Circuit City’s PR team shows humor, didn’t signoff on ‘MAD’ removal
Last week, Jim Babb, manager of media relations, corporate communications for Circuit City, responded to the mistaken removal of MAD Magazines from its sales floors, with a serious that also showed how the electronic retailer shared a “rich sense of humor and irony” with the publication, particularly with the tongue-in-cheek reference to forming an interdepartmental humor task force. Apparently, some sad PR professional, who referred to herself as a “humor expert” from a respected New York agency, didn’t get the joke, and asked if she could provide support for the project, Babb told PRWeek.
Adding a layer of interest to Circuit City’s brief PR snafu, Babb told PRWeek, that the e-mail - ordering the removal of the magazine, which surfaced on Consumerist.com, may have been sent by a member of the corporate communications team, but was ordered by an unnamed employee in another corporate department “who had a brief episode of humor impairment,” not the PR team. Also, while Elizabeth Barron’s name appears on the e-mail, she was neither a spokesperson nor an innovator of the MAD Magazine removal. This mistaken assumption has been appeared across the blogosphere.
