Activism and Social Media – John Snow Kiss In

There was a great example yesterday of how Social Media can be used to quickly stir up a response within community groups to some even which they feel is unjust. Yesterday’s example was a flash mob “kiss in” at the John Snow pub in Soho, London.

Events unfurled as follows as reported by The Guardian newspaper.

Wednesday 12th April – James Bull a charity worker and Jonathan Williams, a journalist for a financial magazine, dined in Covent Garden. They subsequently strolled to the popular John Snow, which Williams said he was accustomed to visiting around once a week. The date followed its natural progression but when the pair began to kiss they were asked to leave the pub, first by a man claiming to be the landlord, who said their display of affection was “bothering” him, and later by a woman in staff uniform who said she was the landlady and found their kissing “obscene”.

Thursday 13th April – Jonathan tweets “Seven years in London & I’ve never been made to feel bad for bring gay. 45 min ago the John Snow pub, W1F had me removed for kissing a date.

Thursday afternoon – Johnathon’s tweet is re-tweeted many times.

IT director Paul Shelter picks up the Tweet and decides to act.

Friday morning – A Facebook Kiss In Event is created by IT director Paul Shelter is virally spreading with hundreds promising to attend the event that evening. “Please remember THIS IS A LOVE REVOLUTION,” the Facebook event page reads. “Just lip balm, fresh breath, and kissing. it’s all about being fun and sexy.”

11.15 – The Guardian Newspaper publishes a live blog.

1.00pm – someone tells me about the event in person at the gym (I had Twittelator turned off). It sounds like it is going to be big as people are drumming up support virally. I catch up on the Tweets. 531 people are attending on Facebook.

3.30pm the John Snow closes its doors. According to Natalie Curran, a 31-year-old TV producer, who was drinking at the John Snow when it closed, said: “The guy on the door said the landlord didn’t want to stay open because of the number of people who might come.” The John Snow is usually packed on Friday evening.

6.30pm – BBC London News reports this as their second evening news story. The Guardian and Independent are reporting the news item. Citizen journalism blog has this lead story.

6.45pm – The Socialist Works party try to hijack the event

7pm About 300 people attend the kiss in outside the John Snow pub.

Saturday 16th April – News has spread around the globe. Google news search results are listing hundreds of entries for “John Snow Kiss In”. Friends contact me from Australia. Another protest is planned I tell them. The generic ‘Kiss-in Protest Against Homophobia at John Snow pub, Soho’ is scheduled for 5pm on Thursday 21 April.

The item is the number one most read story on The Guardian online.

What Went Wrong for Samuel Smith?

The John Snow pub lost thousands of pounds in revenue on it’s busiest night of the week, but the losses for Samuel Smith brewery in public relations are far higher. Through Twitter and Facebook, a single member of the Facebook community was able to reach out to people to felt passionate about this subject, namely human rights and in particular gay rights. Hundreds of people attended the event at short notice and thousands if not hundreds of thousands were talking about it.

Jonathan Williams and James Bull

Samuel Smith if they had a Social Media Policy in place, should have had their agency mitigate this PR disaster through Facebook and Twitter. Surely if only from a business perspective, the right thing to do was to apologise to James Bull and Jonathan Williams and issue a statement promising to provide further anti-discrimination training to their staff. However Samuel Smith have refused to comment to journalists including The Guardian and The Independent (big mistake).

The John Snow incident follows a similar one in 2010, when The Greencoat Boy pub in Westminster asked an LGBT Group to leave the pub. The resulting media and Twitter storm resulted in a full apology and compensation from owners Punch Taverns.

A flash mob, like any mob wants blood and the John Snow pub manager involved has severely damaged his employers brand and his employers reputation at a time of financial hardship and at a time when pub numbers are in decline.

Twitter and Facebook can quickly reach large numbers of people who react to issues they feel passionate about. The social networks open up the dialog between customer and brand and provide opportunities for either side to either inflame or mitigate the situation. In this conversation Samuel Smith were (unfortunately for them) not present.

This John Snow matter is now in the hands of the police, as this type of discrimination (provision of a service) is against the law, according to the Equality Act 2010.