At the beginning of the week we reported on Coca Cola making a pretty big mistake – posting pornographic material on young Facebook users’ profiles for a Dr Pepper advertising campaign.

Coca Cola is now reported to be considering cutting ties with the agency that created the campaign, which led to parents accusing them of targeting children by referencing a notorious pornographic film.

The soft-drinks giant has told the agency that it must stop all advertising work on Coca-Cola brands until a decision is reached on whether to terminate the relationship.

“We have stopped all our ongoing work with [digital agency] Lean Mean Fighting Machine and are currently reviewing our relationship with the agency,” said a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola GB.

The company was forced to pull the Facebook campaign for its Dr Pepper brand, in which users allowed their Facebook status box to be taken over by the company. Users could choose from three levels of “embarrassingness”, and the contract with Facebook stipulated that all content had to be moderated by Coke before going live.

However, the promotion backfired when a Mumsnet user saw her 14-year-old daughter’s Facebook page – or rather the Dr Pepper campaign she had joined – had been updated with a message that made direct reference to a hardcore pornographic film. Coca-Cola apologised and announced an investigation into its promotion procedures.

It said the offending line had been approved by them, without them realising its true meaning.

Dr Pepper is no stranger to flirting with social media controversy in its marketing activity, which uses the strapline “What’s the worst that can happen?”. For April Fool’s Day the brand launched a push on Chatroulette featuring a cheerleader.

Access the original article online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/21/facebook-dr-pepper-coca-cola