So you’re an agency executive on your way to make a presentation to your client. A big client. A really big client. You land. You get off the plane. You head to your destination. You launch Twitter and write, “True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say ‘I would die if I had to live here!'”
Then, an employee at the client company sees the tweet, gets upset and fires off an email expressing offense to the tweet…and cc’s agency and client management.
The agency executive? Ketchum VP James Andrews.
The client? FedEx…based in Memphis.
Oops. Big oops.
Ah, the never ending dangers of a 140 character tweet.
In fairness to Andrews, he explained his tweet was “the emotional response to a run in I had with an intolerant individual.” Hey, it happens to everyone. We have a bad situation. We get angry. We express the anger.
Though now we have all kinds of public outlets through which to express anger for all to see and with that comes the dangers of misinterpretation which is what Andrews has termed this situation.
We’re sure James Andrews is a nice guy. We’re sure he meant no personal offense to those living in Memphis. We’re sure it was just a genuine reaction to a crappy situation.
One commenter calls the whole thing an overreaction, writing, “wow. this isn’t @keyinfluencer’s mistake. it’s a ridiculous overreaction that was then shared with execs making a splash for what should have been a non-issue. People who live in small cities are always trying to prove something. They exhibit irrational pride for their little slice of nowhere. Seriously. Who cares? If James said he would die if he had to live in LA, no client would even take notice. Of if they did notice they certainly wouldn’t care. They definitely wouldn’t ship it to a gaggle of senior leaders at both companies. But talk about Memphis…..and it’s ON. Give me a break people. Lighten up.”
