Sonny's Cozy Tavern

Social insights for successful brands come from real people in real places. Sonny's Cozy Tavern is one of those places. It's like every small-town beer joint across the country. The kind of place where you can learn more in a couple of hours by sitting with the characters at the bar than you could ever hope to learn in a hundred consumer focus groups. Good brands start at Sonny's.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Bad Homework or Good PR Move?


Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it is pulling its sponsorship of the upcoming Family Guy Variety Show.  Microsoft execs report they chose to sponsor the show because of its target audience and creative humor, deeming it a great fit for the Microsoft brand.  But, after watching a sponsors' preview of the show, they found its content to be offensive and not at all a suitable match for their brand.  They noted that the show includes humor involving "nazis, deaf people, feminine hygiene and incest."

Okay.  So, it's exactly like a typical Family Guy episode.  Pause.

This move by Microsoft has created quite a buzz in tradional media and online social networks.  The executives at Microsoft either did a really bad job of evaluating Family Guy as a brand-appropriate sponsorship, OR it was a really well-planned marketing strategy to get more talk value than the original sponsorship would have ever garnered.

Bad or brilliant?  What do you think?
- Butch
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