Simi Valley Ford in California might be in some hot water after using the fires to promote deals on its cars.
The state has been ravaged by fires, and the death toll is currently north of 40. Seems like a situation you should avoid trying to monetize at all costs. Well, apparently the dealership couldn’t resist.
The Daily Mail reported the following:
A Ford dealership in California has been hit with a barrage of criticism over a tone deaf ad which tried to make light of the deadly wildfires ravaging the state.
The ad, which was published by the company’s Simi Valley dealership on November 11, read: ‘Well we didn’t catch fire but these deals are smoking hot. Take a look!’
…
The dealership published another post later in an attempt to apologize.
It read: ‘Hello Friends, Our advertising team picked a heading for this week’s campaign that appears to be insensitive to some.’ It linked to a Facebook page which has since been removed.
You can see a picture of the ad in the tweet below. It’s just as wild as you’d think.
California Ford dealership went with the AGGRESSIVE wildfire disaster advertisement route to move some new carshttps://t.co/Dr3I4ICBfx pic.twitter.com/Ox60obZTJA
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) November 14, 2018
Seriously, what the hell were they thinking? I’ve made some poor decisions in my life, but even a guy like me knows this is the definition of a terrible idea. That’s even an understatement. That ad is beyond parody. (RELATED: This Tweet About The Heroes In The California Fires Will Restore Your Faith In America)
Having said all of that, this situation is so absurd that you almost have no choice but to laugh at it. Think about it for a second. People got together, threw out ideas, presumably debated them and landed on using an event that had killed dozens of people to make some money.
Again, it’s literally beyond parody how stupid this whole advertisement situation is.
Well, I sure hope it worked out because the business might be taking a hit for the foreseeable future!