Failures in Marketing: Dell Product Intro Results in SWAT Team and Arrests

Dell has their own tablet and even their own employees don’t seem to know much about it. So the marketing team got the brilliant idea to dress up as road warriors (the tablet interfaces with the new Harley Davidson) and try to corral all of the employees at a work location into the lobby. Leather, skull masks and small metallic objects waved at people while they shout “Go to the Lobby!” tends to attract the SWAT team.

From KXAN here:

The Round Rock SWAT team near Austin TX responded to multiple 911 calls of a suspect inside of one of the Dell Round Rock campus buildings on Monday morning, only to find it was a marketing stunt gone wrong.

A person dressed as a biker in all black with a black mask was on the sales floor of Building 1 carrying two metallic objects and telling people to “go to the lobby.”

A sales manager set up the stunt as an internal promotional event to celebrate the release of the new Dell Streak tablet, but Round Rock police ended up arresting two people for causing the disturbance.

Police arrested the man dressed in the skull mask and biker outfit, 48 year old Bryan Chester and his supervisor 36 year old Daniel Rawson. Both face misdemeanor charges of Interfering with Public Duties and Deadly Conduct. “All this was intended to be was go to the lobby because we’re introducing a new item,” said Poteet.

Police say it’s a miracle none of the 400 people in the building were hurt.

This is pretty hilarious, but only because no one was hurt. Knowing office dynamics pretty well, I can easily picture panicked salesfolk cowering under desks on the phone with the cops. Does it make me want to buy a Dell Streak? Not at all.