An Australian takeaway place is trying to win a Guinness World Record by having their mascot Betty become the first chicken to ever send a readable tweet! The marketing campaign is a lot like shooting in the dark – they’re letting Betty peck away randomly at a keyboard, hoping that she will accidentally tweet something meaningful by the end of October.
Perth marketing agency Marketforce came up with the idea for their client ‘Chicken Treat’, who operate over 70 franchises in Western Australia. “Betty will be tweeting away until she sends a proper five-letter word in English,” the promotional video states. “Follow her as she makes history at the Chicken Tweet Twitter page.”
According to independent brand analyst Michel Hogan, it’s great that a company is using humour in its marketing. “This isn’t a new idea by any means, but I can see it working – depending on where they go with it and how they do it,” she said. She added that smaller chains need such stunts and tricks to grab eyeballs in an industry that is dominated by larger corporations.
“You’ve got to be popular, well-funded, and high profile chicken retailers like KFC and Red Rooster that have been around for a long time,” she said. “Obviously these guys are competition in this landscape and are looking for a way to give themselves a leg-up. The persona of that chicken, Betty, needs to set the tone they want to set. Otherwise, it can go a little bit off the rails.”
Social media expert Dionne Lew agreed. She told SmartCompany that she loves how creative the campaign is and she’s interested to see where they’ll take it. “Having said that, I think Betty has just ‘hatched’ in terms of human humour and she’s going to need to develop it a bit to keep her audience engaged,” she said. “The obscure chicken language appeals to me, but I am not sure it will appeal to everyone. I guess they will have to wait and see, but it’s got to be mixed with enough other interesting stuff to keep up the tempo… little vignettes, misspelled calls to action, or special deals.”
Meanwhile, it looks like Betty is nowhere close to producing a meaningful English word. All her tweets through the handle ‘@ChickenTreat’ are just gibberish. Twitter users are having mixed reactions, ranging from mild interest to utter disdain. “This Betty is tougher than Woodpecker lips,” an admirer tweeted.
“This chicken is making no sense!” another wrote. “Someone better correct its grammar and establish a pecking order.”
A few are amazed at her Twitter skills: “No idea what this chicken has been saying but her hashtag skills are impeccable.”
Betty is not the world’s first bird to use Twitter. In 2011, a Latvian magazine created Birds on Twitter, an account through which wild tomtits could share their thoughts with the world on the popular social network.
