A Painful Digital Marketing Lesson Courtesy of Michigan State University
Where do I start with this one…..
So if you somehow didn’t hear about this, before the Michigan vs. Michigan State football game at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing on 10/21/23 a photo of Adolf Hitler appeared on the scoreboard.
Yes. You read that correctly. Here it is:
I first saw this in my Facebook feed during the game and thought for sure it was some sick mock up, but it wasn’t. It’s real.
The basics of what happened are as follows: A student intern simply went to the Internet and grabbed a history quiz from YouTube to stream on the scoreboard for pregame content from a YouTube channel called The Quiz Channel. Whomever the intern reported to approved it but no one bothered to even watch it, they didn’t pay to use it, they didn’t even inform the third party they were using it - not as a courtesy - nothing. The question in the “General Knowledge Trivia Quiz (Part 18)” at the 10:45 minute mark was “In Which Country Was Adolf Hitler Born?” and his photo remains on the screen for 9 seconds. The answer as you can see in the photo to the left of the screen was Austria.
Now if you like we can pause to debate the merits of including where Hitler was born in a history quiz for a minute, but let me be clear that this is not the point, so you can skip to the next paragraph if you like - it’s up to you. I say it’s a ridiculous trivia question in and of itself. If you want to study the rise and fall of the Third Reich which is historically significant to be sure and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany as a man born in Austria - then yes. It’s historically significant IN THAT CONTEXT. To simply ask where he was born as an interesting tidbit as if he is deserving of simple interesting tidbits like he wasn’t the worst monster in the history of mankind is to normalize benign conversations about Hitler, and benign conversations about Hitler aren’t really appropriate in any context anywhere. So at best I say it’s questionable even in the context of a history quiz.
The context for this incident is far from just a random history quiz among history buffs. The context for this scenario is at least a dozen layers deep. Let’s just start with the image itself. If I’m in that stadium and I look up at the scoreboard in that moment I don’t see the context of some quiz. The first thing I see is Hitler. As a Jew it’s hard for me to look at photos of him. That photo dominates the scoreboard. The second thing I see (if I see anything else) is that it appears Adolf Hitler has been brought to us by Meijer. Obviously that’s not actually the case but I would guess Meijer is NOT happy about that placement. You can kind of make out the word “quiz” above the photo and you can see “Austria” to the left as I mentioned - I’m guessing the “Quiz” graphic is slightly clearer in person and so maybe I’ve figured out it’s some quiz if it’s up long enough for my shock to wear off to figure that out. There’s definitely a chance that for the 10 minutes the quiz was going on that I hadn’t bothered paying attention to it until Hitler caught my eye or maybe I walked in a few seconds before it came on and it was my “welcome” to Spartan Stadium.
More layers: This comes two weeks after the barbaric massacre of 1400 civilians by the terrorist group Hamas in Israel. The Jewish community worldwide is reeling and there is a full scale war happening in Gaza. We are all scared. The very morning of this game the president of the Jewish Synagogue of Detroit Samantha Woll was tragically murdered at her home 90 miles from the stadium. Regardless of the motive which is unknown at the time of this writing the Jewish community in Michigan was shocked and in mourning on a local level. May her memory be for a blessing.
To be clear, there is never a good time to show Hitler on your scoreboard. But yes, this is indeed a particularly AWFUL time to do it. Two weeks after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust itself? My goodness.
More layers: Michigan State University. MSU has mishandled scandal after scandal for years now and their community - students, staff, alums have been through the ringer. You may know me as a Michigan guy - heck my brand here is M10 Social and it’s maize and blue - I played football there. BUT I’m also a Michigan State parent. My son just graduated from there this past Spring, and my wife graduated from there as well so I have a stake and it’s close to me. The Larry Nassar scandal, the recent Mel Tucker disaster, and the current drama on the Board of Trustees is looking really bad. Governor Gretchen Whitmer weighed in on the lack of leadership on Monday two days after the game, and whatever your politics may be, whatever your opinion is of her, she’s an MSU alum who loves MSU and unabashedly shouts that from the rooftops quite often. I won’t recap all of those things here - they’ve all been well documented publicly.
I’ll also take a moment here to point out that not everything MSU has done in recent years has been bad. My son’s apartment was across the street from the horrifying and tragic shooting that took place on campus this past February which is where he was while it was happening. To MSU’s credit they handled that with grace - from the first real time response in the moments the incident unfolded to the following weeks and the rest of the semester. We were #SpartanStrong and pulled together as a community. This current scoreboard incident is not simply my opportunity to pile on or take shots. It’s important to me that my son have pride in his alma mater - a place that was overall a great college experience for him which I’m indeed thankful for. I tweeted for months at a bottom feeding NYT reporter named Tiffany May who did pile on the morning following the shooting in the most vile & disgusting way saying that the shooting puts MSU in another “uncomfortable position” because of the Larry Nassar scandal. I still get angry over the fact that there was no accountability for that article rubbing salt in the wounds of a grieving community. I’ll give praise where praise is due and I’ll defend MSU as the parent of a Spartan.
A Painful Digital Marketing Lesson
But I can’t defend the indefensible. And here’s why as a digital marketer this scoreboard incident is indefensible along with the painful lesson to be learned that MSU may be learning (one would hope) right now.
The content on a scoreboard doesn’t go out over the Internet as a feed to a social media platform, it doesn’t get posted on a website or sent out in a newsletter. But make no mistake, your electronic scoreboard in your 75,005 seat stadium is an owned digital marketing asset (“owned” as opposed to borrowed space on Facebook that you don’t own for example), and it’s a large impactful one even if there are only a smattering of people there when you’re running content on it well before the kickoff. Mailchimp defines digital marketing as “Any marketing that uses electronic devices and can be used by marketing specialists to convey promotional messaging and measure its impact through your customer journey. In practice, digital marketing typically refers to marketing campaigns that appear on a computer, phone, tablet, or other device. It can take many forms, including online video, display ads, search engine marketing, paid social ads and social media posts. Digital marketing is often compared to “traditional marketing” such as magazine ads, billboards, and direct mail. Oddly, television is usually lumped in with traditional marketing.”
You may not be able to control the reach or the presentation of every piece of content you put out over borrowed or rented space on social media platforms. You can’t totally control what ads Facebook decides to run alongside your content and what your community sees. But when the asset is yours - your scoreboard - your audience and your turf, what is shown there is absolutely YOUR message. You have a golden opportunity with a captive audience who paid to be in your stadium to get your messaging across in the way you want. You can highlight the university, your accomplishments, your history, what’s currently happening on campus, your community, students, alumni - it’s a content creator’s dream. And you’re going to squander that by running a stupid history quiz from a third party that you didn’t even bother to watch first??? Is there anything more lazy than this? For an institution that CANNOT afford to be LAZY when it comes to their messaging? The fact that they cannot afford to be lazy should be an all hands on deck situation if there’s ever been one. It’s leadership - and lack of. Anyone who might have their hands in the marketing pot must have an understanding of this - communicated in no uncertain terms from the top all the way down.
But it wasn’t. And now as a result the entire country is talking about how Adolf Hitler was on the Spartan Stadium scoreboard. Even during a time when the world seems to be on fire and college football news may seem insignificant, throw Adolf Hitler into the mix during an explosive new war in the Middle East following a massacre in Israel and it becomes newsworthy in the pursuit of eyeballs for the news media. It’s the ONE story related to the Holocaust with a college football context that will place it firmly in all categories of news headlines - sports AND otherwise. That’s how it works. Take a look:
And then there’s this one - a simple Google Search for “Michigan State” that returned results for “News About Adolf Hitler” and the first one is from the Times Of Israel. Yikes….
Here’s one from something called OutKick which I don’t know much about it but jeez…. they just took a different photo of Hitler and put it next to an MSU helmet for the thumbnail. Now you can complain rightfully that this is taking it too far, but again, MSU put themselves in a position where idiots may run with it.
Michigan State’s response
The first apology MSU rushed out almost immediately came from Matt Larson, Michigan State Associate AD/Communications. It read as follows:
This is a ridiculous statement. Note the language - the content “was displayed” is said twice and the “third-party source” is mentioned twice. No Matt - specifically, MSU displayed it because it was MSU’s scoreboard. And no one CARES that it was a third-party. As I stated earlier, your scoreboard, your content. The statement doesn’t expressly imply that all blame should be directed at the third-party somehow, but it certainly leaves it out there like maybe it should be. The third party didn’t even know their content was being used. This is the guy in charge of communications? Pure incompetence. Not debatable.
Next came a statement from the Board of Trustees demanding answers followed by a statement by Alan Haller the Athletic Director. The entirety of his statement can be seen here, but it starts off with this:
“I am deeply sorry for the offensive image we displayed on the Spartan Stadium video boards Saturday night. I apologize for the pain it has caused our community. Ultimately, it is my responsibility to make sure all those who interact with Spartan Athletics feel safe, valued and respected.
The image was harmful to our communities, especially our Jewish community which is currently experiencing a rise in antisemitism, including acts of violence.
Michigan State Athletics is responsible for all content shown on its video boards. Before it was displayed, the video was not viewed in its entirety by anyone in athletics, exposing a failure in our process. The video was not part of a sponsorship and had no affiliation with any of our corporate partners or our community.”
MUCH BETTER. Note that Haller says WE displayed the offensive image - not just that it ambiguously “was displayed”, and nowhere in his statement does he even mention the words “third-party.” That is the appropriate way to address it and to correct the initial further damage Larson did. Words matter. He accurately states that Michigan State Athletics is responsible for ALL content shown on its video boards. This really should have been obvious.
Lastly, the interim president Teresa Woodruff chimed in with an appropriate apology and she indicated that she has asked for a full review of the event. An employee has been suspended so far as a result. It will be interesting to see how this ends but MSU’s margin for error continues to get slimmer and slimmer. People (alumni in particular) are NOT happy.
The basic lesson is to be more careful about taking care of your brand and your messaging right? This doesn’t mean you have to do it all yourself - heck that would mean no work for me as a digital marketer who creates content for multiple brands as a contractor. But you better make sure you know where your content is coming from and understand the impact it has on your community and your brand. On a smaller scale for my clients I always make sure I immerse myself in their story and their message so they can feel confident that anything I create and broadcast on their behalf is on brand and an appropriate intentional message. I even asked to flip burgers at Five Guys years ago so I could understand what goes into the product and the culture at the restaurants for example. For a large complex organization you better make sure the message is communicated throughout. It better be woven into your culture and you better be inspecting what you’re expecting at all levels so that an intern doesn’t put random content that no one has seen which was created for a purpose that has nothing to do with your brand by a vendor who is unaware it’s being used. This has to start with solid leadership as I mentioned before. Could this mistake that MSU made happen to anyone? It’s possible sure, but that’s precisely why you need to have the quality control and the systems in place to prevent it. Listen, the odds that a mistake could lead to Adolf Hitler being suddenly broadcast to your community would seem to be slim in general - but this extreme example should illustrate the point pretty clearly and sometimes that’s what is needed to hammer it home as painful as it is.
M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com. You can also connect with Doug on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, and/or M10 Social on Twitter or Facebook, and check out his other biz www.VirtualPetcations.com while you’re at it!
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