Advertising Ourselves to Death: Our mistake? Let's sue someone!

[by Todd] Everyone take out a sheet of paper, time for a pop quiz.

Dunce2 While mocking up a new campaign, someone in your agency screws up and puts a wrong number in a comp. The client is a state agency, and the number turns out to be for phone sex. The state agency posts your comps on a web site. A blogger finds the ads, and errors, and proceeds to ridicule the the government body, boldy suggesting your fee is a waste of money.
Do you:

A) Beg your client's forgiveness and fire the proof reader
B) Thank the blogger for noting the mistake and outline steps you've taken to make sure it never happens again
C) Chew the hell out of our staff, while refusing to say anything about the issue publicly. After all this is just some little blog site in Maine. Who's going to see it anyway?
D) File a $1 million federal lawsuit against the blogger, alleging that statements on his web site have done irreparable harm to your agency.

OK, pencils down. All those who chose D, please pack your personal items now and claim your job with the boneheads at Warren Kremer Paino. Here's the Boston Globe story. But let me try to summarize the key points.

The Main Web Report is where Lance Dutson is waging an ongoing battle with what he sees as incompetence and other failings of the Main Office of Tourism. Among other things he has been hammering the MOT and its agency for wasteful spending on bad keyword buys and the $10 million ad campaign created by WKP.

Some of the new work from WKP was included in a presentation to a task force from the governor's office in January. As a matter of following the law, the state posted the presentation on line, here.

Moose So Lance started by offering some creative critiques of the campaign, which features lines that probably elicited great guffaws in the wee early hours of the morning.

We’ve got these icons of Maine, that our state is known for, that differentiate us from other states. These icons have served as a major influence on bringing people here historically. So, for some reason, we need to spend millions of dollars systematically eradicating the positive image these icons portray?

Main800 Then, a couple days later Lance notes that the phone number in the ads isn't the state tourism line. Instead it is a gateway to an experience of the adult kind. Now keep in mind this is a campaign that the agency has run for several years. They've produced a number of ads with the right number, which you can find heralded on their web site.

I understand that the folks at WKP aren't happy with Lance. They apparently make a lot of money on tourism, including working for some very tony hotels around the country. Having some no-name critic in Maine question their brilliance has to be irritating. Afterall, everyone in advertising knows you never question the creative. But to sue him?!

Brilliant move Messrs. Warren, Kremer and Paino. Now you have made this blunder a big deal, a really big deal. At last count nearly 100 sites have done posts on the issue, including the The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog.

WKP, you're screwed. And this time you've got no one to blame but yourself. How long until this story lands in the pages of AdWeek or AdAge? Then you can count on two things happening.

The Governor of Maine is going to hammer his political appointees to dump you quicker than winter comes up there, and
Every client you have is going to wonder what kind of embarrassment you're going to dump on their door step next.

Who will you sue then?

UPDATE: Well, that didn't take long. Seems the govenor's secretary for economic development, which happens to oversee the tourism group, wants to meet with Lance and WKP this Thursday.

Anyone interested in pitching the Maine Office of Tourism account? I hear it's going into review.

Update II: Now Ad Age has checked in. Unfortunately for WKP, their president opened his mouth. Here are the details. (Thanks Robert for heads up.)

Update III: Like clockwork, the politicos are jumping in, demanding the state suspend its contract with WKP.

Update IV: And then it was over.