PR Fiasco in the making: Gizmodo at CES
Written on January 11, 2008 – 7:57 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
The Gizmodo team is known for its humor, different look at things and pranks. But it seems they have gone too far this time. At CES they walked around with a little home made device called a TV-B-Gone which allows you to remotely switch of LCD screens. Then they walked around the expo floors and randomly switched of LCD monitors. In a post titled “Confessions: The Meanest Thing Gizmodo Did at CES” they show a video of LCD screens switching off and sales people, sometimes with a large audience, panicking to get their equipment working again.
The first 10 seconds are funny but then you start wondering about those poor guys with their failing equipment. Apparently most people are more annoyed than amused and it seems this thing is turning into a PR nightmare fast. The post has received over 600 comments and most are negative. Bloggers are publicly voicing their anger and disagreement too.
They say that there is no such thing as bad press and the post has been viewed more than 150.000 times. But annoying your loyal followers is never a good idea. It is going to be interesting to see how they talk themselves out of this. And if they get another invitation for next years expo…
I hope you like that post!
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