Mastercard’s Brits #hashtags causes twitter outcry

Mastercard has caused quite a stir after its #PricelessSurprises hashtag request upset a load of journalists.

In the build up to the Brits tonight journalists have received emails from PROs requesting twitter mentions in return for accreditation.

The PR company involved has asked journos to retweet @mastercard throughout the event and to live tweet during the show - ensuring to mention the marketing campaign #PricelessSurprises.

Even worse, the email also featured a pre-written tweet suggestion just in case the journalists didn’t know what to say.

To say this has caused a bit of a Twitter backlash might understate things a little:

Now, I'm not a huge fan of kicking people when they are down, so I'm not going to name the agency involved. A cursory Google search will suffice if you’re interested. Needless to say, rule number one in PR is: don't piss off a bunch of journalists! That said, I suspect the only way MasterCard might find a way out of this mess is through humour. Journalists are obviously having a laugh with this; if I were MasterCard I’d try fighting humour with humour.

That aside, I hope the poor PR in the middle of this is getting some support. Clearly this is a mistake but we all make those. Important to keep this in perspective.While this error may take a little time to pass, this chart of daily Twitter trends may add some comfort if you get to read this: