With a messy sensibility to make even Lady Bunny blush, Microsoft’s PR department layed a colossal egg when they tweeted hours after Amy Winehouse’s death the great savings her fans could get on her music over at the Zune Marketplace.
The tweet read: “Remember Amy Winehouse by downloading the ground-breaking ‘Back to Black’ over at Zune:social.zune.net/album/Amy-Wine…”
No, no, no.
After a noisy backlash on Twitter, Microsoft apologized, saying: “Apologies to everyone if our earlier Amy Winehouse ‘download’ tweet seemed purely commercially motivated. Far from the case, we assure you.”
Here’s a pro-tip for anyone who needs to be sincere about their apologies: it’s not technically an apology when your statement is conditional. If you mean it, don’t use the word “if” in your apology. Acknowleding you made a mistake and taking ownership of it is the right thing to do. Moving the attention away from yourself and onto others by making it conditional “I’m sorry IF I offended you” just makes you sound like an even bigger marketing douchebag.
Here’s what I would have liked to see them say: “Whoops! Sorry for our earlier Amy Winehouse tweet, some of you thought it was in poor taste, and we agree. Here’s a coupon to download any of her songs on us. Sorry.”
Why are marketing people so bad at marketing and just being decent human beings?
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2 Comments
Comments
Is this tweet offensive? Apple wanted to bank on her death as well…they put a banner up on iTunes that said Remembering Amy which clicked through to her music. I don’t see what’s wrong with the tweet though. It is always interesting to see how everyone reacts to things like this. If Sarah Palin died and Barnes & Noble tweeted the same exact thing with a link to buy her book, would anyone care? I seriously doubt that the majority of people that are offended by the Winehouse tweet would be offended by a Palin tweet saying the same thing. I would venture to say that at least 8 out of 10 people that were offended by this tweet like Amy’s music….it has nothing to do with humanity.
Nice try Microsoft.
I’ll say this again–if they are sincere about being sorry, why not just offer a free Amy Winehouse song download to anyone they offended, or as their PR department would like to say “to anyone they MAY have offended.”
Both Tweets are on the cold and heartless side– not at all warm or meaningful. The first one certainly wouldn’t have encouraged me to click to Microsoft’s Zune site, create an account and purchase a duplicate copy of “Back to Black” just because they posted it. I don’t necessarily think they meant any harm by either one, but neither of the Tweets said, “we care, we feel awful, let’s share in her music together” to me.