Bing's Japan quake relief Twitter campaign turns into an #epicfail

Bing's donation compaign for Japan earthquake relief perhaps had good intentions, but ended us as an #epicfail. The campaign was launched early Saturday morning PT on March 12, with the following Tweet:

Now you can #SupportJapan - http://binged.it/fEh7iT. For every retweet, @bing will give $1 to Japan quake victims, up to $100K.

The $100,000 is nice, but in order to do it Microsoft will need to get 100,000 retweets. What has really upset people is that Microsoft has essentially turned a huge tragedy into a marketing campaign.

There are plenty of positive retweets. However, there are also plenty of critics. One such Tweet was:

Note to marketers: Using a natural disaster as a social marketing opportunity is a bad idea #obvious #bing

Microsoft and Bing are not the only ones getting hammered. American Idol host Ryan Seacrest, who obviously has a relationship with Microsoft's decision engine, also took flak for Tweeting this:

Been connecting w/ my friends at @Bing all morn for a easy way to raise money for Japan quake victims thru twitter and...

For each retweet @Bing will give $1 to Japan quake victims up to $100K. More ways to #SupportJapan http://binged.it/fEh7iT

to which the following response was Tweeted:

What a way to turn a tragedy in to marketing @RyanSeacrest. Shame on you and @Bing!

For Microsoft, the campaign has gotten people talking, which is what they wanted. The problem is that much of the talk is negative.

Via: Venture Beat