise. How quick and brilliant (or Urgent and Genius — see my other blog)was it. Does it tell a good story. Does it have a brick-in-the-window surprise element to it? Plus, I’ve added a bonus section of the worst brand Shoe-horns. Enjoy.

OVERALL BRAND WINNER:

The first and best one out of the gate from a brand and a clear winner for both it’s Urgent-ness and Genius-ness. Spot on from the candy bar brand and added bonus that KitKat is the name of the last Android update:

BRAND HONORABLE MENTION:

BRAND LOSER:

A decent LG attempt was ruined by a local market when it was revealed that they’d tweeted their iPhone trolling attempt from an iPhone:

SPEED AND SURPRISE WINNER

This one had a surprise factor to it (great image manipulation and liked the Dali angle) and was tweeted 4 hours before KitKat.

You know you’re onto a winner when the public praises you so much that you feel compelled to give away your technique:

SPEED AND SURPRISE RUNNER UP:

This one beat KitKat by a 2 hours and I love the attention to detail including the U2 Limited Edition.

SPEED WINNER

This one took the rolling pin idea to the next level and was still tweeted a few minutes before KitKat.

SPEED AND STORY WINNER

Market Watch contacted Uri Geller and interviewed him over the phone to see if he would be a spokesman for Apple as he explained that people were bending the phones with their mind and that it wasn’t Apple’s fault. Tweeted 5 hours after KitKat. Nice story angle.

STORY RUNNER-UP — AGENCY SELF-PROMO

I’ve been preaching to agencies that the most important real-time content client is you yourself. If you can’t do real-time content for your brand why should a client trust you. Brighton agency Wonderlabs got my attention with their fake letter from Jonny Ive explaining ‘malleability’ as a secret feature that they didn’t announce on launch day.

STORY RUNNER-UP — INDIVIDUAL

A bit of a dig at an age-old issue about under-age workers. Made me smile.

SURPRISE HONOURABLE MENTION:

This photoshopper got my attention with the Spatula 6. Or was I just hungry? Or do I just love burgers too much?

SECOND BEST BURGER RELATED TWEET:

SHOE-HORN WINNER

I don’t get this at all. Explain it to me please?

SHOE-HORN RUNNER UP

A bit too easy. Lazy tweets are killing me.

BEST RESPONSE TO A SHOE-HORN

SURPRISE HONOURABLE MENTION

Shaun found a photo online and turned it into a quite funny warning about other bendy Apple products.

It’s been over 48 hours and more responses are rolling in. I wanted to see more film and interactive attempts as I think this story has kept momentum for quite a while. What brand and individual responses have I left off my list?

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Jon Burkhart

Content Marketing Consultant. Speaker. Co-author, Newsjacking (@UrgentGenius Book); Hacker Maker Teacher Thief; Ballsy Brands (Oct ‘15) SXSWi Advisor. Dad.