MINI, known for its quirky designs and unique vehicles, like the Classic Mini Cooper, recently had a bit of bad PR. The British automaker’s American fans were inundated with an onslaught of automated email messages when a system glitch sent out hundreds of copies of the same email to each user on the mailing list, AutoBlog reports.<\/p>\n
While this sort of thing generally does not happen, the standard procedure is to issue an apologetic email or letter explaining the error and promising it won’t happen again. However, MINI officials decided to approach the issue in a more unique way. The company sent care packages to each affected customer. Along with a letter of apology, each individual also received chocolate roses, a roll of duct tape and a can of Spam. In the letter, MINI stated that, “Nothing\u00a0says, ‘I’m sorry,’ like flowers and chocolate, so we’ve combined the two and enclosed a chocolate rose,” according to MotorTorque.com.<\/p>\n
The duct tape was a symbolic gesture to “fix things up,” while the can of Spam, a clever visual pun on their email error, was actually a soft, squeezable stress-reliever.<\/p>\n
Many MINI fans have\u00a0found this mailing to be fun and endearing as well as reminiscent of the brand’s overarching appeal. However, not everyone agrees. A number of consumers who responded to AutoBlog’s coverage of the story felt that the company’s time, efforts and money cold have been better spent improving the lineup and researching new technologies for future models.<\/p>\n