Recently Gizmodo posted a funny article about the 7 types of employees you meet at Best Buy. Nothing new there, a very good blogger with a keen understanding of who his audience is and the ability to play upon their preferences with witty observations. This is right within Gizmodo’s comfort zone to write funny/ snarky reviews and his audience eats it up as a side show to the main content …which is to review the latest gadgets and geek porn.
Normally, when a blogger writes a snarky post about a brand that gains some traction the PR Agency for the brand assesses the impact and either responds with a flurry of manufactured positive press or (depending on the negative impact of the snark post) creates some form of counterattack refuting the blogger’s review point-by-point.
In this case, the Best Buy CMO (Barry Judge) did something that brands rarely do on a platform that most CMO’s do not have… he responded quickly on his own blog with a funny “Right Back Atchew Dude” post providing a humerous profile of the Gizmodo blogger. The response by Judge was a perfect in-kind snark retort that showed he could take a joke, and that he was able to play the same game as the Gizmodo blogger. By doing this he actually showed to the Gizmodo audience that he was not the uptight, clueless corporate marketer that really did not “get it.” Brilliant move.
…Well almost.
After his initial post, Barry must have either gotten posters-remorse OR a call from someone higher up on the Best Buy corporate food chain because he went back and added a preface to his post.
“My team brought me this idea in response to a post about Best Buy employees on Gizmodo yesterday. Frankly, I didn’t think it was that funny and wasn’t sure it aligned with my core values. I was excited though that the team was thinking about new ways to use new media so I have decided to support their thinking and publish it. So I will be curious to hear your feedback.”
Barrry, Barry… Barry? Why? You had it perfect man with the original post man. Then you had to go and undo your cool cred by getting all corporate doofus and posting that preface. At least you left your original funny snark response too, but you totally devalued it by adding that stiff corporate drivel at the front.
Of course, this late addition by Barry did not go unnoticed by the Gizmodo blogger (or his loyal followers btw) and he promptly posted a follow up response pointing out the dumbassness of that move. In one small post-edit, Barry Judge undermined the power of his own original post + provided further writing material for Gizmodo by doing so. Whoops Barry.
I still have high regard for Barry Judge, and think that he “gets it” more than 90% of the other CMO’s out there. His instincts were right on — now he just needs to figure out how to stick with them and not second guess himself… or let others do that for him.
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