Okay, first things first. This BuzzBomb has nothing to do with employee benefits, lack of time to secure such things, or crappy things like that. No, we’re still trying to confirm the details on our earlier BuzzBomb “teaser” from a few days ago. Look for this on Friday — unless we hit some unexpected snag.
No, tonight dear readers I feel compelled to award a BuzzBomb to Spirit Airlines.
And what did the airline do to receive our ugly piece of notoriety today?
They were really, really stupid.
Yesterday the airline apparently went public on its website with a promotion called “The Hunt for Hoffa.”
Yes, like Jimmy Hoffa.
The airline promoted the game with the tagline, “Help us find Hoffa with our Hunt for Hoffa game and enjoy fares from just $39 each way.”
According to an Associated Press report, the point of the game was to dig for Hoffa’s body by clicking grids on the airline’s site, “mirroring the massive effort at the Detroit-area horse farm in May.”
Winners of the online virtual body part scavenger hunt were then taken to another page that greeted them with the message, “YOU FOUND HOFFA,” thanking them for helping the “National Spirit Sale Center” find the missing union leader.
What in the world were these people thinking?
Obviously they thought it was funny.
Yes, well, we don’t. And apparently we weren’t the only ones.
The airline has now pulled the Hoffa body part scavenger hunt from its website. Promotion is over. Well, actually it’s been renamed.
It’s now the “Happy Sale.”
I think we’ve said enough. You get the picture.
Spirit is more than deserving.
The best part of the whole thing is that they just settled for “Happy Sale” once they dropped the whole Hoffa thing.
Sounds like something I would see here in Japan…
Wonder if go! will use Spirits marketing campaigns like they mimicked their website?
This promotion was beyond pathetic. Now that Spirit has gotten its cash infusion and new management team, it needs to step up to the big leagues and hire a corp comm person and PR firm that will take them to the next level. With his markeing background, you think Ben Baldanza would have known better.
Real professionals would have shot down this lame and taseteless campaign before it ever got off the drawing board.