Coca-Cola became the latest company to completely screw up a social marketing attempt this week, joining the ranks of brands like Molson, Nestle and rival soft drink Pepsi, all of whom have tried in the past to leverage the awesome power of social media and viral marketing, only to see their experiments blow up in their faces. Coca-Cola's faux pas this week is a particularly embarrassing failure, since it might very well result in legal action being taken against the company, which is accused of exposing minors to pornographic material following a Dr. Pepper marketing campaign which involved Facebook users allowing Dr. Pepper to "hijack" their status updates in return for a chance at a $1,000 weekly prize.

The marketing campaign, likely launched by a third-party social marketing firm, saw Facebook users allowing Dr. Pepper to post "embarrassing" status messages on their walls, effectively hijacking their status updates. What's more, the hijacked updates were set to "public" visibility, meaning that anyone over the entire internet was given access to the updates. Known as "status takeover," the marketing campaign blew up in Coca-Cola's face faster than a Dr. Pepper with a Mentos dropped into it after a fourteen year old girl's mother discovered a status update on her daughter's profile which read, "'I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards."

Important note: If you don't know what that status update means, you're not alone. Coca-Cola readily admits that they didn't understand what it meant either. Which isn't surprising, considering that "2 Girls One Cup" is one of the most well-known, disgusting pornographic movies ever shown on the internet - and that's really saying a lot, considering what's out there.

The girl's mother took to Mumsnet, a notorious parenting forum famous for its stirring up "mobs" of parents through knee-jerk reactions to perceived threats. In her post, she wrote: 

"So, how do I proceed? ASA? I am absolutely fizzing with rage and disgust, and want a full apology and explanation. CocaCola are saying they use outside marketing teams for different brands and it's outside their jurisdiction. Help!?"

Despite the obvious irony in saying she's "fizzing" with rage and disgust, she's got a great point. There was a time, back in the day, when Coca-Cola could have gotten away with something like this by saying, "We didn't write it, a marketing team wrote it, and it's outside our jurisdiction." But thanks to the internet, that day is long, long gone. Since Friday, over 1000 responses to her original post have been made, and Coca-Cola has responded by pulling the campaign, saying:

"It has been brought to our attention that the Dr Pepper promotion on Facebook posted an offensive status update. We apologise for any offence caused. As soon as we became aware of this, we took immediate action and removed the status update from the application. We have also taken the decision to end the promotion. We will take all steps necessary to ensure this does not happen again."

Too little, too late, Coca-Cola. With the Mumsnet forumers baying for blood, it's likely that a legal body of some sort or another will eventually investigate how Coca-Cola could have allowed anyone working for them to post a reference to a disgusting pornographic movie on a fourteen year-old girl's wall - a movie that girl later searched for on the internet to find out what the obscure status update meant.

So where did Coca-Cola go wrong, and what can you do to avoid something like this happening to your own brand? The answer is quite simple.

Never, never allow any "social marketing agency", no matter how edgy they seem and no matter how often they tell you that they're "experts," post or publish anything in your company or brand's name without checking it first.

That means no Twitter updates, no Facebook content, no Myspace pictures. Nothing. Every single thing that's said under your brand's logo should pass through your PR department, and every single letter of every single word should be approved by people within your company who understand what they're reading.

That's it. It's that simple. If you don't know what the copy they've written means (Coca-Cola says that they reviewed the copy for the marketing campaign, but didn't understand what the "2 Girls One Cup" reference meant), you shouldn't post it. If you don't know what something means, either find out or strike it from the record - don't let some social marketing "expert" tell you how to run your brand. If Coca-Cola had bothered to Google the reference, instead of trusting an agency who clearly doesn't have the foggiest idea what a world of trouble they've gotten themselves into, this wouldn't be happening to Coca-Cola today.

As sorry as I feel for Coca-Cola right now, I feel much sorrier for the social media "experts" who are going to be looking for a new job with a corporate blacklist hovering over them like a storm cloud full of Dr. Pepper and Mentos.