The prices are Down Down but the Facebook hate is Up Up.

Coles most recent marketing campaign is the often discussed 'Down Down and Staying Down' campaign, involving essentially a TV spot with big red hands and an overarching message that Coles prices are down and most importantly they are staying down. In marketing lingo this is a promise of value by Coles to their customers.

The campaign was heavily criticised by the media and consumers and nothing represented this backlash better than the tirade of negativity online. Just searching "coles down down" came up with some telling results:

In fact, the largest Coles hate group page entitled "The disturbed feeling you get after seeing the new Coles Ad" has garnered just over 26,000 likes on Facebook. That's around 5 times as many people than the official Coles page with a measly 5,000 likes.

This really shows that any organisation, be it Coles or otherwise, does not have any ownership over the online conversation unfolding. They can however, try to monitor and direct the conversation towards a more positive direction. This is sometimes done by organisations like Telstra (another popular recipient of Facebook hate groups) who actively engage customers online.

Evidently, social media can be a new frontier for organisations and a dangerous place for the unwary.

But is Coles concerned? On one hand, you have customers talking about a campaign that obviously had significant reach and impact but on the other, you must take the criticism seriously.

Yes the campaign is lame, yes it's annoying but by god people remember it, and people remembering an advertisement and going out of their way to create a negative Facebook page, is infinitely better than not having anyone say anything, at all.