Valley PR Blog

What should Circuit City have done?

By Angelo Fernando on August 7th, 2008 In Hype!

What should an organization do if when it is made fun of as Circuit City was this week? In retrospect, it’s easy to look at their knee-jerk reaction to destroy copies of the magazine on their racks as a stupid move. But what would you do if your employer’s or client’s reputation was undermined?

Someone in Circuit City’s Corporate communications moved quickly to retake the story, but it was not his apology that was smart, but the fact that he responded at all: “The parody of our newspaper ad in the August MAD was very clever. Most of us at Circuit City share a rich sense of humor and irony…but there are occasional temporary lapses.”

He could have easily fired back at Mad magazine with “The parody of our newspaper is completely unfair, and in very poor taste. We are a customer-centric organization with some of the highest satisfaction rates. Our unbeatable price guarantee. …bla bla bla…”

Instead he ‘rewarded’ the editor with a gift card. And read how he ended his letter about the very product made fun of.

What else could Circuit City have done in this situation?

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