UPDATE: Well the whole thing was a prank played on Kyle Kinane by fellow comedian Randy Liedtke, host of the Bone Zone prank podcast. So at the end of the day, it was just two comedians having fun at the expense of the rest of us. And Campbell’s Soup has confirmed @Pace_Foods (which has been active since August…talk about a long con!) is not a Campbell’s or Pace Foods Twitter account. Kinane says he was not in on the prank but we don’t know what to believe at this point.
Original Story:
This, bay far, has to be the worst (best) Twitter-based brand implosion we’ve ever seen. Over the weekend, Twitter user Kyle Kinane (@kylekinane) struck up a conversation with Pace Foods (@Pace_Foods) and things quickly turned ugly. Kinane taunted the account to prove it was simply a bot responding to tweets. Then some humans on the Pace side of things became involved. And it got even uglier.
The story has everything a great thriller would have. Account impersonation. Account hijacking. A fake account created by Pace Foods to try to get an employee fired. Lying. Deception. Humor. A brand suspending its Twitter account. Everything you could ever want in a social media flame out.
Rather than recreate the entire conversation here — after all why duplicate efforts when you can just link…which, of course is the beauty of the internet — you can read all the delicious details and peruse a timeline of events over at Huffington Post.
