A Different Kind of “WOW”

UPDATE: Make sure you read the addendum!

I can’t remember the last time I actually shopped at Best Buy, although it was probably the time I tried to get some dual-layer DVDs which were heavily advertised but, naturally, were out of stock. And while Best Buy’s Canadian/U.S. pricing differentials should give you pause, this story might make you totally re-think your shopping strategies over the next couple of weeks.

It’s kind of a long story, and the best part happened first, so you might want to read down to the punchline and then backtrack up to the start. Hey, I’ll freely admit I can’t tell a joke very well.

Improv Everywhere is a Manhattan-based, improvisational, culture-jamming group, and they’ve put together some pretty awesome “missions”, including one in which several dozen “agents” descended on a Best Buy store dressed in Best Buy drag — blue polo shirts, khakis and whatnot — and did so with the singular goal: to stand around in BB-like attire and, if approached by customers, be as helpful as possible without actually working. Bastards, I know, right?

It was a smashing success.

So much so that the IE folks decided to have blue polo shirts crafted with the Best Buy logo replaced with a stylistically-similar “Improv Everywhere” tag. Well, you can probably guess what happened next. Best Buy’s legal team sent a cease-and-desist letter to both IE and Neighborhoodies, the company making the shirts. All well and good. They’re protecting their brand and only the most stridently anticorporate person would have a problem with that.

And then Scott Beale decided to blog about the IE parody shirts over at LaughingSquid.com. Claiming that the blog post was not reportage but promotion, Best Buy’s legal “experts” sent a cease-and-desist letter to Laughing Squid. Yes. Wow, indeed.

Now, there’s an argument to be made that petulant, nasty little bloggers are not journalists — and a stronger argument that mainstream media aren’t, either — but Best Buy’s legal action has accomplished only the following:

• raised interwebs awareness of Improv Everywhere, and their delightfully sweet missions
• raised interwebs awareness of Neighborhoodies, the company who made the IE parody shirts
• raised interwebs awareness of Laughing Squid, the Bay Area culture bloggers
• raised interwebs awareness of all the three-degrees-of-separation bloggers writing about this and, perhaps most tellingly…
• raised interwebs awareness of Best Buy’s apparently humourless, corporate bullying and apparent belief that the interwebs’ sole purpose is selling shit

By the way, Dell is offering some great machines this season, and their Canadian pricing on some packages is as good, if not better, than the U.S. arm.

Now go back and read about IE’s Best Buy Mission. Funny!

Addendum: Best Buy apologized for the C&D letter to Laughing Squid. I know, right? Scott Beale reports:

[...] “Best Buy did the right thing here, by quickly responding and issuing the retraction their legal threats against a blog that was simply reporting on another situation.

I think this will serve as a great example to other companies whose legal department sends out these demand letters without fully researching the situation or considering the possible negative PR that they can generate. My advise [sic] to companies regarding situations like this is that their PR departments should become more involved and aware of what their legal departments are doing with regards to the community at large.”

Shucks, and I already bought my new computer from Dell.