Diana Hussein , aged 29, has been on Twitter for 6 years. Back in 2009 she couldn’t think of a Twitter username. After pondering, and thinking of one her favorite soft drink beverages, she came up with @DietDrPepper.
Back in 2009, Twitter was not at the height of the popularity it enjoys today and, as with the registration of domain names with the early years of the Internet, many companies were slow to register their brands. With Diana Hussein’s choice, this meant that the Dr. Pepper brand was unable to secure a key marketing code. Dr. Pepper is a popular soft drink in the U.S., although it does not sell as well as other exports, like Coca Cola around the world.
Being based in Michigan, Diana Hussein became concerned about the plight in Flint and the lead-contaminated water (a topic covered in detail on Digital Journal by Megan Hamilton and Karen Graham.)
Hussein had the idea of passing her potentially lucrative Twitter name to the Dr Pepper Snapple Group company (owners of the various Dr. Pepper brands, including the diet variant) in exchange for bottles of water to be passed onto the needy people in Flint.
Speaking with ABC News, Diana Hussein explained: “I had been thinking a lot about Flint at that point. I didn’t feel there was anything that I was doing.”
She then entered into negotiations with the Texas-based Dr. pepper company and agreed to pass on the name in exchange for Dr. Pepper delivering 41,000 bottles of water. The water reached the residents at the end of March 2016.
Meanwhile, Hussein has a new Twitter name: @HeyaDiana. Through her new Twitter account, Hussein encourages people to take action and help the Flint community in any way they can.
