literally, a textbook fuck up

i’d give it about four years…

…that’s about how long before it makes the lecture halls. see, when you take any kind of marketing or public relations course, or advertising for that matter, you learn from other people’s mistakes. now, you have to figure we’ve all fucked up once or twice. literally EVERYBODY makes mistakes. and i mean “literally” in the oxford english dictionary sense of the word, not the millennial version.

you learn about the classic chevy ad campaign, where they tried to market the “nova”, named after a celestial body – but in español it means “NO GO” – as in that shit don’t run, son! and you learn the lesson from the guy who did a multi-billion dollar ad campaign for coca-cola in brazil en español.

the problem being brazilans speak portugese.

and then came south dakota’s recent anti-drug campaign…or so they say:

i say “i’m on it” for shit i’m handling via text to my boss at least once a week. no bullshit. it’s part of my lingo. it is in my verbal repertoire. i’m by no means hinting they didn’t use current jargon – they just could have maybe figured out a better way to do this. i get it, but they really have to realize how bad they fucked this up, right? i mean, this kinda shit doesn’t just roll out easy. if my company did something this stupid, marketing-wise, it would come back on me or whatever member of the family that owns the joint was responsible. but that would be it – two phone calls and done, kid. three steps:

1. someone has a bad idea that, while being monumentally retarded, seemed like a good one at the time.
2. somebody executed said idea in some kind of public way, probably via social media
3. the public backlash from said idea makes the reality of the true fuckery at play undeniable.

but you gotta figure this was a GOVERNMENTALLY FUNDED CAMPAIGN. there were meetings. treatments. maybe even focus groups. shit, companies probably had to submit sealed bid budgets and shit. and THIS was what they decided was the best? shit, what failed to pass the test?