Loose Cannon: I Want My $2,000 In Pennies

Earlier this summer McMurry, a mid-sized marketing agency based in Phoenix, sent out a postcard announcing its pending reopening. As part of its campaign, it offered a bribe to recipients who wrote about the blessed event.

Now that’s a unique marketing strategy: Use a mailing to insult your recipients’ professionalism (the postcard was addressed to “Richard H. Levey, Industry News Columnist”). And compound it by raising a question among professional question-askers that you probably don’t want asked — namely, why does an agency with faith in its work need to bribe reporters to write about it? These were my first thoughts when I received the postcard.

If that was McMurry’s strategy for getting coverage, it didn’t work. The agency reopened last week to neither flourishes nor trumpets. I base this on the apparent lack of published accounts of its ribbon cutting: None popped up in several online news searches.

With the lack of ink the effort generated in mind, here’s the text of McMurry’s postcard. “We’re celebrating the McMurry grand reopening…EARLY… in response to popular demand, by reopening the ‘Write About McMurry’ contest. So, if you’re not certain you crafted a winner during phase one, here’s a shot to do it now.”

As it happened, this was the first communication I received from McMurry, so I wasn’t privy to phase one — if there really was one, and this wasn’t a clumsy attempt to create urgency. Of course, it could have been a bumbling attempt to squeeze a second writeup out of recipients.

The postcard continued: “Write about McMurry’s full-service marketing capabilities; mission statement; value system; selfless talented staff; community service; offices in Phoenix, New York City and Atlanta; or our charitable foundation, Theresa’s Fund.

“Submissions qualify to win $2,000 for your favorite charity or one of five Mayor Phil Gordon park benches. Immortalize your grand-prize-winning thoughts as a permanent part of the McMurry Corporate Headquarters motif. All entries will become part of our 30-year time capsule.

“To stimulate your creative juices, go to www.mcmurry.com. To become a winner, send your e-mail entry to[email protected].

“Go for it as often as you like until July 1, 2006.

“Then mark your calendar for the mother of all bashes when rock legend Rick Springfield assists Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon to reopen McMurry on Sept. 7, 2006.”

Uh, Rick Springfield? The bubblegum pop artist whose last top ten single charted in 1984? When did he become a rock legend? Way to stay relevant, guys. I guess the Electric Prunes had a scheduling conflict.

Now, McMurry’s isn’t two or three schlubs in a cubicle — this is a mid-sized agency that recently announced hiring its 100th employee.

It is entirely possible that this whole promotion was done tongue-in cheek, but there is nothing in the copy that suggests this. If this was intended to be funny, someone neatly overlooked the part where the jokes were included. Furthermore, if it was intended to be wry, McMurry failed to include a wink or two so readers would have a fighting chance not to take it seriously.

“The mother of all bashes” line might qualify as a joke, but given that the original line referred to the first Iraq/U.S. war, it falls flat. I wonder if any of McMurry’s clients would be pleased to know this is how the agency represents itself — and by extension, them.

In its own way, the line begging recipients to write about Theresa’s Fund is the most distasteful. Theresa’s Fund, which is funded from agency profits, combats child abuse and domestic violence. Good on ya, McMurry: Don’t offer me compensation to write about your good works.

So here’s my literary contest, which is aimed at McMurry’s clients: Send me a writeup describing how it feels to have retained a marketing agency so dubious of its own worth that it has to bribe reporters to write about it. For bonus points, include your evaluation as to whether any reporter worth his or her salt would ever cover McMurry, or any of its clients.

I’ve certainly written the last about ’em I’m ever going to.

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