Recently a man who goes by the Twitter handle @RiffRaff41 miraculously, and after much sweat and saliva, answered the age-old question of how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. The owner of the account, Mark Holland, announced his adventurous experiment on Twitter this week, and managed to draw a good amount of attention. You know who didn’t jump on the much-publicized outcome Tootsie Roll’s Twitter account.
Holland, who claimed it was all in the name of science, found it took 850 licks to get past the candy’s hard shell and reach its chewy treasure. He tweeted the evidence over the weekend to his 3,261 followers. In a move that has now shocked the social media world, of the 128 retweets and 40 favorites. Holland’s tweet managed to draw, not a single one was from the Tootsie Pop nor Tootsie Roll Twitter feed.
Perhaps Tootsie Roll didn’t want to look like they were officially standing behind Holland’s results. His 850 licks conflicts with at least three previous studies – it seems Holland needed many more licks than most people. Officially, Tootsie Pop says the number of licks “depends on a variety of factors such as the size of your mouth, the amount of saliva, etc. Basically, the world may never know.”
But seriously, haven’t brands learned from Oreo’s Super Bowl extravaganza Real-time marketing is the buzzword of our time. The possibilities for the account’s social presence were plentiful – Tootsie Roll had the chance to create entertaining, responsive content that could have even gone viral, like Holland’s post. At the very least they could have engaged in a quirky Twitter conversation with a fan, or congratulated Holland directly, or maybe given him a free year’s supply.
It also makes us wonder how many missed opportunities happen daily on social media. What are you doing to track your brand? Are you listening actively to what’s being said about you?
Source: Digiday
