Every automaker is bound to respond differently to an insulting comment lobbed at one of its cars: ignore it; lash out angrily; or just go along with what was said and try to make it funny.
SmartUSA did just that when someone belittled one of their cars on Twitter. Clayton Hove, a participator in and vocal critic of the ad industry, tweeted, "Saw a bird had crapped on a Smart Car. Totaled it."
That's Hove's schtick. He has a whole website dedicated to poking fun at ads and products. But Smart USA was neither to roll over and play dead nor flip out in a fit of paranoid rage. They saw his challenge and raised it one. Their response ended up on reddit.
Couldn't have been one bird, @adtothebone. Sounds more like 4.5 million. (Seriously, we did the math.) pic.twitter.com/aLYScFR3
Hove fully admits that he's been had by Smart Car's quip, which includes a mathematically confirmed infographic.
There I was on Twitter, not minding my own business, when along came a response to one of my tweets that not only made my day, but made me rethink my perception of the Smart brand. Plus, they threw in a handy infographic for free. INFOGRAPHANTASTIC!
Great job with your social media, Smart USA. I don't mind being outsmarted by the likes of you.
Now if you'll just FedEx me one of your fine automobiles, I'll love you forever.
All jokes aside, there's still the question of how Smart USA reached their conclusions about how much crap it takes to destroy one of their cars. Did they go by weight? Did they go by acidic content? It seems like the former, but I'm not certain. It does make us wonder how much crap it would take to dust off a Prius. (Hat tip to benmarvin on reddit!)
Photo credit: Vibrant Image Studio/Shutterstock.com/Twitter