Troubled telecoms firm TalkTalk is using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and Twitter to provide support to the customers that may have fallen victim to its recent cyber attack.
The top paid-for option on Google is a link to www.talktalk.co.uk, headed up by the admission that “We Suffered a Website Cyber Breach” and an invitation to read the group’s Customer Guide for more information about the attack.
Once the link is clicked, users are greeted with a message clarifying details about the “significant and sustained cyber attack” suffered on Wednesday, October 21 which left the personal information and banking details of over four million phone, TV and broadband customers at risk.
Having a paid-for option stand atop of a search for ‘TalkTalk’ should reduce the need for the telecoms provider to compete organically with the likes of who Daily Mail, the Guardian and BBC, whose updates on the case are performing strongly.
Necessary adjustments
First reported by Campaign Live, the restructure of TalkTalk’s advertising strategy appears to be offering clues as to what the company considers ‘nice-to-have’ as opposed to ‘must-have’ investments at such a pressing time.
‘X Factor’ viewers took to Twitter over the weekend to highlight the unusual lack of TalkTalk presence during a recent episode. Before the attack, clips of people singing along to their favourite songs were placed before and after a commercial break as part of a multi-million pound deal with the show.
A source representing the company later confirmed the slicing of several “brand marketing” activities as it looks to provide support and reassurance to customers through performance-based methods of PR.
Caring for the community
The decision to switch strategies is likely to have been made shortly after news of the cyber attack broke. Analysis of the company’s Twitter activity through @TalkTalkCare shows a rapid increase in the volume of Tweets sent from October 21, when the group’s site was made unavailable.
It’s thought many of these are in response to customers wanting to know about the best ways of protecting themselves and their information after talktalk.co.uk went offline.
In short, it looks like TalkTalk is prepared to veer away from some of its methods of new customer acquisition in order to keep existing customers in the loop.
PerformanceIN has reached out to a member of the group’s online marketing team for further information regarding the above, but is yet to receive a response.