Thanks to Steve Rubel for an awesome link.
The FedEx Furniture dot com guy (Jose) loves FedEx. So much so, that his entire apartment is furnished with FedEx packaging. He raves about it online and has an eclectic readership who are fascinated by his obsession.
As FedEx, how would you choose to respond to Jose? Include him in your marketing campaign? Fly him to HQ for a lunch with the CEO? Link to the blog from your website?
Apparently not…
Not long after Jose started up his blog he received a cease and desist letter (I kid you not) asking him to, well, cease and desist his “confusing” web antics. (Reminds me of the SABMiller / Laugh It Off case).
The result? FedEx are the laughing stock of the marketing community, at the short end of a very angry blogosphere stick and now dealing with a potentially ugly situation.
How do you go from Citizen Marketing opportunity to Ugly Situation so quickly? Well, someone blogged about it…
What a missed opportunity. If I was Fedex, I would have given this guy some sponsorship and got him going. Its about creating a community of your users – people who don’t just use your services, but fall in love with your brand (maybe even so much so that they’ll tattoo your logo on their body!).
Since every one of those boxes used to create furniture was purchased at some time from Fedex, they have already generated plenty of revenue from the process, and now stood the chance of creating a legend.
The only redemption possible is if Fedex had been planning to start a furniture division themselves, and this guy beat them to it. But, what are the chances of that?
Check out how you COULD do it – see what duct tape did, even sponsoring a duct tape prom dress competition – http://www.ducktapeclub.com/contests/prom/entries.asp
FedEx have chatted to Jeremy Pepper, offering their side of the FedEx Furniture Guy debacle. See their response here.
Draw your own conclusions…
See the issue of CGM – consumer generated media, and how to handle it. Its helpful in understanding this as a case study.