Epic PR fail from Ocean Marketing (Penny Arcade hilarity)

This is one of the better "real" flame wars I've read in a while. Check out today's www.penny-arcade.com postings, so popular that they're on all the mainstream gaming sites and have crippled their server.

A single e-mail from a PR rep at Ocean Marketing in response to a customer inquiry about his Avenger pre-order delay:

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Yes it can be used with xtend play if you remove the stand and no one is allowed to cancel and re order if we catch anyone doing it we will simply just cancel your order all together and you can buy it retail somewhere else.

Things happen in manufacturing if your unhappy you have 7 days from the day your item ships for a refund. You placed a pre order just like any software title the gets a date moved due to the tweaks and bugs not being worked out and GameStop or any other place holds your cash and im sure you don’t complain to activision or epic games so put on your big boy hat and wait it out like everyone else. The benefit is a token of our appreaciation for everyone no one is special including you or any first time buyer . Feel free to cancel we need the units were back ordered 11,000 units so your 2 will be gone fast. Maybe I’ll put them on eBay for 150.00 myself. Have a good day Dan.

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Complete e-mail thread at P-A has a lot more goodness.

I JUST read this not even 10 minutes ago. It was beautiful.

looks like ocean marketing is gonna get slagged, good for being an asshat to the one person that means everything to you......the customer

Well to be honest, some customers have this arrogant sense of entitlement. I'm sure gaming customers are even worse. It's good business to listen to them, but it will wear you down in a customer facing job...
I'd be pissed if that's how someone responded to me, but I've had days where people are just idiots all over... I'd love to respond to the idiots as an idiot one day
.

Thank you for your email.

Due to the overwhelming customer feedback we're getting from the situation with Ocean Marketing we are asking those with specific product related concerns to send emails to customerservice@avengercontroller.co

Please know that Ocean Marketing is no longer handling any PR or customer service for our company. We apologize to our customers for Ocean Marketing's remark to one of our customers. We at Kotkin Enterprises know that it's our customers are the true arbiters of our products success and we would never intentionally jeopardize what we see as a relationship between us and our customers. We hope that this incident hasn't put you off of purchasing a truly revolutionary controller.

Thank you for expressing your concerns and we hope for your continued support in the future.

Kotkin Enterprises Avenger Controller Customer Service Team




Someone just lost their job.


edit: I'm thinking of petitioning for the revoke of their E3 booth, make them think twice about something like that again.

The guy's responses are reminiscent of Dion.

The bad grammar made my head hurt. How did that guy ever become the head of anything, let alone PR in a (presumable) large company???

Great story and fuck Ocean. You don't ever treat your customers like that. Especially when they've already paid for the product and are just asking questions.

It doesn't really matter what kind of day the dude was having or how many terrible things he was going through before talking to Dave.

Dude was paid to do a job, not embarrass his client. So fuck him. Good on PA for bringing this to light.

That was amazing. I definitely like Gabe's closing statements on the thing (at the current time). Seriously, once the internet gets going about something like this, there will be no end to the dude's suffering. And maybe it was Gabe's "fault" for posting that stuff on the internet, but it presents an interesting look at the persona of modern techies. We're all connected so heavily on the internet that stuff like this can escalate instantaneously to a level previously unknown to abusive human interaction.

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Originally Posted by Gabe

I will personally burn everything I’ve made to the fucking ground if I think I can catch them in the flames.

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I like the part where the PR guy apologizes because he didn't realize how big Penny Arcade was. Like somehow if they were smaller he'd be totally justified in being such a cock.

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Originally Posted by NeoSneth

Well to be honest, some customers have this arrogant sense of entitlement. I'm sure gaming customers are even worse. It's good business to listen to them, but it will wear you down in a customer facing job...
I'd be pissed if that's how someone responded to me, but I've had days where people are just idiots all over... I'd love to respond to the idiots as an idiot one day
.

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Is this really an appropriate response to the article posted?

I have a very

very

hard time accepting that a PR person has such terrible grammar.

Maybe I should read the thread, but if that's a straight quote, I would venture to say it was faked and if anything, someone got burned because someone at PA had a bad xmas.

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Originally Posted by pandyra

I like the part where the PR guy apologizes because he didn't realize how big Penny Arcade was. Like somehow if they were smaller he'd be totally justified in being such a cock.

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That was the real kicker.

He 'underestimated' Dave.

As though it was perfectly all right for him to keep measuring his dick until he found out that Dave went to PA. Only at that point had he acknowledged he'd made an error.

If Dave hadn't gone to PA, dude probably would have bragged to the mayor of Boston about how he completely told off an 'irritating customer.'

Seriously, fuck Ocean. It's patently offensive and there's absolutely no defense for treating a customer, or your client, like that. Whether they 'deserve' it or not, PR's job is to fucking suck it up and make his client look like professionals.

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Originally Posted by Agent Sands

I have a very

very

hard time accepting that a PR person has such terrible grammar.

Maybe I should read the thread, but if that's a straight quote, I would venture to say it was faked and if anything, someone got burned because someone at PA had a bad xmas.

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Well it looks like its his own company. Anyone can be a pr person or broker just by making a corporation and opening your doors.


I love how he had to change his twitter account. Also there is a lesson here. "don't pissoff teh interwebz!!!!11!!1!!1!"

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Originally Posted by Agent Sands

I have a very

very

hard time accepting that a PR person has such terrible grammar.

Maybe I should read the thread, but if that's a straight quote, I would venture to say it was faked and if anything, someone got burned because someone at PA had a bad xmas.

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Highly doubtful. PA is a multi-million dollar industry in and of themselves and they have far too much to lose on these kind of bone headed shenanigans. This is the real deal.

Anyway, this story just gets more and more weird.

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Originally Posted by Taiso

Anyway, this story just gets more and more weird.

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This quote is the absolute best part of the article:

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Hi Joel,

I have been following this story since this morning when someone notified me about what was going on. I did not write that response to you.

Yes, in the past I received email at brandon@avengercontroller.com but even then we were an outsourced marketing agency for N-Control. I no longer receive email at that address because we fired N-Control as a client about 8 months ago due to constant shipping delays (which we had to deal with) and their association with Paul Cristoforo who is a street thug masquerading as a self proclaimed "Marketing Professional". This guy is a complete fool and somehow strong armed his way into working with the company so we walked away. I am not surprised in the slightest bit by what's going on right now. In fact, we told the owners of the company on many occasions that this would eventually happen.

I wasn't going to chime in but since he is replying as me, I can't resist. I personally can't stand him.

Brandon

__________________________________________________ ___________________

Brandon Leidel - CEO, Director of Operations
The HAND Media, Inc.

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Holy shit. Ouch. That's quite the burn.

I'm completely lost, now.

I like how he is on steroids now.

Talk about egg on your face, this is an omelette. Makes the crap I had with Capcom over my MvC3 order look like nothing. Aren't these controllers for people with disabilities? Really sucks they take money from people and they have people that treat people that already paid money for them like dog shit.

After reading the roids comments and seeing a picture of the guy I really wonder if he's related to Dion. I hope this Dave guy gets the stuff he ordered. I doubt anybody will order a product from them again.

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Originally Posted by Soilwork

Is this really an appropriate response to the article posted?

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If you read the very beginning of the email chain, the kid pretty much acts like a twat because the ship date was delayed....

Everything that follows is insane ego drama.

I spent another hour after the post looking at the various Twitter feeds and it's a wildfire out there. I don't care how bad of a day you have, pass the e-mail to customer service and apologize. It's not like you have to deal with the customer on the phone or in person, in which case it would be infinitely harder to hide your "bad day".

While the lack of Paul's spelling talent was the funniest thing in the article, the most confusing was the actual controller. The Avenger website has to be one of the most poorly designed gaming ones I've seen in a long time. From the font that blends together to the out of focus large picture closeups, I spent five miserable minutes clicking on the links and still was unable to determine how the fuck this contraption works. Yeah, they have pictures, but all it looks like is an HR Giger armor with tentacles.

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Originally Posted by NeoSneth

If you read the very beginning of the email chain, the kid pretty much acts like a twat because the ship date was delayed....

Everything that follows is insane ego drama.

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Gotta disagree with you dude. Let's take a look at it:

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From: Dave
To: Ocean Marketing
Dec 16, 2011, at 1:34 PM

I ordered 2 of the upcoming PS3 controllers (invoice xxxxxxxxx—Nov 3, 2011). Any chance of getting an update of when these items will ship?

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That's six weeks from the order date, and two weeks past the promised original advertised date. Yup, I'd be getting a bit concerned if there was no followup.

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I’m not really happy about being forced to pay upfront then have the advertised date of “Early December” be completely missed without any sort of update on availability. I really need one of them for a X-mas present as well.

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He states his feelings in a fair and reasonable tone. He is unhappy, as one would expect to be when ordering a present for Christmas two months in advance and expecting shipments to occur in early (i.e. first two weeks at the most) December.

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Anyways, looking forward to finally using one of these bad boys. Thanks and happy holidays.

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Despite his unhappiness with the delay he does two of the most important things in any conversation ender: 1) Praise the product/person and 2)Politely thank them for their time/service and wish them well, for the holiday season in this case.

Nothing twattish. Perhaps if he was annoying on the phone it would be one thing, depending on the tone and forcefulness of the conversation. However, there's a limit to how much bending over you can do in a customer service inquiry before you lose track of the initial goals: finding out the delivery time, stating your concerns, and politely engaging towards a future response.

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Originally Posted by NeoSneth

If you read the very beginning of the email chain, the kid pretty much acts like a twat because the ship date was delayed....

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Re-read it.

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Originally Posted by NeoSneth

If you read the very beginning of the email chain, the kid pretty much acts like a twat because the ship date was delayed....

Everything that follows is insane ego drama.

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Disagree.

a fair portion of my job is customer service

easily the one part of my otherwise awesome job i truly dislike

doesn't really need to be stated that some people can be unreasonable, self-important, crazy assholes, but if it's part of your job then it's up to you to put on a faux smile and give the customer what they want

Dave came off as a reasonable and patient customer that i wouldn't mind dealing with

Paul came off as someone who is absolutely undeserving of their position from every possible respect

also, yeah... totally confused by this product as well despite spending a fair amount of time looking at it on that website

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Originally Posted by Average Joe

a fair portion of my job is customer service

easily the one part of my otherwise awesome job i truly dislike

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Really? I loved customer service when I was in it. Do you get a lot of bad customers or something? I loved making regular customers happy, and enjoyed the challenge of handling the difficult ones, too. It's one of the few jobs I've had that I truly enjoyed.

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Originally Posted by Soilwork

Really? I loved customer service when I was in it. Do you get a lot of bad customers or something? I loved making regular customers happy, and enjoyed the challenge of handling the difficult ones, too. It's one of the few jobs I've had that I truly enjoyed.

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for the most part the customers are alright

it's mostly on Sunday's that they're total douchebags

there's some sort of hive-mind effect that makes grocery shoppers fucking assholes on Sunday's and it never fails

i don't know if they're all hungover or are just pious dick-bags but Sunday's without fail take away a lot of the enjoyment i derive from my job

(thankfully that day is time-and-a-half so i take it in strides but it still sucks)

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Originally Posted by Soilwork

Really? I loved customer service when I was in it. Do you get a lot of bad customers or something? I loved making regular customers happy, and enjoyed the challenge of handling the difficult ones, too. It's one of the few jobs I've had that I truly enjoyed.

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I read this at first and I was like 'Wes enjoys customer service?' Just seemed odd to me, given your seeming impatience for shenanigans.

Then I thought about it further and realized that your method of breaking down others' posts is very much about clearing away the nonsense, getting to the point and resolving the matter. That is very much a customer service technique. The problem can get so easily lost in verbiage that good CS knows when to identify what isn't useful and eliminate it from the conversation.

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Originally Posted by Average Joe

for the most part the customers are alright

it's mostly on Sunday's that they're total douchebags

there's some sort of hive-mind effect that makes grocery shoppers fucking assholes on Sunday's and it never fails

i don't know if they're all hungover or are just pious dick-bags but Sunday's without fail take away a lot of the enjoyment i derive from my job

(thankfully that day is time-and-a-half so i take it in strides but it still sucks)

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Don't you work at Whole Foods? I figure a place like that would get less assholes than a regular store. I managed our Walmart's grocery section back in the early 2000's and our nightmare was the 1st (welfare day), but I found a lot of the irritation came not from one-on-one interactions, but shit like people loading up 2 or 3 carts and then getting to the register and their food stamps not working because it wasn't loaded just yet, so I'd have to personally put it all back up (my crew was busy with normal trucks). This happened with alarming regularity. What kind of bs do you put up with there that happened only on Sundays? That sounds crazy.

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Originally Posted by Taiso

I read this at first and I was like 'Wes enjoys customer service?' Just seemed odd to me, given your seeming impatience for shenanigans.

Then I thought about it further and realized that your method of breaking down others' posts is very much about clearing away the nonsense, getting to the point and resolving the matter. That is very much a customer service technique. The problem can get so easily lost in verbiage that good CS knows when to identify what isn't useful and eliminate it from the conversation.

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It's the weirdest thing. I love dealing with people at work, but not in my personal life. I like being able to help an older lady trying to figure out if she needs an HDMI or component cable, or helping a couple of parents decide whether or not they need to get a wifi USB adapter for their daughter or a PCI-Express card. Helping people just feels great. Even when you get the difficult ones, you can figure out how to satisfy them if you take the time and engage them properly. Most times, the difficult customers will begin to request that they deal only with you. When that happens, it's surprising how easy it is to take care of them, not because you're doing anything remarkably different from the last person, but because you were able to take the time to give them the attention they needed when you first met them. They end up being one of the easiest to take care in the end.

In my personal life, I hate most people. I really don't like hanging out with friends, and I've cut many people out of my life because I have no tolerance for even the slightest bullshit (this thread comes to mind). I've been told by many people that I'm an asshole, and I agree with them. It's amazing that I love customer service, but I do. I'd still be in it if it paid better.

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Originally Posted by Soilwork

Don't you work at Whole Foods? I figure a place like that would get less assholes than a regular store. I managed our Walmart's grocery section back in the early 2000's and our nightmare was the 1st (welfare day), but I found a lot of the irritation came not from one-on-one interactions, but shit like people loading up 2 or 3 carts and then getting to the register and their food stamps not working because it wasn't loaded just yet, so I'd have to personally put it all back up (my crew was busy with normal trucks). This happened with alarming regularity. What kind of bs do you put up with there that happened only on Sundays? That sounds crazy.


.

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Oh I bet whole foods is full of wealthy entitled twats who are ok with spending twice as much on groceries.

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Originally Posted by OrochiEddie

Oh I bet whole foods is full of wealthy entitled twats who are ok with spending twice as much on groceries.

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bingo

we have a rather eclectic clientele at our store but we're also on the border of a very rich town (Winchester) so we get a ton of wealthy customers who have a rather high sense of self-worth

don't get me wrong, the majority of the customers are very cool and i do really like my job, but it's funny how the 10% that are assholes balance out with the 90% who are alright

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Originally Posted by Soilwork

Most times, the difficult customers will begin to request that they deal only with you. When that happens, it's surprising how easy it is to take care of them...

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I could definitely relate to pretty much your entire post, especially the above but with a twist. After being so helpful to our difficult customers, I now have Top 5 and Top 10 lists - of most annoying customers. They're not bad people, but ones who always have something custom, something special, some unique shipping requirement, or something else that only I can solve and that takes a half hour conversation to resolve.

Without fail, these are the caller ID numbers that I dread because I know there will be a lot of dead airtime as I stare vacantly at the wall.

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Originally Posted by Kiselgof

I could definitely relate to pretty much your entire post, especially the above but with a twist. After being so helpful to our difficult customers, I now have Top 5 and Top 10 lists - of most annoying customers. They're not bad people, but ones who always have something custom, something special, some unique shipping requirement, or something else that only I can solve and that takes a half hour conversation to resolve.

Without fail, these are the caller ID numbers that I dread because I know there will be a lot of dead airtime as I stare vacantly at the wall.

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I'd be terrible over the phone. I hate talking on the phone, anyway. I really need face-to-face interaction to gauge the situation and how to handle it. I don't envy your job :\

http://ingame.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...nternet-infamy

What an asshole. :rolleyes:

that man is quite terrible at public relations

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Originally Posted by Moon Jump

http://ingame.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...nternet-infamy

What an asshole. :rolleyes:

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Oh my. This guy is completely warped.

"Not that I don't have respect for anybody, but if someone's badmouthing me or being a little punk or being a jerk, they don't deserve respect," he said. "You can't expect to go up and say 'Hey you piece of s***,' and expect respect. Send an email, introduce yourself. ... I trust everybody until they give me a reason not to respect them. I'm not a tough guy, not a bully, but at same time not going to take s*** if it's uncalled for.

I just looked up this PS3 Avenger controller thing, I have no idea what the fuck it is supposed to be.

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Originally Posted by Moon Jump

http://ingame.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...nternet-infamy

What an asshole. :rolleyes:

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"I'm not depressed at people making fun of me," he said. "It's like a parody of Barack Obama. It's making me more popular. I'm not doing anything to stop it, and it is kind of funny. ... It's not the end of the world, and it'll be old news soon, but it's hot news now, and I do see the lighter side of it."

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Emphasis mine. What a dick. I'm pretty sure he's lying when he says that it hasn't hurt business at all, because if it hasn't already it definitely will. A bad day does not justification make, Cristoforo old boy. :shame:

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Originally Posted by Sexual Instinct

I just looked up this PS3 Avenger controller thing, I have no idea what the fuck it is supposed to be.

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It was originally designed to help certain gamers with disabilities who might have trouble reaching all the buttons and triggers. Some people claim it gives a competitive edge because you can hit any button without taking your thumbs off the sticks.

Maybe Boog should look into getting one? Doesn't he have trouble with his hands these days?

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"At the end of the day, I'm a human being, and it feels like the entire world was bullying me," he said. "I want people to like me, I don't want people to think I'm a bad person. ... I made a mistake. ... I hope I can make something positive out of it."

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If he didn't want the entire world bullying him, maybe he shouldn't have tried bullying his paying customer. Or embarrassed his client in the process.

If he wants people to like him, he should learn to treat them with a modicum of respect. Even if he disagrees with them. ESPECIALLY if he disagrees with them.

And he didn't 'make a mistake.' He intentionally, willfully, and at length OVER THE COURSE OF SEVERAL E-MAILS, treated a patron like he didn't matter.

A typo is a mistake. Incorrect word usage is a mistake.

What he did was offensive. Patently so.

There is no defense for it. Absolutely none.

If this guy really wants to make something positive out of it, just apologize. No qualifiers, no explanations, no rationalizations.

Just say 'I'm sorry. I was wrong and now I know it.'

And then prove it with humility and positive action.

that image just screams king douche

Here's some Cliff Notes for those who lack the patience (and/or attention span) to click through 50 pages of links:

A few years ago, in Florida, a teacher makes a special rig-thing for X-box controllers for his disabled student, who can't play with normal controllers due to severe birth defects (which was an awesome thing to do).

The teacher sells the idea to a company that makes gaming peripherals (which is cool).

Said company hires douchebag PR guy, to market it in the States and do customer service.

Please note: douchebag PR guy is just some guy who works out of his fucking apartment, he rides a ricerocket (but made an attempt at a viral youtube video complaining that his realtor didn't tell him about traffic noise, of all things, because he lives next to a freeway), does steroids, has an ego the size of the planet Jupiter, and is an all-around scammy asshole.

The comparison to Dion is apt.

Anyway, the controller rig-thing gets developed, gets put on sale, and the company starts taking orders for a early-December release via the website PR guy made (which is almost ENTIRELY plagiarized, including the fucking "about us" page).

Unfortunately (in my opinion), the marketing for the rig-thing's original purpose; handicap accessibility, is dropped in favor for the worst kind of shitty EXXXTREEEME MARKETING I've seen since the 8-bit era (which is why almost nobody who heard about this fiasco knows what the fuck the rig-thing actually is).

Our hero: the customer, pre-purchases two of them for Christmas presents, in September, and waits.

Early December rolls around and the customer sends an email to the only point-of-contact on the website, asking for a revised release date. PR guy gives a dismissive non-answer.

Customer replies asking for the release date again. PR guy gives a long spiel about "manufacturing processes are hard n' shit" while still giving an non-answer. (anyone who has dealt with a shady ebay buyer/seller knows where this is going...)

Customer asks again. PR guy sends: "December 17th"

Customer asks for clarification: "is that ship date" "is that when they come in country" " will I receive mine in time for Christmas." PR guy replies: "you're going to wait in line like a big boy, just like everyone else." (unknown at the time, but the first shipment of the rig things are still stuck in customs)

The customer replies: "WTF man!? When am I getting the things I have already paid for?" PR guy flips his shit and starts name-dropping the bros he's "in with": "I KNOE KOTAKU I KNOW THE PENNY ARCADE GUYS I KNOW THE MAYOR OF BOSTON! U AINT SHIT!"

The customer pulls the nuclear option: he contacts Gabe from Penny Arcade and sends him the whole email-chain.

After reading and having been "name dropped" by douchebag PR guy (he rented a booth at PAX), Gabe posts a link with the emails (personal-info redacted) to the main page of PennyArcade.com.

The life of PR guy, as he has known it, is over.

SHIT EXPLODES and that's just up to yesterday afternoon.

Then 4-chan gets involved...





Unrelated, but at Penny Arcade it's still:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../i-8Xn7QBv.png

Oh, the internet is really having fun with this chap:

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events...rketing-emails


Shoot, even GEICO is having fun at this guy's expense:

http://i43.tinypic.com/1yv8cz.png

ok, so I guess that makes sense. But why did the controller maker hire the PR guy in the first place. He seems obviously inept at communication skills.

From what I understand, the controller's manufacturer had a different group doing PR and Cristoforo was connected somehow with the manufacturer and owner. He used his typical 'negotiating' tactics to sort of bowl the guy over and muscle his way into the picture. The owner then went to the PR guys and said 'work with this guy, he has connections and may be able to help us.'

Then Cristoforo started going rogue, forging his own connections and business propositions regarding the product and where it would be sold without communicating with the existing PR guys.

The existing PR guys didn't like his rogue tactics and were concerned that his methods would damage their reputation in the process, so they stepped away from the operation and th Avenger company altogether.

That left Avenger with Cristoforo. The rest is history.

The original PR guy seems like a smart dude. Maybe even a prophet. Or maybe he just used common sense.

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Originally Posted by Taiso

From what I understand, the controller's manufacturer had a different group doing PR and Cristoforo was connected somehow with the manufacturer and owner. He used his typical 'negotiating' tactics to sort of bowl the guy over and muscle his way into the picture. The owner then went to the PR guys and said 'work with this guy, he has connections and may be able to help us.'

Then Cristoforo started going rogue, forging his own connections and business propositions regarding the product and where it would be sold without communicating with the existing PR guys.

The existing PR guys didn't like his rogue tactics and were concerned that his methods would damage their reputation in the process, so they stepped away from the operation and th Avenger company altogether.

That left Avenger with Cristoforo. The rest is history.

The original PR guy seems like a smart dude. Maybe even a prophet. Or maybe he just used common sense.

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how does one strong arm into a PR position? This makes little sense to me.

Also, this is one of the best marketing campaigns I have seen in a while. Way to increase brand awareness.

I actually like the idea of the controller, catering to people with things like nerve damage, etc.

Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, being guided as "extreme gaming" means it's going to attract 800 CoD-only players wanting things like turbofire.

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Originally Posted by Agent Sands

how does one strong arm into a PR position? This makes little sense to me.

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Aggressive negotiations with an easily swayed person who feared the consequences of losing a guy who was boasting so many connections and so many outlets to distribute the procuct.

It happens all the time in the business world.

Poor Bill DeLeo: had to legally change his name to Cristoforo and now THIS happens.

Dude should just stay the fuck off the internet.