Sports Illustrated slammed for its Jeremy Lin hashtag

The magazine, which features the hashtag #SILINSANITY on its cover this week, joins several brands in the hashtags-gone-awry club.

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We’ve warned marketers to be careful with this, as it’s become all too common to see these hashtag campaigns hijacked and used as ways to berate the company. Apparently, we should have been warning media companies as well.

The latest to have a hashtag campaign go awry is Sports Illustrated. On its most recent cover, the venerable weekly features New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin. The Harvard graduate has been putting up impressive numbers in his rookie season and, because of his Asian ethnicity, has drawn interest beyond the court. The cover includes the hashtag #SILINSANITY. “SI” is the magazine’s nickname, and “Linsanity” is its way of encouraging conversation around the Lin Hype Machine.

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