IBM had the best intentions with this campaign to raise awareness about Women in STEM... unfortunately it heavily backfired on social media. Did IBM handle the situation well? We have our thoughts.

1. Reach
January 1 to December 1
Crisis Management 101:
IBM’s #HackAHairdryer Overheats
By Katie Meyer

2. What do women want to succeed?
There was a fantastic idea. One sure to lure
women closer to the brand. A fun, IBM-hosted
#hackathon that would boost the image of the
company — nay, the tech industry as a whole —
as a female-friendly space.Hairdryers.
Women love hairdryers, someone in that IBM
boardroom said out loud. Yes, the others said,
looking up from their spreadsheets, we’ll do
something with hairdryers. This is a good idea
that we should pursue.
Context – IBM’s Intentions

3. Context – Rollout
And so, #HackaHairdryer was born. Women, the fairer,
hairdryer-loving sex, were sure to jump on board. The
company made the hair-centric hackathon live on their
website in October, and it was shared sparingly on social
media by other Twitter users through November.
It seemed like a great idea right?
On December 6, 2015 — in a tweet that’s since been deleted
— IBM shared a link to the page to its (at the time) 265,000
followers. It was 26th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre,
when a misogynist killed 14 women studying engineering
while they were working in a lab.

5. Blow Out – Nuclear Fallout
The campaign short circuited on launch because it
was wired to go viral in a bad way. First, the
campaign was aimed at a large and very active
segment of Twitter users: women in tech. Second,
#HackaHairdryer touched a hot issue: women in
tech. T
Next, because #HackaHairdryer touched the
zeitgeist, it was picked up by media. Just as
#AlexFromTarget gave news outlets a face for teen
social media habits, #HackaHairdryer became an
easy joke and a sure-to-sell-ad-space way in to the
conversation around misogyny in STEM.

6. Before and After
In the month before the crisis, IBM averaged
147.7 favourites, replies, or retweets per
tweet. According to Crowdbabble,
engagement was low at just 5.8% (a fraction
of 263,606 followers engaged with IBM’s
tweets). To the right, a visualization of total
favourites, retweets, replies, and mentions
from November 5 to December 5 2015.
Engagement rose the next day as people
reacted to IBM’s apology. For the first half of
December, #HackaHairdryer pulled the
engagement rate down to 2.3% — even
more dire than the previous average of
5.8%. See right.

7. Cleaning up the Fallout - Apologies
Within 24 hours, IBM issued a
formal apology on Twitter and
deleted the original
#HackAHairdryer tweet. But it was
too late. After Gizmodo, The New
York Times, The Guardian, Fortune,
and others followed with stories
and editorials slamming the
campaign.
While the pizza conglomerate
DiGiorno apologized to each
offended person individually after
its misogynist Twitter gaffe in 2012,
IBM tweeted one message aimed at
everyone. The response was mixed.

8. Influencers Matter
Women in tech were not done venting
about the campaign, and others replied
supporting IBM and insulting its
“feminazi” critics. The support from
misogynists of IBM and the continued
criticism from women compounded the
crisis, solidifying the brand’s new
image as a creaky old tech giant not
built for the future.
Crowdbabble’s top follower tool on the
right (which allows sorting by
mentions, replies, and retweets) shows
that before the crisis, two of IBM’s top
ten followers on Twitter were women.
In the week since, women now make
up five of ten of IBM’ top followers. If
this sounds like good news, it’s not.

9. A Disaster that might now Grow Out
IBM’s attempt to reach out to women,
an adventurous foray into the 21st
century, could not have gone worse.
The #HackAHairdryer campaign
stamped IBM as outdated and out of
touch. But if tech giants are still
dominated by men, will branding itself
as an old-fashioned boys club help or
hurt the company in the long term?
Follower growth actually spiked after
the #HackAHairdryer tweet. In the days
since, the growth rate has plateaued.

10. Tweet Engagement Metrics
Engagement with the tweet is now up to 955,465 retweets and likes combined. That’s quite Titantic.

11. Lessons from IBM’s Blunder
On social media, intent is irrelevant. IBM’s effort
towards being woman-friendly did not come
through in the execution (or conception, or any
part) of #HackAHairdryer. What IBM was trying
to do didn’t matter. The company’s “let’s just
paint it pink” approach revealed hair-raising
misperceptions about women that were more
deeply rooted than its hot air about including
them. To the right, a cached version of IBM’s
#HackAHairdryer page.

12. Lessons from IBM’s Blunder
Twitter users rush to condemn offensive tweets, so as to
not appear to condone them. If criticizing a brand
becomes an “I’m not terrible” bandwagon on social
media, the brand should act as quickly as IBM did to
destroy all the evidence (tweet, website) and apologize.
Online, erasing the evidence is impossible, but it has
become shorthand for a sincere apology and admittance
of wrongdoing.
Finally, brands should check their campaigns for crisis
potential before launch by asking: what could prevent our
target group from participating? Is there a downside for
them? Those simple questions could have helped IBM
see that #HackAHairdryer was not a campaign, but a
clever trap for both women and the brand.
#HackAHairdryer not only sullied the company’s
reputation as a smart innovator, but made it impossible
for women to participate without casting themselves as
trifling girly-girls.