A little marketing research can go a long way. With Facebook’s Terms of Use fiasco, I ask myself, “Did anybody think about potential backlash?” For $30,000, they could have gauged the response of hundreds of members. Instead, they made a business decision that was short-sighted and ill-informed. Now they have had to reverse course after being brutally flogged by their constituents and the media. I just wonder how much this will cost in terms of brand equity; it will likely be considerably more than they could have spent on sound research.

Advertisement