Taco Bell spotted the emerging trend in urban vinyl toys, spawned by KidRobot, and decided to do something similar for their kids meals. The result was a creation called ‘Bellhedz’.

Bellhedz’ bare a strong resemblance to the Dunny that KidRobot popularized, largely led by Tristan Eaton. Eaton now leads an impassioned community of ‘art collectors’ that run rampant at shows like Comicon.

Lesson #1

When there is real community behind something like the Dunny, don’t ever rip them off, especially if you are corporate America

At the same time Taco Bell was launching their copycat toys, the urban vinyl enthusiast flooded the same location with a flash mob of their own. Their rally, aptly named Death to false vinyl rally, drew thousands of people and tons of free press.

If you search for Bell Hedz, 90% of the posts in Google are about Taco Bell ripping off the design community.

Lesson #2

When you’ve made a mistake, acknowledge it quickly, and involve the community in your resolution.

This is not the kind of press Taco Bell wants or needs. If they would have pulled their toys quicker, apologized publicly, and tried to involve the community in the resolution, they could have salvaged the situation.

Instead Taco Bell did the opposite. They called their lawyers, they pressed on with Bell Hedz anyway, and it culminated into a marketing disaster. One that will live with them for a while.

If you are a marketer in 2009, you need to be hyper aware of the marketplace conversations happening around your brand. You need to start marketplace conversations that advance your initiatives, address customer concerns, and build trust in you as a source of information for your industry.

Community matters. It’s an investment. But one that pays off in the most important circumstances.

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When Facebook launched addressable status updates this month, they changed the way their users communicate with brands in a very powerful way. If, and only if, you are a fan of a brand on Facebook you can post addressable updates that link to, and often display on the fan page (if they have the setting enabled).

Here’s an example:

(1) I become a fan of SDBloggers on Facebook.
(2) Because SDBloggers lets fans post to the Wall, now anyone with the status update with ‘@SDBloggers’ in it will show on both of our pages.

This makes it incredibly simple to shout out a brand on Facebook, but only if you are their fan. I’ll say it again, @Addressable status updates are going to change the way users interact with brands on Facebook pages. I have already changed the way I use the feature.

From now on, I am becoming a fan of any brand I want to talk to on Facebook, for better or worse. I just might delete the trail for the brands I don’t really have an affinity for from my newsfeed.

I don’t want my friends to get the wrong idea. I am not a Fan of McDonalds, I just want to be able to call them out accordingly =-).

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