by Charlie Crowell for ImpactHollow.com.
It’s really against my better judgment to publish this article. You’ll understand why in a moment - but I’m going to do it anyway because there is a really solid lesson to be learned from it.
Take a look at the picture below. It’s from the Record Journal, a daily newspaper in Meriden, Connecticut. The accompanying article featured the usual coming of spring stuff, analyzing the local ice cream scene.
The photo’s background is over exposed but regardless, do you see anything inappropriate there?
How about the ice cream sundae called the "Fudgepacker"?
If by chance you don’t know what the term "Fudgepacker" refers to, good for you. Stop reading. You’ve kept a good distance from the gutter and you should be congratulated. Let’s not ruin it.
For the rest of us, let’s take a closer look.
I’m guessing the owner of this ice cream store was either trying to be funny, thought he was being clever, or had some deep rooted desire for his business to fail. Probably the latter.
In the photo, some smaller print gives a little more detail about this ice cream dish. If you can’t make it out, it says, " Two heaps of soft ice cream and one L-O-N-G banana… gobs of fudge”, etc.
From a marketing standpoint this was one of the stupidest ideas I’ve seen… ever. How it got into a mainstream newspaper is another question. Somebody call the editor of the Record Journal and see if he (or she) was on some kind of hallucinogen.
The ice cream shop was known as the "Frozen Palette". It was located on North Colony Road in Meriden. Probably the biggest question here is - just who were they trying to marketing to?
Would you take your kids to an ice cream store that offers a sundae named after a slur or derogatory term referring to a#%& sex?
And then to have it appear in your local newspaper? Wow! Why not just throw yourself off a cliff? Clearly it was some kind of business death wish… and it worked. Frozen Palette went out of business a little while after this article ran. Today it’s only claims to fame are the Record Journal article and this ImpactHollow.com post.
Anyway, the picture, as poor as it is, was taken by Record Journal photographer David Bruneau. The article was written by reporter Stacy M. Calcagni. The ice cream entrepreneur in the picture is Sebastian Paguni, Jr. Congratulations to all for providing the rest of us with a really valuable lesson. A first-hand look at a real public relations train wreck.
The moral of the story? Guard your business reputation. Worry about it. Your every word and every action is sending a message. It’s not something to be taken lightly.
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