Photo Credit: Amazon Prime
Missing the world’s favorite “People Person's Paper People?” Well, The Office fans can go down under for The Office Australia starting Oct. 19 on Amazon Prime. While Michael Scott won’t be in this reboot, we can still reminisce about the good ‘ole heydays of Dunder Mifflin … or the dog days, I suppose. Michael and the overlords of Dunder Mifflin didn’t always make the best decisions, as any diehard fan knows. So, let’s take a look at some of our favorite Dunder disasters … and what they could’ve done instead.
1. WUPHF.com
I mean, does this need further explanation? For those who don’t remember, WUPHF.com was the ill-fated brainchild of Michael’s “brainchild,” Ryan Howard. WUPHF.com was a messaging system that sent messages through Facebook, chat, SMS, fax, Twitter, and more. However, the idea was DOA, and after getting pressure from coworker investors, he finally sold it to Washington University Public Health Fund, which only wanted the company for its name.
2. Dunder Mifflin Infinity
Ah, another Ryan Howard fumble. This website was Ryan’s big project when he came on as Vice President of Northeast Sales. The site quickly became a haven for predators, identity theft, and, oh yeah, misleading shareholders. Ryan forced the salespeople to log their non-website sales into the website, pretty much asking them to commit fraud. Yeah, what a great way to get your company name out there!
3. Sabre Pyramid Store
Even Sabre knew this was a bad idea, with Robert California planning to fire Dwight for the store’s failure. While Jim tries to sell the triangular phone tablets as “a shape that fits all other shapes inside of it," at the end of the day, they’re really just bulky, cheap and hard to use. And Jim using his phone instead of his Pyramid phone ends in another fumble when a blogger posts it as a “failure.”
4. Darryl's People Person's Paper People
OK, I know what you’re thinking: How is this a fail? It’s a great song! Well, the song never did see the light of day, even if we all loved it. And if we’re being completely honest, “people person’s paper people” is kinda confusing. While it certainly has a niche following, it’s not likely to reach mass appeal.
5. “Dunder Mifflin is A Part of Sabre”
Yet another song makes it on our list, but this one for a more obvious reason. After Sabre acquires Dunder Mifflin, Andy and Erin sing this little jingle for Gabe, a Sabre representative who films them singing the song. But moments before the performance, they realize they’ve been saying Sabre wrong this entire time and continue to mispronounce it the entire time. Needless to say, the video didn’t exactly become a viral sensation.
6. Michael Scott’s Press Conference
Remember when Creed failed to do quality control that once and Dunder Mifflin ended up sending out a bunch of papers with, uh, lewd, content? Well, Michael, in his infinite wisdom, decides to hold a press conference where he apologizes to one of their clients and gives her a giant check. When the client refuses the apology, Michael goes off the rails, with the one member of the press there catching every word of his meltdown. Not the best face to put forward after a major misstep, huh?
7. Dwight’s “Iris Black” Interview
After Iris Black cancels an interview with Dunder Mifflin for her show Biz Whiz, Jim, Pam and Ellie decide to prank Dwight with a fake interview anyway. They make fake accusations about the paper being highly toxic and even say that CFO David Wallace is surrounded by police at his home. Sure, it’s all fake, but imagine if Dwight’s stunts had actually made it to air.
8. Limitless Paper in a Paperless World
This is another slogan that never made it out of Scranton. But this company catchphrase appeared in Micahel Scott’s version of an ad for the Scranton branch. It’s probably not the best idea to remind your audience that you’re trying to sell them something that’s going obsolete. But to each their own?
Media Credit: NBC / IMdb
OK Negative “Nellie,” Let’s See You Do Better!
Rude, but fine, I call your bluff! Viral marketing, cool commercials, snazzy new websites, press events: These are all fun and we love to watch these disasters unfold before us, but that won’t help you grow your business. What will? Thanks for asking!
Have you heard the good news about brand publishing? Michael Scott and Dunder Mifflin sure didn’t. Maybe they wouldn’t have to join forces with Sabre to sell cheap printers that catch on fire if they had. But who’s to say? As this really intelligent and astute author explains in this super entertaining but thought-provoking piece explaining the difference between brand publishing and branded content using the hit Emmy-nominated show The Bear, brand publishing is “self-created content a brand distributes, usually focusing on informative or educational content, such as thought leadership in its industry.” So basically, it means that the brand itself is making and distributing its own content.
That other term, branded content, refers to content created by a third party that usually puts a brand’s message into a story or article relevant to the third party’s audience. Or, more simply put, sharing content with other partners or sites.
And these strategies are the big fixes that could’ve saved Dunder Mifflin from having a lot of egg on its face, in my humblest of opinions. How? Well, let’s let the “turn tables” and take a looksie:
1. A Dunder Mifflin Blog
So I’m sure it couldn’t hold a candle to the thought-provoking and innovative content of www.creedthoughts.gov.wwwcreedthoughts, but a Dunder Mifflin Blog is literally the least the company could’ve made. It’s a super simple brand publishing concept: Salvage the disastrous Dunder Mifflin Infinity 2.0 site with some simple company updates and thought leadership pieces – you know, something perhaps like the geniuses at this company’s site put together.
2. Dunder Mifflin B2B Content Syndication
Business-to-business (B2B) content syndication makes a whole bunch of sense to specialized industries and has been going on since the existence of paper (probably). This branded content strategy is, again, pretty tried and true: like-minded companies in the same industries partner up to create these highly circulated industry publications that help get useful information out to other companies – and, as a huge plus, your company’s name.
3. Dunder Mifflin Social Media
Social media was in its infancy for most of Dunder Mifflin, sure, but Facebook was around at least, and it was a hot market. Posts, polls, videos – all of these were types of branded content that companies could pull off on social media even in its early days. Yet the only mention of any social component to the brand we hear about is a chatroom on Dunder Mifflin Infinity that got infiltrated by … well, let’s just say, predators.
4. Quarterly Dunder Mifflin Client Newsletter
Newsletters have ebbed and flowed over the years, but they have stayed afloat in content relevance for a rather long time. And the best part for companies? This brand publishing strategy is pretty cost-effective since it only costs you time – unless you buy software to automate your email blasts, of course. Even then, most software are pretty cheap.
5. Dunder Mifflin’s “The Paper Paper”
But why just send out emailed newsletters? Dunder Mifflin is a paper company, after all! Introducing … The Paper Paper: a monthly newsletter focusing on all of Dunder Mifflin’s and the paper industry’s happenings and news. This is great because the company could even change up the type of paper used every month and make a note of which type it was in the newsletter … and maybe even offer a discount exclusive to the newsletter for that paper type. Pretty brilliant: brand publishing that is so product-focused that it actually involves using your product!
Wow, I’m Totally Convinced Dunder Mifflin Wouldn’t Have Gone Bankrupt if They Had Heard the Good News.
Yeah, me too. But the good news now is that you know the good news. So, while it’s fun to watch memes of business fails, maybe stick to watching fictional ones on The Office (and new fictional ones on The Office Australia) and keep them out of your actual workplaces. I may not have been named salesperson of the month 13 times in the last 12 months, but at least I’m a real person, right?
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