Poor THQ.
THQ is a gaming company which was pushing its new video game, Homefront. Homefront is a first-person shooter that is based around a fictitious war against America. As an off-the-wall PR stunt, THQ released thousands of red balloons into the air.
The plot to the game is that North Korea invades the United States, and as a symbol of unity, South Korea launched the red balloons to signal to North Korea that it has hope.
But the stunt went wrong, as the balloons lost steam and started dropping like flies in the San Francisco Bay. Local environmentalists were outraged.
The kicker? The flyer says “Gamestop exclusive!” at the top, so angry environmentalists immediately blamed Gamestop for the incident. It turns out, THQ hadn’t been working with Gamestop on this PR stunt at all, so they knew nothing of it and denied all the responsibility.
While I find it fairly humorous, it proves that companies need a good PR department. Like Bufkins always says, “If the public thinks you have a problem; you have a problem.” In this situation, even though there was no wrong-doing by Gamestop, the public thought it responsible, so the company needed to act. They did, THQ stepped up and now there is less of a problem.
THQ did a good job in this as well. Like I’ve been told countless times, if you’re having an event, have a contingency plan. In this case, THQ thought ahead. The balloons released by THQ were biodegradable as well as the flyers which incriminated Gamestop in the first place.
Twitter and Facebook updates were quick to jump on the hatred bandwagon, which makes me wonder the true effectiveness of the social media giants. Sure, it gets information out with the quickness. But in this case, it got incorrect information out quickly, which is bad for business. It’s borderline libelous.
But hey, PR stunts don’t always go according to plan, and when they don’t, we PR people get our chance to shine. So I guess it’s a win/win for me!
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