Epic PR fail from Ocean Marketing (Penny Arcade hilarity)

Comrade Porn King Mikhail · Dec 27, 2011

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:

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.

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

SonGohan · Dec 27, 2011

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

Kid Panda · Dec 27, 2011

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

NeoSneth · Dec 27, 2011

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
.

SetaSouji?? · Dec 27, 2011

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.

Ghost-Dog · Dec 27, 2011

The guy's responses are reminiscent of Dion.

Renmauzo · Dec 27, 2011

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???

Taiso · Dec 27, 2011

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.

ookitarepanda · Dec 27, 2011

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.

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

pandyra · Dec 27, 2011

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.

SonGohan · Dec 27, 2011

NeoSneth said:
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
.

Is this really an appropriate response to the article posted?

evil wasabi · Dec 27, 2011

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.

Taiso · Dec 27, 2011

pandyra said:
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.

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.

cdamm · Dec 27, 2011

Agent Sands said:
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.

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!"

Taiso · Dec 27, 2011

Agent Sands said:
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.

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.

pandyra · Dec 27, 2011

Taiso said:
Anyway, this story just gets more and more weird.

This quote is the absolute best part of the article:

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.

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

SonGohan · Dec 27, 2011

I'm completely lost, now.

cdamm · Dec 28, 2011

I like how he is on steroids now.

Moon Jump · Dec 28, 2011

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.

NeoSneth · Dec 28, 2011

Soilwork said:
Is this really an appropriate response to the article posted?

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.

Comrade Porn King Mikhail · Dec 28, 2011

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.

Comrade Porn King Mikhail · Dec 28, 2011

NeoSneth said:
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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

SonGohan · Dec 28, 2011

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

Re-read it.

Taiso · Dec 28, 2011

NeoSneth said:
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.

Disagree.

Average Joe · Dec 28, 2011

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

Epic PR fail from Ocean Marketing (Penny Arcade hilarity)

T&#1047;h &#1071;ussia&#1048;s &#1044;re C&#1060;m

Made of Wood

The Chinese Kid

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout

There Can be Only One

Presented by the Florida Department of Economic Op

MS Paint Master.

No, you may not ask what part of Greece I'm from!

rare's hero,

Mr. Big's Thug

Made of Wood

The Jongmaster

No, you may not ask what part of Greece I'm from!

Trust the French?

No, you may not ask what part of Greece I'm from!

Mr. Big's Thug

Made of Wood

Trust the French?

Alfred Garcia's Butler

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout

T&#1047;h &#1071;ussia&#1048;s &#1044;re C&#1060;m

T&#1047;h &#1071;ussia&#1048;s &#1044;re C&#1060;m

Made of Wood

No, you may not ask what part of Greece I'm from!

Calmer than you are.

TЗh ЯussiaИs Дre CФm

TЗh ЯussiaИs Дre CФm

TЗh ЯussiaИs Дre CФm