Worker FIRED For F-Bomb Tweet On Chrysler Twitter Account

SAN FRANCISCO — Chrysler Group LLC is ending its relationship with the social media agency that was behind an obscene tweet that was posted to the Chrysler brand's official Twitter account.

The tweet was posted Wednesday by an employee of the company's agency, New Media Strategies. It read: "I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the (hash)motorcity and yet no one here knows how to (expletive) drive." Shortly after, the tweet was removed from Chrysler's Twitter feed.

Chrysler said in a statement Thursday that it won't renew its contract with the agency for the rest of this year. The automaker said it will work with the agency through a transition period until it names a new firm.

The Auburn Hills, Mich.-based automaker apologized for the tweet Wednesday in a blog post, saying the New Media Strategies employee responsible for the tweet had been fired. Chrysler said in a follow-up post Thursday that the tweet "obviously" was meant to appear on the employee's personal Twitter account, rather than on Chrysler's, and that automaker did not demand that person be fired.

New Media Strategies CEO Pete Snyder said his firm regretted the "unfortunate incident."

"It certainly doesn't accurately reflect the overall high-quality work we have produced for Chrysler," Snyder said in a statement. "We respect their decision and will work with them to ensure an effective transition of this business going forward."

Comments

[zooperman]

09:27 AM on 03/14/2011

That pesky "Send" button.

[nongrata]

04:41 AM on 03/12/2011

The most offensive part of the tweet is the that they don't understand what irony is.

[Edward Standley]

08:36 PM on 03/11/2011

I've done a lot of driving in Detroit, and I can tell you, if you go, you'd better be able to drive, because they sure can. Only Formula One is more exciting!

[Elepharts]

01:38 PM on 03/11/2011

Absolutely the right call by Chrysler for firing the agency and for New Media Strategies for firing the employee. There's no excuse for that kind of slip-up. The agency and the guy are (or rather were) being paid handsomely for their services. It's akin to an ad agency dropping an f-bomb into a print ad. You'd be right in expecting the agency and virtually everyone on the account to be fired for something like that.

[JScott]

06:56 PM on 03/10/2011

"I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the (hash)motorcity and yet no one here knows how to (expletive) drive

"I find it ironic that (until quite recently) Detroit is known as the (hash)motorcity and yet no one in the exec ranks of the car companies in Detroit knows how to build a decent car.

[oxjr]

09:43 PM on 03/12/2011

Oh they knew - they just choose not to bother when a 20 year old Crown Victoria design was pure profit. How old is the 300 now?? 9 years or more?

[omg wtf lol bbq]

08:50 PM on 03/13/2011

And it finally got it's redesign. Think about the Cavalier/Cobalt and it's platform twins, Chrysler's obsession with the K car (even the first two generations of the Caravan/Voyager/Town and Country minivans were based on that platform), and let's not get started with the fact that the Crown Vic was the same car with new sheet metal every so often since 1970-something.