Table of contents Case Description 1 Danske Bank on Facebook 3 The straw that broke the camels back 5 Danske Bank in a new world 7 Facebook is based on “Produsers” 8 Conclusion and Recommendation 8 References 10 Online data 10 Articles & litterature 10

Case Description

Danske Bank have recently launched a new campaign with a new slogan called ”New Normal, New Standards”. Especially, the TV-advertisement has caused a lot of anger and frustration among their customers, because of its controversial images. So much frustration that some customers even have decided to leave the bank for another bank.
The main subject is that Danske Bank is trying to create a “false” image of the bank. Some even think that its hypocritical and that Danske Bank promises more than they can hold.
This has caused a lot of disturbance on e.g. Danske Bank’s Facebook page and one wall post caught more attention than any of the other complaints.

Thomas Moos Jensen wrote:

“I want to share this constructive input:

"It is rare that an advertisement can get me so angry, but the new campaign from the Danish Bank is simply like being kicked in the balls.
"A new normal demands new standards", preach it with an image, which rather resembles an advertisement for Amnesty International, together with glorified images of windmills, gay love and, God help me, also Occupy Wall Street!
Hello, banking types, you want us to believe that you now would be a kind of society beneficial institution rather than a revenue focused business? And do you think we have already forgotten that you, as part of the banking system, are one of biggest villains in the situation the world is in now?
You could start with an advertisement with the slogan "Forgive us", followed by a highly reduced paycheck to the people whose greedy decisions and frayed morality is a major part of the problem. It would be new standards that would at least consider taking seriously ... "

This post on Danske Banks Facebook page have, at this point, more than 10,500 likes and more than 400 comments.
Danske Bank have been prepared for complaints and/or customers seeking advices on their Facebook page and answered back:

“Hi Thomas and thank you for the comment.

We believe that we both can be a community-friendly and strong business. With the new campaign we would like to tell that we have taken the criticism very seriously. New Standards are in addition to our new slogan also a promise. A promise we will introduce new standards. This applies not only to our responsibility and consultancy. It is a travel that just has started. We hope that you will see this in the next couple of years and will see the new standards in our specific actions.

Kind regards Barbara”

This only caused more trouble and Thomas Moos Jensen answered back:

“Hello Barbara. Your response signals in the best way the smooth hypocrisy, as you have always stood for. It rings hollow when the profit motive have been necessary to communicate that 'Now everything is different'. The recognition that you have long advised the poor, taken usury and made a conscious decision to deregulate the banking market that you have clearly demonstrated that you can not manage, does not come not from yourselves. The announcement comes only from a branding company who has told you that the people have seen through you, and that you have a frayed image. So rather than toss on Occupy Wall Street and liberal values you should start with a BIG apology and some serious actions, which shows that you mean business. But my guess is that hell freezes over before you reduce executive paychecks, offers compensation for bad advice, and stops to thwart regulation of yourselves. There must therefore be more than a superficial and smooth response from a communications consultant returned from a course in social media before I believe that you do not continue to draw the moral right to the limit. Have a nice day!”

This message got 310 likes.

It is clear that Thomas Moos is trying to start at discussion with his post besides airing his frustration about the campaign. It highlights a lot of different views on the TV commercial, but views that most customers probably can recognize when they see the commercial or read Thomas’ post. With the commercial bound to be quite controversial it was incinerated that it would cause a stir among customers, but it doesn’t seem that Danske Bank thought it would be of this magnitude.
After the post many news sites and newspapers made articles about the new campaign and due to a lot of complaints on Danske Bank using e.g. the Occupy movement in their commercial they have taken that out of the commercial (Ekstra Bladet, Nov 29, 2012).
It seems that this campaign was the last straw for many customers and this resulted in several comments on their Facebook wall. Danske Bank was, somehow, prepared for this assigning a communication consultant (Barbara), but maybe one person wasn’t enough due to the massive feedback they got. Theory tells us that communication is an on going process of collaborative meaning creation and can’t be generalized or fixated (Guldbrandsen & Just, 2011).

This paper will analyse and highlight the objectives of Danske Bank’s presence on Facebook and how they handled this massive feedback they got from their campaign and how it all ended on the front page of every news site, newspaper and spread like a plague.
Finally the paper will give some future recommendations and perspective to Danske Bank’s use of Facebook and social media in general.
Danske Bank on Facebook

Danske Bank expresses that social media is a very important media in their campaign and way to do business. It gives them the ability to connect to their customers fast and public. With a normal mail correspondence a certain problem will only be solved for one customer, where a wall post can give more customers an answer to a common/known problem or question.
A quick look on Danske Bank’s timeline proves this. When looking at the timeline you’ll see a lot of personal questions regarding personal economy (which Danske Bank, of course, can’t comment on in a public space) and a lot of criticism, both good and bad. Lately, it has been all about the campaign. The attention can be measured by looking at how many likes they have vs. how many “talks about this”. At this point Danske Bank have +28,000 “likes” and +16,000 “talks about this”. This means that about 57% of the people, who likes the page also have interacted with it recently. This must be considered as many and probably because of the campaign (Danske Bank Facebook page, 2012).
Danske Bank are using their Facebook site as a communication channel for all their customers. They have opening hours from 09-17 every weekday. This is obviously for simple a quick questions and as a feedback channel for their advertisements, online bank apps, etc. It is all part of Danske Bank’s new strategy. They want to be able to interact on several levels and on several platforms. According to themselves more than 40% of their customers are online banking and/or using online products provided by Danske Bank (Danske Bank webpage, 2012).
The main difference from their webpage to their Facebook page is the ability to interact. Danske Bank are trying to push different methods to interact so it’s not just “another Facebook page”. They want their customers to air their comments so everyone can see them and reply to them. Compared to the many possibilities to control what options the users have on the page it’s a quite open community and platform.
Danske Bank have realized that building a brand through strong narratives are more engaging and loyalty building towards consumers than the traditional way (C. A. Scolari, 2008).
In many ways Danske Bank would be better off without a social media platform such as Facebook, but somehow society demands it. It’s a way to air your disappointment towards a company with out “any risk”. For a company it’s also about interacting with your customers and by that gain brand loyalty, which will give you necessary and useful feedback from your customers. It’s a way to be more real-time and instant with the people, who give your company attention (Zhao, 2008).
B2C companies gain a lot of attention, but it can also backfire sometimes (as it did with Danske Bank’s campaign) when customers’ writes a post as Thomas Moos did. In this case there might be some truth in it since so many people liked his post and took the time to answer or participate in the discussion, but sometimes it can also be varying from the actual truth, because of users have the ability and habit to create “half truths” (Rushkoff, 2003). This must be a big concern for all companies who have a Facebook page. There is really nothing that can stop a user from writing a half-truth or a direct lie so everyone can see it. There fore it is necessary to have administration on the page. What happens when e.g. Thomas Moos Jensen writes a comment is that all his friends and people with common interests will see this. The more who shares/likes his post the more attention the post will get. If you are a well-known company, as Danske Bank, you most likely will end up in the daily press if the subject is interesting enough. Therefore one can conclude that online societies can also have large effects in the offline world (Zhao, 2008).
A known issue is that people are more likely to show their identity online than before. Even if there is a chance to “be someone else” people are more likely to be themselves. A lot of people have the urge to be “seen” online and in that way create their identity, because it is easier to write stuff down behind a screen than to come out public among people and express/defend their feelings/meanings on a certain subject (Castells, 2004).
Facebook is a collection of many online societies. You can create groups, pages etc. for almost everything. It is primarily user-based and therefore you have to take the information given with caution. In this case Danske Bank operated offline with their commercial, which got attention online and then got negative attention both offline AND online.
The straw that broke the camels back

Thomas Moos Jensen’s purpose by addressing Danske Bank online on their wall was clearly a way of starting an open discussion. Danske Bank might answer Thomas Moos directly as an answer to his statement, but a lot of users/customers will be answered indirectly. Automatically, you draw in more people in the discussion and in this case more than 400 comments was regarding this subject. If you’re not prepared for this kind of discussions it can easily look bad and most customers will likely expect similar service and presence on Facebook as if they contacted the bank directly. The difference between Facebook and contacting the bank directly and personal is that an important/interesting subject can very fast evolve to a whole media storm. The information is quickly received, judged, shared and commented before you know of it (Castells, 2008. Howe, 2006).
Danske Bank only had a couple of consultants to administrate the site during the new campaign and after seeing what happened to their Facebook page they probably should have hired a couple more. The whole thread got out of hand and the lack of answers was disturbing for the customers. Most of it was considered as “the same old story” from Danske Bank, where everything was promised but nothing implying that it would actually happen.
Though this all seems like one big mess for Danske Bank there is also something good to it. Even if their customers let out a lot of steam on them they can use a lot of it constructive. It helps building their online identity. Bruns (2007) states this as “Produsers”. It is the kind of user who also contributes to the content and helps companies streamlining their online identity. Danske Bank actually invites their customers into an open debate and the option to participate. Now and days it is all about collaborating with your users and customers to obtain the best possible service and to show that you, as a company, cares (Guldbrandsen & Just, 2011).

Danske Bank have with their new campaign affected a lot of different social groups and subjects that easily could provoke people. When you are trying to start a debate with a very provoking commercial AND try to state a message/vision it can be a risky chance to take. Especially, if it has something to do with peoples believes, religion or culture. One can assume that this was one of the major issues regarding this commercial. It seems that Danske Bank have misunderstood the effect of the online communication form. It spreads like rings in the water and the message you are trying to highlight is diffracted and easily reproduced. The outcome of this is that many customers have decided to change bank and/or air theirs frustration about the new campaign or the bank in general. It almost had a trigger effect.
One can wonder: Was the campaign really that bad? Probably not, but as Thomas Moos Jensen also states it was “the straw that broke the camels back”. The brand, Danske Bank, had before all this been criticised during the whole economic recession (like any other bank) and when you then try to communicate a whole new message that is not argued for you will encounter “some” bumps on the road. What seems to worry the customers the most is the fact that Danske Bank is trying to sweep all the recent years with the financial crisis under the rug. For a customer-view this seems oddly strange that this campaign is launched in the tailwind of a good financial year for Dansk Bank (DR.dk, 2012). The customers probably already had a meaning of Danske Bank before the campaign and these meanings or feelings didn’t support the concept of the campaign.
For the Danske Bank customers the image Danske Bank is trying to create is unrealistic, based on the recent 4 years during the financial crisis. It seems odd that this new vision comes in the wake of a good financial year in Danske Bank and therefore it is hard for the customers to relate to this world Danske Bank is trying to image (Scolari, 2008).
On top of this they have failed to deliver a good ”excuse” for the mass layoffs of employees right after the best financial year for Danske Bank since 2008. It is obvious, telling by the comments from the users, that the message hasn’t been explained clearly.

Danske Bank in a new world

Danske Bank is trying to create a new vision for the company, but this vision doesn’t really blend with the whole campaign and the current financial situation in the world. As Martin Thorborg (co-founder of the internet portal Jubii!) states in his video blog “Danske Bank I en ny verden” (Danske Bank in a new world) it is the “same old story” with, not just Danske Bank, but all banks. The brand image differs from the reality and this is a typical to thing to get people interacting with a certain subject. He also states that the banks are not people savers and here to help you out when ever you need it. They are here to earn money. This is probably clear to most customers, but in some cases a post like Thomas Moos’ can evoke these thoughts. The whole campaign, in Martin Thorborg’s mind, is a lot empty talk and its just about putting more fuel on the engine so Danske Bank can survive the next couple of years. He calls it a “fake” vision, where there is no truth to the words Danske Bank are promising their customers.

In a traditional media world we would probably have seen a lot of people acting anonymously, but the new medias invites people to be more nonymous (Zhao, 2008). You can easily tell what are the serious subjects and what is less serious or interesting by looking at what the majority finds interesting. The outcome of Thomas Moos’ post must have a bit of truth in it since so many liked it.
When people feel treated unfairly and they have the chance to air their opinion we all become “politicians” or front men. We don’t act like we normally would have in the offline world, but more as a spokesperson for several groups. We have a hidden self (Siapera, 2012) when we are online not to be confused with being anonymous. In this case we see a typical example of how sub communities on Facebook works. If we compare the sub community to a tribe we have Thomas Moos’ as the chief and then all his followers. The small man takes up the battle against the giant (Danske Bank).
Sometimes it only takes one person ”courage” to start a whole movement. Just like a cult (example: The fuzz about KONY, where a lot of people relied on what was told and didn’t really research the subjects by themselves.

Facebook is based on “Produsers”

As mentioned earlier Facebook is primarily based on user-based content and all who are on Facebook can be characterized as “produsers”(Bruns, 2007,2008), a word combination of “producer” and “user”. It basically means that people for people create what you see on Facebook.
What Danske Bank and every other company must know and accept is that when you interact on Facebook you must be able to take a beating some times. It is very rare that a company has no “enemies” and especially on Facebook these enemies like to attack some times. You can’t really prevent this and it is something you have to accept as a company if you want to interact on Facebook. It is what makes Facebook interesting for the users. The content is dynamic and ever changing. If you can’t accept these rules then you will have a hard time on Facebook, as it is the whole purpose and key element to Facebook. Where in the offline market you might see users adapting to the commercial actors it is quite different in a community and culture as Facebook, which works with networked individualism. Where it in the offline world is mostly one-way communication it’s a two-way communication between produsers and the commercial actor. When you treat Facebook as a one-way community channel and only push products/services to your customers, you forget that everything can be said online and hardly covered up if you feel it harms your business. You are constantly valued by the produsers. Bruns (2008) refers to this as hijacking the community, which means you are only using the community for your own benefit and that it is all about revenue. This is a big mistake, as you are not guaranteed success just because you are present in the online world.

Conclusion and Recommendation

This paper has sought to clarify and analyze why the post Thomas Moos Jensen posted on Danske Banks Facebook wall Nov. 20th 2012, which was followed by a lot of critique of Danske Bank and their new campaign, with focus on the TV commercial. We have highlighted that Danske Bank literately stepped on a lot of toes in their TV commercial and the new slogan: “New normal demands new standards”.
Danske Bank’s biggest problem, besides getting overrun on Facebook, was that they expected that everything regarding the economic recession the last 4 years could be forgotten by promising a “new world”. In a traditional media world this might have been overlooked, but in the new digital media world these things have a tendency to blow up because of the interaction from users.
Danske Bank have used their Facebook page as primarily a marketing channel, but the online environment demands more interaction from the companies. The lack of this created this overheated situation. People demanded an apology from Danske Bank instead of being dallied and lied to.
This resulted in Danske Bank editing their campaign and removed everything that had anything to do with the OCCUPY movement. Danske Bank clearly got a insight of how well the online community works and how it can back fire ten folds if you step out of line and not obeying the “online rules”
Though Danske Bank was in a huge media storm there is still a lot of potential in having a Facebook/social media channel. It’s a fast way of communicating with your customers and give them a good service. Martin Thorborg claims in his video blog that the so-called “advisor” weren’t really there to advice people, but just to make money. The online community is a golden chance of getting rid of that image because you can communicate almost instantly with the customers.
Most important is that you don’t want your Facebook page ONLY to look like a page that benefits Danske Bank. The customers have to feel comfortable whenever they are using a Danske Bank product/service. No matter where they are; online or offline. A good way was to assign more marketing employees to maintain a good online content. They could receive a lot of useful feedback this way, which could help prevent similar scenarios as this new campaign. This would also build a solid foundation for a good online community. All in all it’s about confining the distance between Danske Bank and their customers in all areas of their business. Either you do it right or you don’t do it at all.

References
Online data

Ekstra Bladet (Nov. 29th, 2012) ”Danske Bank fjerner reklame-billeder efter kritik” http://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/samfund/article1874851.ece Finanswatch (Nov. 30th, 2012) ”Danske Bank blæst omkuld på Facebook” http://finanswatch.dk/Finansnyt/Pengeinstitutter/article4929450.ece Danske Bank Webpage (2012) ”Interaktion med kunderne” http://www.danskebank.com/da-dk/om-os/Strategi/Pages/Interaktionmedkunderne.aspx Danske Bank Facebook page (2012): http://www.facebook.com/DanskeBankDanmark?ref=ts&fref=ts Thomas Moos Jensen’s wall post (Danish)(2012): http://www.facebook.com/DanskeBankDanmark/posts/440716232643332 Dr.dk (2012) ”Overskud i Danske Bank på 2,3 milliarder kroner” http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Ligetil/Dagens_fokus/Indland/2012/08/07084844.htm Martin Thorborg (2012) ”Danske Bank i en ny verden” (Video, Youtube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppyyDZgsgWw Articles & litterature

Castells, M. (2000): ”Materials for an exploratory theory of the network society”, British Journal of Sociology 51 (1): 5–24

Eugenia, Siapera (2012): Sage Publications Ltd. ”Understanding New Media” Zhao, S., Grasmuck, S. and Martin, J. (2008): “Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships”, Computers in Human Behavior, 24(5): 1816-1836

Gulbrandsen, I. T and Just, S. N. (2011): “The Collaborative Paradigm: Towards an Invitational and Participatory Concept of Online Communication”, Media, Culture & Society, 33 (7): 1095–1108

Rushkoff, D. (2003): “Open source democracy: How online communication is changing offline politics”, London: Demos

Gulbrandsen, I. T and Just, S. N. (2011): “The Collaborative Paradigm: Towards an Invitational and Participatory Concept of Online Communication”, Media, Culture & Society, 33 (7): 1095–1108 Burns, A. (2008): “The Future Is User-Led: The Path towards Widespread Produsage”, Fibreculture Journal Scolari, C. A. (2008): “Online brands: Branding, possible worlds, and interactive grammars”, Semiotica, 169-1/4: 169-188