ReachJanuary 1 to December 1

Crisis Management 101: IBM’s #HackAHairdryer OverheatsBy Katie Meyer

What do women want to succeed?

There was a fantastic idea. One sure to lure women closer to the brand. A fun, IBM-hosted #hackathon that would boost the image of the company — nay, the tech industry as a whole — as a female-friendly space.Hairdryers.

Women love hairdryers, someone in that IBM boardroom said out loud. Yes, the others said, looking up from their spreadsheets, we’ll do something with hairdryers. This is a good idea that we should pursue.

Context – IBM’s Intentions

Context – Rollout

And so, #HackaHairdryer was born. Women, the fairer, hairdryer-loving sex, were sure to jump on board. The company made the hair-centric hackathon live on their website in October, and it was shared sparingly on social media by other Twitter users through November.

It seemed like a great idea right?

On December 6, 2015 — in a tweet that’s since been deleted — IBM shared a link to the page to its (at the time) 265,000 followers. It was 26th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, when a misogynist killed 14 women studying engineering while they were working in a lab.

Blow Out – Nuclear Fallout

The campaign short circuited on launch because it was wired to go viral in a bad way. First, the campaign was aimed at a large and very active segment of Twitter users: women in tech. Second, #HackaHairdryer touched a hot issue: women in tech. T

Next, because #HackaHairdryer touched the zeitgeist, it was picked up by media. Just as #AlexFromTarget gave news outlets a face for teen social media habits, #HackaHairdryer became an easy joke and a sure-to-sell-ad-space way in to the conversation around misogyny in STEM.

Before and After In the month before the crisis, IBM averaged 147.7 favourites, replies, or retweets per tweet. According to Crowdbabble, engagement was low at just 5.8% (a fraction of 263,606 followers engaged with IBM’s tweets). To the right, a visualization of total favourites, retweets, replies, and mentions from November 5 to December 5 2015.

Engagement rose the next day as people reacted to IBM’s apology. For the first half of December, #HackaHairdryer pulled the engagement rate down to 2.3% — even more dire than the previous average of 5.8%. See right.

Cleaning up the Fallout - Apologies

Within 24 hours, IBM issued a formal apology on Twitter and deleted the original #HackAHairdryer tweet. But it was too late. After Gizmodo, The New York Times, The Guardian, Fortune, and others followed with stories and editorials slamming the campaign.

While the pizza conglomerate DiGiorno apologized to each offended person individually after its misogynist Twitter gaffe in 2012, IBM tweeted one message aimed at everyone. The response was mixed.

Influencers Matter Women in tech were not done venting about the campaign, and others replied supporting IBM and insulting its “feminazi” critics. The support from misogynists of IBM and the continued criticism from women compounded the crisis, solidifying the brand’s new image as a creaky old tech giant not built for the future.

Crowdbabble’s top follower tool on the right (which allows sorting by mentions, replies, and retweets) shows that before the crisis, two of IBM’s top ten followers on Twitter were women. In the week since, women now make up five of ten of IBM’ top followers. If this sounds like good news, it’s not.

A Disaster that might now Grow Out

IBM’s attempt to reach out to women, an adventurous foray into the 21st century, could not have gone worse. The #HackAHairdryer campaign stamped IBM as outdated and out of touch. But if tech giants are still dominated by men, will branding itself as an old-fashioned boys club help or hurt the company in the long term?

Follower growth actually spiked after the #HackAHairdryer tweet. In the days since, the growth rate has plateaued.

Tweet Engagement Metrics

Engagement with the tweet is now up to 955,465 retweets and likes combined. That’s quite Titantic.

Lessons from IBM’s Blunder

On social media, intent is irrelevant. IBM’s effort towards being woman-friendly did not come through in the execution (or conception, or any part) of #HackAHairdryer. What IBM was trying to do didn’t matter. The company’s “let’s just paint it pink” approach revealed hair-raising misperceptions about women that were more deeply rooted than its hot air about including them. To the right, a cached version of IBM’s #HackAHairdryer page.

Lessons from IBM’s BlunderTwitter users rush to condemn offensive tweets, so as to not appear to condone them. If criticizing a brand becomes an “I’m not terrible” bandwagon on social media, the brand should act as quickly as IBM did to destroy all the evidence (tweet, website) and apologize. Online, erasing the evidence is impossible, but it has become shorthand for a sincere apology and admittance of wrongdoing.

Finally, brands should check their campaigns for crisis potential before launch by asking: what could prevent our target group from participating? Is there a downside for them? Those simple questions could have helped IBM see that #HackAHairdryer was not a campaign, but a clever trap for both women and the brand.

#HackAHairdryer not only sullied the company’s reputation as a smart innovator, but made it impossible for women to participate without casting themselves as trifling girly-girls.