Would you change your name for a Diet Coke?! Hmm….

This is genius.  A good example of why you should be careful when thinking about your social media campaign and who should run it, as many of these big old ad agencies simply don’t have a clue and can do more damage than help!

In a nutshell, Carat went to great lengths to steal some poor chaps Facebook ID after he wouldn’t settle for a free Diet Coke!   “Harman Bajwa”or Harman was contacted by Carat wanting his  Facebook URL http://facebook.com/harman for their client Harman International:

From: Tyler Bahl
To: Harman Bajwa
Sent: Fri, January 22, 2010 11:25:21 AM
Subject: Harman

Hi Harman,

Thanks for accepting my friend request on Facebook.

I’m the emerging media strategist at Carat in Boston and I work on the Harman International account. We’re launching our first initiative in partnership with the GRAMMYS on Monday. Harman International is looking to obtain the vanity url facebook.com/harman for their Facebook fan page.

We are currently working with Facebook to reclaim (http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=896#/help.php?page=899) the username, but I wanted to explore opportunities to work with you to acquire the name. In the past, we have offered product in exchange for social domain names. One case in mind was for the new movie Avatar , we were able to give promotional items to the owner of twitter.com/avtr for Coke Zero.

Do you have time to connect today to discuss this opportunity in more detail?

Best,

-tb

He of course said no, as that’s his name!

Happily it appears Harman’s name is back to it’s rightful owner as Carat relented under media pressure.  Tribble cover the story in all its glory with this post.