On February 4, 2010, a group of twitterers had a poor experience at a Café Coffee Day (CCD) outlet in Chennai. They chose to express their disgust in the form of tweets with the #ccdsucks hashtag and it kicked off a potentially damaging meme on Twitter. The presentation is a snapshot of the entire episode and there are some important lessons in it for brands.

1. #ccdsucks Anatomy of a Social Media Crisis Based on a presentation by @amnigos

3. Expressing their shock in 140 chars Approx 30 more #ccdsucks tweets do the round that evening. CCD sucks… @cafecoffeeday at Ispahani center is kicking twitter out.. #ccducks Tweet from @PPrakash (Prakash P) at 7:50 PM Feb 4 th from Snaptu #ccdsucks cover chrg not defined but threats turng up frm mgr Tweet from @idlee_amin (Tushar R) at 7:51 PM Feb 4 th from Snaptu Cover charge for sitting in this place RT @PPrakash: CCD sucks… @cafecoffeeday at Ispahani center is kicking twitter out.. #ccducks Tweet from @metalsaint (gautham govind) at 7:52 PM Feb 4 th from Snaptu Cover charge for @CafeCoffeeDay? Screw you. #ccdsucks Tweet from @surajram (Surajram Kumaravel) at 7:55 PM Feb 4 th via web

4. Next morning, CCD wakes up and smells the coffee @gopal_b :O We're v sorry about this! It is not CCD's policy to charge a cover. Thanks for letting us know. We're checking on it right away! Tweet from @CafeCoffeeDay (Café Coffee Day) at 10:44 PM Feb 5 th via web @narayananh @bombaylives @additiyom @wiredvijay @ubiquitense CCD does not charge a cover. Thanks a lot for letting us kno n we're v sorry! Tweet from @CafeCoffeeDay (Café Coffee Day) at 10:47 PM Feb 5 th via web @PPrakash @AmolMathur @ahmedhussain @idlee_amin @CreativeWolf Tnks for leting us kno ppl! We don have a policy to chrg a cover. Chking rt nw Tweet from @CafeCoffeeDay (Café Coffee Day) at 10:52 PM Feb 5 th via web @AmolMathur @PPrakash We really want to resolve this issue. pls help us do that. Give us a no. to call so we can personally apologize. Tweet from @CafeCoffeeDay (Café Coffee Day) at 12:14 PM Feb 5 th via web #ccdsucks #ccd CCD does not have a policy to charge a cover anywhere in India. We apologize for the goof up. This will nt be taken lightly. Tweet from @CafeCoffeeDay (Café Coffee Day) at 12:17 PM Feb 5 th via web #ccdsucks #ccd Like we said, give us an opportunity. Give us a no. to call. When resolved, we'll tell evryone bout it on Twitter. Publicly Tweet from @CafeCoffeeDay (Café Coffee Day) at 12:40 PM Feb 5 th via web

5. But, word of mouth spreads… Another 100 #ccdsucks tweets bash Café Coffee Day. Watch power of Indian web users Live on Twitter: unhappy customers vs brand defense #ccdsucks #cafecoffeeday @cafecoffeeday Tweet from @reemsaied (Reem Saied) at 7:08 PM Feb 5 th from LinkedIn Interesting how @CafeCoffeeDay had to use the #ccdsucks hashtag in all their sorry tweets! :D #selfabuse Tweet from @neelannair (Neelakantan Nair) at 11:04 PM Feb 5 th from Echofon @SathyaBhat got thrown out of @CafeCoffeeDay for no reason. They asked for cover charge 1 hr later, after everyone had ordered. #ccdsucks Tweet from @narayananh (Narayanan Hariharan) at 12:15 AM Feb 5 th from HootSuite @CafeCoffeeDay y do u need a number to talk? use twitter! @PPrakash @mad_nad @AmolMathur @javashri @ubiquitense @idlee_amin #ccdsucks Tweet from @narayananh (Narayanan Hariharan) at 12:45 PM Feb 5 th from HootSuite Here is the #ccdsucks FAN page on #fb. Join in. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cafe-Coffee-Day-Sucks/291737396851 RT to ur frnds.! Tweet from @Pricelessdream /@AmolMathur (Amol Mathur) at 5:567PM Feb 5 th from Echofon

6. Many wonder, many watch… In fact, nearly 500 #ccdsucks tweets had a neutral flavour. They made a fan page now for #ccdsucks, http://bit.ly/cQ79HH itna kya kar diya bhai ccd ne Tweet from @ankitagaba(Ankita Gaba) at 6:14 PM Feb 5 th from TweetDeck OK, what has Cafe Coffee Day done now? I see the #ccdsucks tag going around, but can’t trace the original incident Tweet from @madmanweb (Madhu ‘MadMan’ Menon) at 6:01 PM Feb 5 th from TweetDeck #ccdsucks is loads of fun for me! RT @startonomics: when did @cafecoffeeday started sucking ?....people who go there sucks… coffee… :P Tweet from @svsashank (Venkata Sashank) at 6:22 PM Feb 4 th via web #ccdsucks has become a pressure cooker. Tweet from @rkavan (Kavan Ravi) at 5:49 PM Feb 4 th from Tweetie

7. And then, there’s support for CCD Surprisingly, close to 68 #ccdsucks tweets expressed support for Café Coffee Day. @mad_nad Ok, nw I know what you’re trying to do. U’re frm a PR agency so u’ll bash them up and den go to them wid a pitch to handle their PR Tweet from @indrani84 (Indrani) at 12:34 PM Feb 5 th via web @mad_nad why do they ‘owe’ u an explanation on twitter – so long as they’ve acknowledged the problem & r fixing it?I don’t get it really Tweet from @dina (Dina Mehta) at 4:32 PM Feb 5 th from Seesmic Kudos to @cafecoffeeday for handling the #ccdsucks meme well by listening quickly & responding openly. cc: @evansdave @nidhibhasin Tweet from @Gauravonomics (Gaurav Mishra) at 10:50 AM Feb 6 th from TweetDeck #ccdsucks #ccd I think @CafeCoffeeDay seems genuine in their efforts.. Give them a chance instead of beating them dwn further Tweet from @sanjay_sahay (sanjay sahay) at 6:44 PM Feb 5 th via web @sumants exactly. the #ccdsucks twitter mob needs to stop being unreasonable Tweet from @twilightfairy (sanjay sahay) at 9:59 AM Feb 6 th from Seesmic

8. Influencers & Curators Twitter Handle Number of #ccdsucks tweets @amolmathur (Amol Mathur) 81 @narayananh (Narayanan Hariharan) 23 @tinucherian (CherianTinuAbraham) @dhempe (Harish Thota) 17 @ankitagaba (Ankita Gaba) 16 @alexzz99 (Alex Gautam) 15 @ideasmaverick (Preetham Venkky) @pprakash (Prakash P) 14 @shivamvij (Shivam Vij) @metalsaint (gautham govind) 12 @javashri (Shrinath) @prashanth_p 11 @ritesharora (Ritesh Arora) @svsashank (Venkata Sashank) @maheshmurthy (Mahesh Murthy) @amnigos (Vijay Rayapati) 10 @adityarao310 (Aditya Rao) @skyn3t (Neeraj Pattath) 8

9. #ccdsucks trends Life of the #ccdsucks crisis

10. The Participator Pyramid Total Number of Participants: 754 153 High Influencers (Personas) 214 Influencers (Connectors) 387 Digital Naives (Casual Users) Sentiment Analysis 10% Positive 72% Neutral 18% Negative Number of #ccdsucks tweets (1-week period) For/Against Analysis Number of people who took a stand for or against CCD 36% For CCD 64% Against CCD

11. @CafeCoffeeDay Followers Jan 19 Jan 24 Jan 29 Feb 3 Feb 8 Feb 13 Feb 18 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 @CafeCoffeeDay’s followers increased exponentially in the week of the #ccdsucks crisis

13. Indeed, a lot can happen over coffee!