Vent: Our billboard campaign got the phone number wrong and nobody caught it for 3 weeks

I manage the local hardware store ads and we finally got approval for a big billboard on I-94 near Detroit. I handed the proof to the sign company myself back in February and double checked everything except the phone number apparently. Some customer told me last Tuesday that she kept calling and getting a pizza place instead of our store. I felt my stomach drop when I drove out there and saw the number was off by one digit on a 20 foot tall sign. We paid $2,800 for that placement and it ran for almost a month before I noticed. The pizza place said they got about 40 wrong number calls a day and thought it was hilarious. Has anyone else had a printing mistake slip through and how did you handle the vendor?

3 comments

3 Comments

dakota_patel981mo ago

Is the pizza place going to start sending people to your store when they get an order wrong? That mix-up is kind of a funny break for them but a total nightmare for you. Maybe you can write it off as a lesson learned and see if the sign company will give you a discount on your next placement.

karen_roberts41mo agoMost Upvoted

I gotta push back on the "lesson learned" thing. The only lesson here is that the pizza place's drivers can't read addresses, not that I did anything wrong. My sign placement was fine, it’s not like I stuck it next to a clown college. And asking the sign company for a discount feels like blaming the printer because your kid spelled their name wrong on the birthday card. That mix-up isn't funny break for anyone but the pizza guy who gets to keep his job after delivering to a hardware store at 8 PM.

grantf731mo ago

Come on, are we really getting this worked up over a pizza delivery to a hardware store? It's not like the guy showed up with the National Guard.