In an attention economy, is ‘Oops-vertising’ the way forward?

How many grans do you have? If you’re Pringles, you have multiple ones. At least you do if you’re not paying attention when writing headlines. Bear in mind that this went through the creative department, the agency management, the client, the production staff, the printers, and the poster site company before being glued to a panel. So, was it a genuine mistake? Or was it an excuse for a social media campaign? Pringles’ response was very slick, and the mistake is generating socials like a train.

Whether a genuine typo or not, it raises questions. ?Using a one-off poster for media coverage is nothing new. Political parties have been doing it for decades. Coming up with one poster on the side of a van, inviting the press to the ‘unveiling of a new campaign’ which turns out to be just that one poster – but it gets coverage on the front pages of the newspapers, so a highly cost-efficient way of running an ad campaign.

Is Pringles just doing the same thing? My guess is that it was a genuine mistake, and the clever people at the agency judged their response perfectly. Shame about the American voiceover, but hey, you can’t have everything…

Will this uplift the trend for Oops-vertising (as PR Week has coined it)? I suspect it might, as social media is expertly derivative. Look out in the future for more mistakes in communications. Deliberate or not, they’re bound to get noticed?and grab yet more of our precious attention.