PR Firm Unwisely Tangles With Penny Arcade 419
New submitter FSWKU writes "Courtesy of Penny-Arcade, Paul Christoforo of Ocean Marketing provides a perfect example of what not to do when interacting with customers, especially if you are doing so on behalf of another company. There's name dropping, an ego trip worthy of Charlie Sheen, and even what appears to be a promise to commit libel. Other outlets are already picking up the story and running with it, and an examination of Ocean Marketing's website has generated accusations of plagiarism."
A classic example... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't pick a fight (Score:5, Interesting)
the bad side of outsourceing (Score:4, Interesting)
Now maybe if just N-Control had there own Marketing maybe they would not end up as part of this mess.
Sounds like a Sociopath (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously. Re-read the e-mails and ask yourself, "Does this sound like something a sociopath would say?"
If you don't know what a sociopath is, then read Snakes in Suits [amazon.com].
Go PA! (Score:5, Interesting)
Go Penny Arcade! Not only do they run one of the oldest and kickass web comics for games, they run their own gaming convention, their own charity called child's play (its mentioned in the email thread) and they've featured jack thompson on the comic a bunch of times along with the modest video game proposal thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Video_Game_Proposal [wikipedia.org]
Re:Don't pick a fight (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A classic example... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, lots of (bad) PR, and is probably going to bankrupt his clients. This particular interaction, combined with name dropping and poor spelling / grammar, ranks up there with a PR nightmare. He might as well have said that his much-awaited product was made with using parts left over from Chernobyl and orphan child labor, at a UNICEF convention. Ocean's various semi-hidden threats of violence really adds a certain flair to the discussion.
And I have an undying urge to short the stock of Ocean's clients; were I one of Ocean's clients, I would be taking the steel wool and matches approach to my relationship with Ocean.
But seriously, I think everyone on /. needs to chip in, and buy this guy some spelling lessons:
"OK Mike whatever you say lol , are you sure hour not in Boston I spoke to the person who ran the show in Boston last year. If you let some little kid influence you over a pre order then we don’t want to be a your show ,Ill be on the floor anyway so come find me , I’m born and raised in Boston I know the people who run the city inside and out watch the way you talk to people you never know who they know it’s a small industry and everyone knows everyone. Your acting like a douchbag not that it matters pax east pax west , e3 , CES , Gamer Con , SSXW ,Comic Con, Germany I’m all over the place. If we want to be there we will be there with industry badges or with a booth you think I can’t team up with turtle beach , Callibur or Koy Christmas , I can’t get Kevin Kelly to pull some strings or G4 , Paul Eibler Ex CEO of take 2 , Rich Larocco Konami , Cliff Blizinski Epic who were working with on a gears version , Activision who were working with on a MW3 and Spider man Bundle , The Convention Center Owners themselves , Mayor of Boston come on Bud you run a show that’s all you do and lease a center in Cities you have no pull in its all about who you know not what you do. I’ll see space where ever I want , with who I want when I want and where I want so many ways around you and so many connections in this industry its silly. Anyway , I have no issue with you Sean Buckley Engadget, Scott Lowe IGN and the list goes on and on. Little kids unhappy with a PRE ORDER starting trouble and you email that to us , he’s a customer unless you’re his boyfriend then you should side with the company not the customer. Be Careful"
Re:This is wrong! (Score:3, Interesting)
what about mail order fraud laws here? (Score:2, Interesting)
There *are* laws about delivery promises with mail order, particularly if there's prepayment going on. Notification of ship delays, opportunity for refund, etc.
Perhaps online sales aren't subject to these laws?
Otherwise, the might and fury of the postal inspection service will be visited upon the miscreant.
(and, if the payment was made by credit card, there's all those merchant card agreements to worry about... The credit card companies take a pretty dim view of merchants pulling the "pay now, oops we delayed shipment" thing, and pretty soon, you can't be accepting credit cards any more)
Re:How to live in denial. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A classic example... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. The only time "bad" PR is good PR is when it is outrage by a small segment or manufactured entirely. So like when some people got up in arms about the nuke scene in Call of Duty 4, it wasn't actually bad PR. While those people were complaining and the media was reporting on it, the controversy made gamers say "I need to see that!" The actual customers were interested and thus it was good PR in reality.
When you get PR for something like this, or for criminal activity or whatever it is just flat out bad PR. It scares customers away and you never want that.
Re:Paul Christoforo's LinkedIn Page (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A classic example... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not just the drugs, he really does have psychological issues. Notice how in both his apologies he mentioned making the mistake of underestimating the people he was replying to, demonstrating a total lack of remorse. He's not sorry for what happened, his only concerns are the career-ending consequences. Bullshit apologies are expected as standard procedure for damage control in situations like these, but normal people tend to adopt a stance that the public can empathize with.
The Bloggess (Score:4, Interesting)
A few months back, TheBloggess got a generic PR Pitch, completely disconnected from what she blogs about. She responded in her usual fashion, by directing them to a page that, in part, had a photo of Wil Wheaton collating papers. (See: http://thebloggess.com/heres-a-picture-of-wil-wheaton-collating-papers/ ) Usually, the PR companies that get this response don't reply or send back a polite response. A VP at this PR firm decided to reply to call her a "bitch". Did I say Reply? I meant Reply All. Including TheBloggess. An e-mail tiff ensued with VP claiming that the TheBloggess should be grateful that they sent her the pitch as their sending pitches to her was what gave her relevancy. She ended the exchange with "Please stand by for a demonstration of relevancy." Then, she blogged and tweeted about it.
Now, if you don't know, TheBloggess is big in the blogging world. She has almost 200,000 followers on Twitter and has a HUGE blog following. Her followers went berserk and inundated the company's Twitter account. Wil Wheaton who had posed for that photo on TheBloggess' site and who has almost 2 million Twitter followers tweeted about it. The PR company was forced to backpedal big time.
My take on the situation (Score:2, Interesting)
The "maker" of the controller is a small company that realized that they couldn't make it themselves because they don;t have the capital, so they made an agreement to have a company in china manufacture it for them. The Chinese company probably did it for close to nothing, but the small company that placed the orders didn't get all their ducks in a row when it comes to manufacturing timelines etc. If you've read some previous complaints, they had previously hired another company to do their customer service for them, again most likely outsourcing because of a lack of capital. After a lot of previous problems, they lost that company. It's not clear if that company bailed, or if they fired them.
It then looks like they hired dave, Whose linkedin page basically says he graduated from Newberry college in 1992, then had no job until he started a small SEO company. SEO as many of you know is a soft art, as 90% of SEO firms don;t actually break the search algorithm, they just figure out some of the effects and learn how to game the system a bit. Well for some reason Avenger decides to hire this web guy to handle their sales and customer service! He was probably willing to do that for close to nothing, and had no idea what a Customer Service nightmare it was. Also previous customer service had made a lot of promises that he couldn't possibly keep, because the maker probably didn;t understand what was going on with shipping and customs and couldn't give him good information on what to accept!
That being said, what should have happened is he should have either - told Avenger he wasn't equipped to handle the scale of the problem, or required enough capital to pay for a team of Customer service people. But like most small business owners that fail, he was an idiot and buried himself and the company that hired him.
This stuff happens all the time, because small businesses operate on small margins, and when you grow to fast it is very very hard to control all aspects of the situation. That being said the controller looks pretty cool.
Re:A classic example... (Score:2, Interesting)
Read your line one: PR man has unprofessional outburst
Read line two: client, the inventor, is now getting smeared for PR man's outburst.
If you are a PR man and you bring your client such negative publicity you should be fired. He's achieved the exact opposite of what he gets/got paid for. Why shouldn't he be fired? If you had hired a PR firm and one of their employees did this to one of your customers you'd be fine with it? What the hell are you paying them for then?
It's bad...but there is far worse (Score:5, Interesting)
If this is "not all that bad", I really need to see an example that fits your definition of "that bad".
Clearly it is bad...but there is worse: Gerald Ratner's after dinner speech [wikipedia.org]. Ratner's used to be a high street jewelry store in the UK. This one speech wiped ~500 million pounds (possibly over $1 billion dollars with the 1991 exchange rate - even more in today's money allowing for inflation) off the value of the company, almost causing it to collapse.
...so even when it comes to disasters this guy is still not all that great!
Re:Wow. (Score:2, Interesting)
No. You're wrong.
It's important to expose psychopaths for what they are so that society can protect itself.
Dave was understandably angry. I would be also. But he was also rational and in the right.
Paul has all the earmarks of a psychopath. Note that he isn't giving up, is not shamed into retreat, is not changing tactics. Is not capable of thinking that he is wrong.
This sort of exposure should happen more frequently, with harsher results, with more informed discussion as to what psychopaths are, what their behavior traits are, and how best to destroy them. They are not human. They are manipulators, bullies, killers with zero hope of rehabilitation.
Exposing them is a duty, not an act of 'douche-dom'.
Re:A classic example... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sorry, but no.
*I* have ADHD. And I don't act like that. Neither does he have Tourettes, or any other popular psych label that people throw about like confetti now-a-days. The guy is a flaming asshole, end of story.
I'm glad he's getting lynched. The only disappointing thing is that it probably won't turn his thinking around. Maybe if this happens to him a couple more times...
If people like this got ripped new ones more often, then the world would be a much better place.