Circuit City Can’t Take a Joke; Pulls MAD Magazine then Crisis Control Kicks in
Too funny. Circuit City headquarters recently had a fit when it discovered that the latest issue of MAD Magazine, a publication that it offers in its retail stores, ran a spoof called “Sucker City”. The four-page feature pokes a bit of fun at Circuit City and apparently when some higher ups caught wind of it they were none too happy. Our favorite quote from page one of Mad’s spoof:
Visit our new store on Rt. 17 directly across the street from Best Buy or visit any of our other 600 stores directly across the street from 600 other Best Buys!
Outstanding. As soon as headquarters was notified of the Circuit City spoof, it removed the magazine from inventory systems and issued an official notice to all stores. In a nutshell, the memo stated that all copies of the current issue of MAD should be destroyed immediately and discarded. Shortly after the internal memo was released publicly however, Circuit City PR kicked in and went into crisis control mode. They did a pretty good job actually, issuing a comical public statement and informing the original post author that affected stores would be replacing the magazines on store shelves immediately. Good show fellas. Hit the jump for page one of Mad’s feature, a copy of the internal memo issued by Circuit City headquarters and then the body of the clean up letter.
Hi, Ben,
I spotted the article about Circuit City and MAD Magazine on your site.
fyi, I became aware of this “situation” only this morning, and I have sent a note today to the Editors of MAD Magazine.
Speaking as “an embarrassed corporate PR Guy,” I apologized for the fact that some overly-sensitive souls at our corporate headquarters ordered the removal of the August issue of MAD Magazine from our stores. Please keep in mind that only 40 of our 700 stores sell magazines at all.
The parody of our newspaper ad in the August MAD was very clever. Most of us at Circuit City share a rich sense of humor and irony…but there are occasional temporary lapses.
We apologize for the knee-jerk reaction, and have issued a retraction order; the affected stores are being directed to put the magazines back on sale.
As a gesture of our apology and deep respect for the folks at MAD Magazine, we are creating a cross-departmental task force to study the importance of humor in the corporate workplace and expect the resulting Powerpoint presentation to top out at least 300 pages, chock full of charts, graphs and company action plans.
In addition I have offered to send the MAD Magazine Editor a $20.00 Circuit City Gift Card, toward the purchase of a Nintendo Wii….if he can find one!
All the best,
Jim Babb
Corporate Communications
Circuit City Stores, Inc.
Richmond, VA
am i the only one who has never seen MAD magazines at circuit cities??
They don’t have magazine racks in any of the ones around me
They still sell MAD magazine?
They had a free year subscription at slickdeals.net — I signed up and got my first issue… i looked through the magazine in about 3 minutes.. it sucks.
It’s funny because there is one basically directly across from best buy on rt. 17…. NJ
i wouldn’t say the one in Paramus is “across the street” – across the 6 lane highway and a mile down, maybe …
I prefer Circuit City to worst buy anyways….
Art imitating life……
they should have gone further an called Best Buy Worst Buy
That Corp Com manager is genius… and I agree with others when they state that if MAD was going to spoof Circuit, they should have spoofed Worst Buy also…
This is hillarious i work for the company..altho distaseful it still made me chuckle…and i went to college up there in nj and i laffed even harder when i read the rt17 part…the good old days rt 4 rt 17 and the parkway have to b the worst hiways in america
Epilepsy Victim…classic. I wonder if that is also a 2 player game?
Well, there is a Circuit City right Next to BestBuy on 5th ave in NYC. They actually share a wall.
Yeah, you’re right about that Circuit City next to Best Buy on 5th Ave. I work around the block from it. Circuit City opened up there during the holiday season last year, literally next door. I’ve never seen anything more desperate in my life.
This sums it up nicely:
http://www.tensionbreaker.com/
Why So Serious?
The one good thing about the Best Buy/Circuit City situation is………If you can’t find what you want in one, you can probably find it in the other without having to travel across town. Just go across the street. Or in the NYC 5th ave. area…..Go to the shared wall and yell out “HEY DO YOU GUYS HAVE ANY IPOD TOUCHES IN STOCK OVER THERE!!!!!”
Seems a bit rash for a joke that pokes fun at something that’s common knowledge. I also work for the company and I’m fairly sure that you can find their business strategy concerning locations on paper in the internal documents.
It would’ve made more sense if they pulled it for jokes about a Going-Out-Of-Business Blowout! Stock and flash drives, $2 each!
What’s Circuit City?
Seriously I haven’t been in CC or BB in about a year. I also tend to do most of my electronics shopping online. And Sam’s Club. I don’t know why the memo writer was so upset. It was like having a free ad only funnier.
Really? An epilepsy joke that reinforces incorrect myths of swallowing tongues and shows improper first aid is “classic.” Give me a break.
This is NOT funny.
This is funny cause on 5th ave, 86th st. and on 60th st. they are all located next to each other