Anyone who has seen The Incredibles knows how dangerous raving fans can be. If you thwart them, they can turn just as rabidly against you – just as Buddy turns into Syndrome, the uber-baddy in the film.
A few weeks ago, I blogged about the raving fan who had produced an iPod commercial in homage to Apple. But what happens when the fan goes too far and starts damaging your brand with their enthusiasm?
Apple have been on the receiving end of this too, with the Think Secret’s blog “leaks” about forthcoming Apple launches. Their response? Sue the fans who were writing about them.
Probably not so clever, as strategies go. Buckley’s first law of business is “Don’t sue your customers”, followed by “Don’t sue anyone, if you can possible avoid it.”
Anyhow, now we have a case of the rogue advertisement for VW, featuring a car bomber detonating himself, without damaging the exterior of the car or intended victims. Pretty tasteless – what next a Tsunami surfing ad?
The original theory doing the rounds was that VW had done a “viral” ad and they were roundly cursed and vilified for such tacky subject matter. But it turns out that it was produced by a couple of freelance admen to put on their showreel to present to London agencies.
Again lawyers are sent into action, though I do have a little more sympathy in this case. A smarter course might have been to ask the admen to withdraw it and bung them a few thousand dollars to remake something you do like – the PR would have gained them much more than the money spent combined with their legal costs.
As the cost of production plummets, I’m sure we’ll see a lot more of these misguided fan experiments, posing new challenge for marketers. Whoever thought that having raving fans of your product would be a major hassle?
UPDATE: I notice that Mike at Techdirt has similar thoughts. We seem to be on some kind of cerebral linking vibe, as we often both seem to draw the same conclusions from apparently unrelated events.
He missed The Incredibles link though 
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