Brand Flakes for Breakfast
Wednesday, July 09, 2008

when people become fans of your failures



Possibly the most wonderful thing in the world that a brand can achieve is love so strong that users worship your failures.

Twitter has been a victim of its own success. So many new users, so much volume that the application crashes regularly. Sometimes hourly. From the getgo, they've managed to brand their "failure screens" in true twitteresque flavor. When Twitter is down beyond repair, users get the screen that is now lovingly referred to as the "fail whale."

Here's the thing. Despite the failures, Twitter fans remain users. And they joke about the down time, the failed tweets and the fail whale. Someone's even produced a line of Fail Whale merchandise.

Can your brand generate that kind of love? Can you fail consistently, over and over and STILL keep your customers fans? Not many brands can. And that's a wonderful testament to the power of Twitter. Tweet. Tweet.

Already onboard?
Be sure to look me up (darrylohrt) and follow the Plaid van (Plaid) during the upcoming Plaid Summer Tour.

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