Bethesda, MD – As any marketer knows, one’s budget can prove to be a finicky mistress, especially when it limits the realization of an initiative, or directly opposes one’s ultimate goal. And therein lies a lesson which was learned ‘the hard way’ by Jan Rock-Woodland, Marketing Associate at Confederated Chevrolet-GMC-Buick, a Bethesda based GM dealership. Her goal? To promote the 2019 Buick LaCrosse strategically to the dealerships’ Hispanic-language community. But, unfortunately for Confederated Chevrolet-GMC-Buick, Jan Rock-Woodland is both largely incompetent, and more than a little bit racist.
Now, for the sake of defending her integrity, it’s important to point out that Jan is actually quite loving of all races. But as a lifelong left-leaning Liberal, she’s guilty of the kind of systemic racism that manifests itself in what are called ‘microinvalidations’, unconscious interactions that perpetuate the illusion that the person speaking is superior than the person they’re speaking to (or about). This is a trait seen commonly in ‘social justice warriors’ who utilize virtue signaling, especially online, to present themselves as the caucasian champion of all minorities. It’s also seen commonly in advertising initiatives that target specific genders, religious or racial demographics and minority groups.
So when her budget began to run dry after pushing the promotion through traditional marketing methods (print ads, radio spots and billboards) the aging associate decided to reach out to the online community. Unfortunately, Jan Rock-Woodland had little-to-no experience with social media (in addition to being a horrible speller). These two failings came to an unfortunate end when, in a search for latino Buick LaCrosse enthusiasts, she mistakenly began to follow ‘Buique LaCross’, a professional sports team from Pernambuco (a Brazilian state found in South America). Failing to recognize her error, she began to engage with other group members, relying solely upon the Junior College Spanish that she had learned back in the mid-1970’s. She further failed to recognize that they were speaking Portuguese.
The result? Jan Rock-Woodland found herself in a series of confusing conversations that proved aggravating to hundreds of rabid Brazilian LaCrosse fans. And those Brazilians were so frustrated by the ‘Mulher Diabo Branca em Inglês’ (aka the ‘English-Speaking White Devil Woman’).
Unfortunately for her, none of her new Facebook friends were interested in buying a 2019 Buick crossover; well, at least not immediately and not from Maryland. And it was her failure at the task-at-hand that led Confederated Chevrolet-GMC-Buick to release Jan Rock-Woodland from her duties.
“On one hand,” explains dealership VP Dean Kummstein,” we were pleased that her failure occurred on a FREE platform which meant there was still money in the budget, to be applied to a proper promotion. On the other hand, we really should have picked up her ineptitude towards digital media, when she repeatedly referred to it using weird, old people language like ‘the computer’ or ‘on-the-line”, and calling all of social media “The Facebook”.
He then adds, “But we’ve gained major traction with Bethesda’s Portuguese community thanks to our new corporate sponsorship of the Buique LaCross! Who knew that funding some homoerotic Brazilian sport could be so beneficial to our bottom-line!”
And in a related story, the entire staff of Confederate Chevy-Buick-GMC are horrible, horrible people…
