Last week my colleague sent me a link to an article with the email subject line, “looking for some entertainment?” And, boy oh boy, was it something to read.
It was the saga of PR gone bad by Ocean Marketing. Or, is it …
On the surface this train wreck of a story looks like a PR nightmare, but upon closer examination, it turns out that it’s a customer service disaster that happened to have been handled by a marketing firm.
It’s one of those stories that you know if going to be bad from the start, but there is no way imaginable that you can foresee a PR/marketing guy tell a customer that he is wrong and then move on to name drop to the editor of his primary target publication and tell him that his publication sucks – all before he even realizes who he is talking to.
The first thing you learn in any PR or marketing class is to know your audience. Clearly, this gentleman (and that’s being nice) forgot that first rule. My advice, read through the news about Ocean Marketing and then watch this spoof on the whole thing.
Happy laughing! What do you think of the situation?
Thanks for sharing. SO entertaining. Love when PR people are only nice to “important” people…sad his family is getting threats. People should really just focus on his actions and remember that anything online (whether email or via social networks) can and will always come back to haunt you.
Yes, this one totally threw me. The common courtesy that flew out the window with just a small amount of prodding really is ridiculous. How come people just can’t be nice to each other?