After reading the first chapter of Groundswell, there was a part that will forever be engraved in my head because of the powerful message behind it; the people of internet have power.
As explained in Groundswell, blogger Jennifer Laycock created shirts with the slogan, “Breast Milk: The Other White Milk” to raise money for her breast-feeding charity. Before Laycock even began to “make her fortune” for the charity off the shirts, the National Pork Board sent her a letter saying she was tarnishing their slogan “The Other White Meat” with her own version and demanded she stop the making and selling of the shirts.
Laycock’s background in Internet Marketing lead her to document the entire ordeal on her blog, causing over two-hundred other blogs to link their blogs to her story, and gave the National Pork Board a PR disaster. The Board immediately jumped in to a settlement with Laycock and even took up a collection among its employees to help donate money for the charity.
The people of the internet have power and are able to do as they please with it. Situations can get out-of-hand quick because of word-of-mouth and is true now more than ever in the internet world. Social media websites allow for people to be able to express themselves as well as their feelings towards just about anything. Whether it’s in a good or bad way, the peoples’ voices have the ability to possibly influence major business decisions.
So let’s get this straight…
The people of the internet can be > not = to big companies with big legal teams?
That’s one equation I’ll be happy to remember for the rest of my life.
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