Social media marketing is all about businesses having conversations with their customers. In many industries this era is the first in which brands have actually listened rather than trumpeted their hype from the tallest billboards and loudest channels. That listening is opening the eyes of brand managers, CMOs and CEOs everywhere.

Unfortunately, brands sometimes forget to listen internally, though. A recent and very strange personal experience illustrates this point.

On Wednesday of this week, my family stopped at our local Dairy Queen for lunch. We grabbed it to go since our house is less than a mile from the store. When we got home, my wife opened her bacon cheeseburger to add ketchup and exclaimed, “You’ve GOT to be kidding me?!”