Consumer branding - the only kind that counts

Wow, how much do you need to piss-off your customers to have them take out a full page, open-letter style ad in the paper to complain?

Cherryflava pointed me to the story of a Cape Town man who did just that after getting shocking service from Land Rover. An excerpt:

“All I want to know is: Does Land Rover have necessary spares in stock to repair this unreliable and very expensive vehicle of mine? If not what are they doing about it? Will the repairs to the cause of the breakdown and the other defective/work be dealt with at the same time as I require? When does Land Rover expect this vehicle to be roadworthy again? Why does nobody follow-up and phone you back? Why is it too difficult to answer these simple questions?”

Ouch!

Marketing Web had this to say:

In the meantime, however, the Open Letter continues to cause ripples – as just one marketing director says: “As a consumer, I wanted to dance and sing! As a marketer, I got chills!”

Land Rover admitted defeat, and managed this:

"The dealership is unfortunately in a transition period and it probably would have gone a lot better had it gone to another dealership,"

Sorry lads, that's no longer good enough...!