Vita Coco's Social Media Manager Peed in a Jar for a Twitter Troll, No Joke

That's not click bait and I will prove it.

If you know me then you know I love when a brand takes risks on social media and in their marketing efforts but geez when I opened Twitter this morning before my morning pee I was shocked to see, well, a jar of a woman's pee. 😳 One up'ed again.

So apparently there is this 'popular' self proclaimed Twitter troll named Tony Posnanski:

I guess his recent choice victim was Vita Coco, likely the world's biggest coconut water distribution brand. Apparently he really hates coconut water or is pretending to hate it as part of his day job: trolling.

Tony isn't simply trolling the brand, he is outright just being mean. It's not funny, sarcastic, whimsical, creative or tongue in cheek - it's just vulgar 🤷🏼‍♂️ Well, Vita Coco started off decently by simply telling him to give it (another?) try. And then this happened:

Great time for me to insert this GIF:

First of all, why can he correctly use 'than' but not put the apostrophe in person's? 🤔

The story doesn't end there. Vita Coco then proceeded to not only change their Twitter cover image and bio description but also their profile image to, well, a picture of a woman holding supposedly her urine in a jar:

As a career social media manager and marketer, I am impressed at their commitment. Seriously. Right or wrong when you go all-in on an effort I gotta respect that. But let's dive into some data.

Thanks to the social listening platform Talkwalker, we are able to visualize just how viral this effort and thus brand is doing. I did a 'Quick Search' on Talkwalker using just the keyword "Vita Coco" and you can immediately see the massive spike in mentions of the brand across not only Twitter but the Internet as a whole:

The massive spike in Mentions Over Time shows you just how impactful this piss-poor back and forth on Twitter has become (see what I did there?). Something else to notice is that same spike in mentions seems to have come with a mostly a negative sentiment. As a brand and social team I wouldn't be proud about that. I personally do not subscribe to the notion that all press is good press even when HuffPost, VOX and BuzzFeed report on this too.

Thanks to Talkwalker we are able to literally see how this initial Tweet thread and story has gone viral using their Virality Map:

Maybe a little tough to see but if you squint hard enough you can see where the Tweet began on the left hand side via Twitter and spread across the entire Internet into other forms of online news, blogs and Facebook.

So here are my closing thoughts on the matter. I always support a brand that is bold, takes risks and has the gut to put themself out there when an opportunity arises but that must be tempered with good judgement. While Vita Coco has outdone this Twitter troll it isn't clear what kind of brand equity they built by aligning their values to piss in a jar. Honestly I think this clap-back by Vita Coco would have been a lot better had that piss been clear to show that their product actually hydrates you 💡 But what do I know!

If you're looking for a social media and/or marketing consultant or advisor then reach out to me directly at travis@travhawley.com