Updated at 8:46 a.m. Pacific on Monday to add comment from JCPenney.
Pushing ads into Twitter timelines and Facebook news feeds is so passé.
Retailer JCPenney attracted lots of attention during the Super Bowl today when it posted tweets that made it look like either the account had been hacked or the person managing the account had had a few too many drinks during the game:
Who kkmew theis was ghiong tob e a baweball ghamle. #lowsscorinh 5_0
— JCPenney (@jcpenney) February 2, 2014
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Toughdown Seadawks!! Is sSeattle going toa runaway wit h this???
— JCPenney (@jcpenney) February 3, 2014
Together, the two tweets pulled in 31,730 retweets and 11,799 favorites as of 5:13 p.m. PT. That’s got to be good for something.
Then again, it could have been a PR nightmare.
JCPenney tried to put on its best face:
Oops…Sorry for the typos. We were #TweetingWithMittens. Wasn't it supposed to be colder? Enjoy the game! #GoTeamUSA pic.twitter.com/e8GvnTiEGl
— JCPenney (@jcpenney) February 3, 2014
@adage We weren't drunk…just toasty!
— JCPenney (@jcpenney) February 3, 2014
Regardless of what caused the outbursts, they certainly helped JCPenney stand out on a day when brands are willing to spend multiple millions to capture consumer attention.
The morning after the Super Bowl, a JCPenney spokeswoman responded to VentureBeat’s request for comment, indicating that the strange tweets were in fact intentional.
“This was part of a planned social media stunt that our social team did to promote the Go USA mittens we are carrying (proceeds support the United States Olympic Committee) they were tweeting ‘with their Go USA mittens on,'” the spokeswoman wrote in an email.
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