Microsoft and Amy Winehouse: Why Did Twitter Make it Worse?

In sharing their best practices for developing a social media strategy, many consultants advise businesses to take a "human" approach to dealing with customers.

That commitment to humanity, however, might have helped fuel the controversy surrounding Microsoft’s Amy Winehouse Tweet.

Days after the Grammy-winning singer’s death, the software and entertainment giant came under fire for a perceived attempt to commercialize her passing. With a call-to-action and an included hyperlink, the official "Microsoft UK PR" account (@tweetbox360) Tweeted, "Remember Amy Winehouse by downloading the ground-breaking ‘Back to Black’ over at Zune."

As the download was not free, outcry erupted over Microsoft’s apparent exploitation attempt. The instantly-maligned Tweet seemingly aimed to drive record sales from the artist’s passing.

Microsoft quickly apologized, Tweeting, "Apologies to everyone if our earlier Amy Winehouse ‘download’ tweet seemed purely commercially motivated. Far from the case, we assure you… With Amy W’s passing, the world has lost a huge talent. Our thoughts are with Amy's family and friends at this very sad time."

That Microsoft’s initial comment spurred backlash is neither surprising nor compelling in and of itself. After all, even those who were not offended by the Tweet are unlikely to hail something so controversial as the beacon of taste.

Noteworthy, instead, is the fact that angry customers and pundits evaluated Microsoft’s Tweet against an apparent double standard.

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Through as recently as Thursday, July 28, three days after the Microsoft controversy, Apple’s industry-leading iTunes storefront still prominently featured a "Remembering Amy Winehouse" graphic that linked to its catalogue of the artist’s recordings.

Sales for Winehouse’s material have soared on iTunes, with her US breakout single Rehab advancing into the Top 15 on the store’s chart and album Back to Black holding at number two. Customers have thus not only refrained from prompting iTunes to remove its "Remembering Amy Winehouse" campaign—they have embraced it.

Multiple sources, including Seattle Weekly and Ace Showbiz, confirm that fellow e-tailer Amazon.com was also promoting its commercial Amy Winehouse downloads earlier in the week. That site, too, suffered little customer wrath as sales of its Winehouse recordings surged.

While one can argue that the wording of Microsoft’s Tweet presented a more direct call-to-action, the differences between its promotion and that of Apple are substantively negligible (iTunes may not feature the word "downloading" on its graphic, but it wouldn’t be linking customers to an Amy Winehouse storefront so they can not buy her music). More broadly, it is far from a mystery that artist deaths can create renewed interest in their work—Microsoft Zune is not the only retailer to grasp this phenomenon.

Similarly, the idea that Microsoft was "advertising" carries no weight. Apple, too, was "advertising." Yes, its promotions took place within the confines of its store, but it was still actively trying to drive sales (if it only wanted to be sure fans of the late Winehouse could find her music, its search tool would have sufficed).

The difference in consumer sentiment, therefore, can logically be attributed to the promotional mechanism. This is where the idea of "corporate humanity" enters the discussion.

The casual, "social" nature of communication channels like Twitter creates a more personal experience between the brand and its audience. In most cases, even when Twitter and Facebook posts are very much automated, "PR speak," the conversational nature of social media inherently frames them as coming from an actual person (or at least a personable entity).

Audiences could thus reasonably perceive Microsoft’s Tweet as coming from an entity who, by virtue of having feelings and a sense of judgment, should have been able to filter for taste. The construct of the call-to-action, coupled with the "human" nature of Twitter, suggested that this was a calculated attempt to drive sales from something that was making headlines.

And, in fairness, a human within Microsoft did indeed word the Tweet to achieve a desired goal. Microsoft disputes that the goal was purely commercial, but the Tweet was not some automated message that randomly went out on July 25. Somebody crafted a message to take advantage of the Amy Winehouse story.

Even though iTunes effectively did the same thing, because the message was confined to a graphic on its storefront, the strategy came across as less personal. iTunes’ "Remembering Amy Winehouse" campaign is a business employing a strategy; there is no sense of conversation, and there is no feeling that an individual is trying to cleverly work an Amy Winehouse plug into a customer interaction.

As a window into a business, a Twitter profile can also be viewed as a window into a business’ soul, as a glimpse into how it actually perceives its moral obligations and relationships with customers.

It might still appear controversial and tasteless, but there is no attitudinal context behind a music store doing the inevitable—seizing an opportunity to profit from a happening in music. For all customers know, Apple’s executives could feel terrible about promoting a deceased artist’s catalogue.

But by putting a "voice" on the campaign, Microsoft’s Tweet made it seem like promoting Amy Winehouse’s music is more than just a business obligation—it made it seem like the humans behind Microsoft feel it is a good idea.

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