Gary Lineker trolled after Walkers Crisps Twitter competition massively backfires
Oh dear, it looks like Walkers Crisps are the latest brand to fall victim to a massive social media fail, with their new Twitter campaign being hijacked by Twitter trolls in the most outrageous way.
Earlier today, Walkers announced a competition for their followers to win tickets to the UEFA Champions League final, asking fans to simply reply to the tweet with a selfie and the hashtag #WalkersWave.
Replying with a suitable pic and the hashtag automatically generates a short video of former footballer, and the face of Walkers Crisps, Gary Lineker, holding up their image and saying: “Thanks for joining the Walkers Wave and celebrating the UEFA Champions League final.
“Nice selfie. Here you are uniting with other fans outside the national stadium.”
The clip then cuts to the person in the selfie’s head being superimposed onto a member of the crowd as they all do a Mexican wave before Gary concludes with: “The Walkers Wave, a thing of beauty.”
Things started out innocently enough, with obliging fans promptly uploading their selfies as they attempted to nab those prestigious tickets, however, because this is the Internet it wasn’t long before some opportunistic trolls took over the entire campaign – uploading images of notorious killers, paedophiles and even dictators to be featured in the video’
Images of Stalin, Rolf Harris, Josef Frizl, Fred West and Jimmy Savile soon took over Walkers’ official Twitter page, with their followers retweeting in their hundreds.
As well as sinister people from history, quick-witted Twitter users also uploaded joke photos of fictional characters and unflattering pics of celebrities, including Kerry Katona.
To make matters worse, Walkers are currently broadcasting all of the videos that have been created on big screens in Cardiff as part of their promotional activity.
Twitter user Darren shared photos of the screens, writing: “There is a 30 foot TV screen in Cardiff city centre displaying these in real time”, later adding that there are four screens in total.
The person behind Walkers’ Twitter account appears to be interacting with their followers as they send in photos, however, it is currently unknown whether there is somebody vetting the tweets or if a series of automated messages are being sent out by a bot.
Both Gary Lineker and Walkers appeared oblivious to the social media furore on Thursday afternoon.
Some Twitter users even suggested the ill-advised stunt was deliberate:
At this point we have to assume Walkers knew FULL WELL what we'd do with this and are just enjoying the free publicity. pic.twitter.com/G68qQFL7qu
— R. deValmont (@RdeValmont) May 25, 2017
Big bonus for the marketing guys at Walkers coming up. Done their job. Engagement and publicity.
— Adam (@AdamPembrey) May 25, 2017
Yahoo Celeb UK contacted Walkers for comment, who have said in a statement: “We recognise people were offended by irresponsible and offensive posts by individuals, and we apologise. We are equally upset and have shut down all activity.”