Circuit City Apologises for Pulling Mad Magazine, Promises to Get a Sense of Humour

Adam Frucci — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:19:30 +0000

It looks like the corporate goon who ordered all copies of Mad Magazine with a Circuit City parody inside destroyed was acting on her own. An “embarrassed corporate PR guy” has apologised to Mad Magazine and tried to make things right. Nice work, Circuit City. The letter of explination/apology in full, after the jump.

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 apologise 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

[Consumerist]

Circuit City Demands All Copies of Mad Magazine with Ad Parody Destroyed

Adam Frucci — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:51:31 +0000

In this month’s Mad Magazine, there’s an ad parody for Circuit City (Sucker City! Oh, Mad Magazine you rascal!) that takes aim at the electronics retailer. Always across the street from a Best Buy! Expensive TVs! The price always goes down right after you bought it! Wah wahhhh! I wasn’t even aware that Circuit City sold Mad Magazine, but apparently they do, and they sure are pissed. In fact, they’re ordering every store to destroy every copy of the offending issue. Hit the jump for the full ad parody and Circuit City’s internal response.

I’m not sure if they’re upset more because they got made fun of or because the parody is, like pretty much everything else in Mad Magazine, terrible. [Consumerist]

Gizmodo Australia » mad magazine

Circuit City Apologises for Pulling Mad Magazine, Promises to Get a Sense of Humour

Circuit City Demands All Copies of Mad Magazine with Ad Parody Destroyed