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Friday, September 5, 2008

A hairy case of bad Freudian slip

A Director-level from the EU arm of a certain PR agency sent a note to his global colleagues (with HQ head honchos/management included, I assume), asking for help in sharing input for a new business they were pulling together.

The email header read: "Any gorilla PR tactics?" (Hmm...were they going to pitch to WWF, or maybe a local zoo? But wait, this company does not do any animal-like Clients...)

The contents touched on the 'hairy monkey subject' with: "Can you let me know if you have any good examples of gorilla tactics that you've discussed or implemented for any of your clients?... are looking to build a series of new and different gorilla tactics...".

It dawned upon many on the recipient list that this Director was referring to "guerilla" tactics. Somebody in their US office was 'kind' (or not) enough to hit the 'Reply All' button, with no input into any 'guerilla' (or 'gorilla') tactics, but with just a picture attached as below. This brave Account Executive left his contact details as well - I'm not sure how much flak he's going to get from his bosses for putting down a Director-level in the EU office (or it could be the case of them seizing the opportunity to take the 'EU versus American English' spate to another level...).


In any case, I give the American Account Executive top marks for bravery and sarcasm, and zero to the EU Director, whom I'm sure is reeling over from being humiliated badly - on a global level. Ouch.

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