At the end of your reading this, I'm going to ask you a very blunt question:
Is this 'Corporate Bullying' or the biggest social media marketing fail in #fintech history?
For starters, in case we haven't met yet, my name is Tim.
I host a podcast about how brands show up in the real world called OOH Insider.
We're a global audience of B2B leaders that account for about $3B+ in annual billing/revenue, etc., and mostly made up of sales orgs who hate "doing finance" stuff. Like expense reports.
This is important because it's relevant to the story I'm about to share, of which you will be the judge - is this an instance of corporate bullying?
Or is it just a giant social media marketing fail by Ramp?
How It Started
Yesterday got started like any other day.
Wake up.
Make cappuccino.
Go back for an extra shot of espresso.
Sit down at desk.
Crank for 2.5 hours on content.
Break at 10:30
Get ready for meetings of the day.
Take a break to check Twitter and see that I'm tagged in a post by a few founder friends. (See below)
I have a 10-year-old son so I still watch pro wrestling with (who am I kidding, I'd watch it anyway) and in the craft of wrestling there's a concept called "Putting Someone Over".
The idea is simple - to make the other person look good.
Here's Where The Ramp Broke.
A bit of context for what happens next...
Koby is the CMO of Rupa Health.
Koby was a guest on the podcast that Joe D. and Lewis host (who are also founders of RiskAssessmentAI (if you hate risk assessment security questionnaires, you should check them out).
I was also a guest on their podcast and we specifically discussed Ramp's brilliant use of OOH. Something I've done countless times while also plugging their product to folks who hate receipts and expense reports.
(Take the Brexit by the way, the Ramp is closed for maintenance)
Okay, so now you're caught up because what happens next is, well, crazy.
You've Got Mail
I sit back down to my desk after coming from an emergency meeting at my son's school to this email:
My vision has been getting worse after all this device time, so I replied to clarify the ask.
No, yeah, definitely not my vision.
How It's Going
For anyone who knows me personally, they'll tell you I'm pretty easygoing. By some accounts, too easygoing. However, if it violates my values or morals, then we're going to have to address it because no human has authority over me (or you). Especially not a fundamental belief in the right to speech.
I didn't make any claim to be actively working with Ramp.
I didn't share anything confidential.
In fact, the correspondence validated that I was making a factual statement.
And the images I shared were stills from a YouTube video (something I communicated to Nick).
Apparently, the YouTube videos don't violate these "logo restrictions" so clearly this was a personally targeted campaign directed at yours truly. Weird.
All in my attempt to support OOH as a channel, come "over the top" for a friend's podcast AND for Ramp while validating the outreach of Ramp to Rupa Health.
Clearly malicious 🙄
Corporate Bullying or Social Media Marketing Fail?
And so, the question posed at the onset of your quest to get caught up on the past 24 hours.
Is this Corporate Bullying?
Or is this a huge Social Media Marketing fail?
The initial outreach could have been anything.
"Hey Tim, cool pics you shared! Can we connect offline, I've got a question..."
"Hey Tim, I appreciate your enthusiasm for the brand and we loved working with you too but your Tweet creates some confusion, would you mind editing the copy to clarify that's not an active campaign? We don't want to create confusion and love OOH as a channel."
CC'ed on those emails is the Ramp Head of Comms too, so really I don't understand the design of the dialogue as anything other than combative.
But maybe that's their comms strategy?
Bullies Should Be Called Out
And that's how I've always felt.
I'm just a solopreneur creator over here championing offline media and companies like Ramp who (seem to) understand it's beauty and power as the ultimate authority builder.
Someone who has directly advocated for Ramp as a solution for this B2B audience.
But this? I'm shocked. Truly.
As a Marine Corps Veteran who served in the Global War on Terror, you are going to have to do things you're not comfortable doing to shut me up.
And because I think other people should know, I'm sharing this here with you.
And running the Twitter thread (which you can check out here) as an ad campaign with the intention of reaching people who should know about the type of company they're potentially doing business with (or about to).
And after I publish this?
I'll turn on LinkedIn ads that click through to this.
Because giving someone your money who would gladly censor your speech, well, that's what should keep you up at night.
That's the monster under your bed. The boogieman in your closet.
Because Bullies Suck.
