Chevy Responds To Meme Mocking World Series MVP Presentation Flub Exactly The Right Way

from the technology-and-stuff dept

Mon, Nov 3rd 2014 2:37pm — Timothy Geigner

All too often it seems as though companies take themselves entirely too seriously these days. With branding being seen as all important, too often the concept of actually behaving in a human and awesome way is lost, leading to a total lack of personality. Chevy, on the other hand, showed everyone else exactly how to handle the internet's cruel mockery.

If you're even a casual baseball fan, you probably watched some part of the game 7 World Series final the other night. If you stuck around for the presentation of the MVP trophy to pitcher Madison Bamgarner, you witnessed local Chevy guy, Rikk Wilde, attempt to give the sponsored trophy away. It did not go well. While it is certainly understandable how a local guy with probably limited experience with speaking publicly before a national audience might fall victim to nerves in this scenario, the internet is a cruel observer and it went nuts with this video. In particular, Wilde's attempt to sell the world on the sweetness of Chevy vehicles due to the inclusion of "technology...and stuff" was instantly transformed into the meme du jour. Twitter blew up with #technologyandstuff tags, and some enterprising memesters came up with stuff like this.

All this was inevitable of course, because the internet loves to take a mistake and multiply it into a cultural thing for poops and giggles. It can't help itself. And, of course, Chevy just wouldn't be able to help from completely freaking out that what was supposed to be a carefully orchestrated sponsorship marketing opportunity had turned into a massive joke. They'd simply have to go into damage control. Except they didn't. Nope, not even a little bit.

Truck yeah the 2015 #ChevyColorado has awesome #TechnologyAndStuff! You know you want a truck: http://t.co/0NcEoDRSUZ pic.twitter.com/RMiRic8ATF — Chevy Trucks (@ChevyTrucks) October 30, 2014

That's right. Instead of freaking out, Chevy decided to full on embrace the whole thing. Many commentators have suggested that Chevy should be thanking Wilde for his less-than-perfect pitch of the Chevy line and it seems that the company agrees.

Chevrolet spokesman Mike Albano, in an email, confirmed that Brian Sweeney, U.S. vice president of sales and service for Chevrolet, called Wilde on Thursday to tell him the Chevy team was behind him. Chevrolet spokeswoman Cristi Vazquez said the company saw a "large spike in hits" at Chevrolet.com on Wednesday night, with visits seven times higher than normal.

No kidding. Embracing the meme, even as it mocked the company, was exactly the right thing to do. That said, it isn't always the easiest move to make. Good on Chevy for embracing the meme to its own advantage when using technology and stuff.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: #technologyandstuff, advertising, embracing, memes, mistakes, technology and stuff, world series
Companies: chevrolet, chevy

12 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

RadioactiveSmurf (profile), 3 Nov 2014 @ 2:54pm

It all goes back to the old adage "There is no such thing as bad publicity".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- madasahatter (profile), 3 Nov 2014 @ 5:48pm
  
  Re:
  I did not see the goof but humor has a way of blunting errors like this and shows a human side to the world.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2014 @ 12:15pm
  
  Re:
  Indeed. If the Chevy guy presenting the MVP award was a decent public speaker, only the people watching live would have received the message. Now you have articles, blogs, youtube videos, tweets, and pretty much everyone now has Chevy's name fresh in their minds. What more could a company want?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
AricTheRed (profile), 3 Nov 2014 @ 2:57pm

Two Words!
Two Words Rikk Wilde, and they are not "Technology & Stuff"

Toastmasters

I gusee it's only one word, but you get the gist.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 3 Nov 2014 @ 3:09pm

Give Rikk Wilde a break. I mean there were quite a few professional athletes, who after facing Bumgarner, seemed to need to change their Royal panties.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 3 Nov 2014 @ 5:16pm

"Chevrolet spokeswoman Cristi Vazquez said the company saw a "large spike in hits" at Chevrolet.com on Wednesday night, with visits seven times higher than normal."

Sure, it's easy to stand behind someone when the results are positive, but what would Chevrolet's reaction had been if the stats were reversed?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Michael, 4 Nov 2014 @ 10:15am
  
  Re:
  Sure, it's easy to stand behind someone when the results are positive, but what would Chevrolet's reaction had been if the stats were reversed?
  
  But it's not easy. Chevy's reaction could have been to issue takedowns and send lawyers to stop people from making these mocking videos. Instead, they stopped, waited, and sent out a tweet that added to the joke. It is very difficult to see even a possibility that people mocking your work as possibly ending up positive.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Matthew A. Sawtell, 3 Nov 2014 @ 5:53pm

There is something to be said about putting a 'human face' on a 'faceless corporation'...
... say what you will about the gaffe, it did show something that more than a few companies have been trying to do away with over the last few decades... a human face to go along with a brand or logo... with very negative results. People will interact and engage better with something if they have the feeling there is another person involved - especially if it is a person they can feel for.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 3 Nov 2014 @ 10:49pm

You know the most hilarious thing about this?

Chevy is still more media-savvy than Comcast or Verizon.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2014 @ 10:27am

Chevy took Jack Ryan's advice...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
David, 2 Jan 2015 @ 1:02pm

It Works!
It seems to have worked out well for us @ http://www.sherwoodparkchev.com! lol. We can't keep any Colorado's in stock!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
www.whowontheworldseries.com, 22 Dec 2015 @ 9:56pm

Who Won The World Series?
anyone know?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]