Did I miss something here? Vic gets hired to promote the cereal brand and come up with good advertising, the advertising works well, the company *beep* up and has the issue a product recall, Vic gets blamed for everything.
How exactly is that his fault? If people are hemorrhaging internally from the cereal, that is quality control's fault. Vic definitely was not in that job function.
I agree, it always seemed like a reach to me. I love this film and I love the book, but he could have come up with something a little better to get the husband out of town. I sort of think he liked the idea of people being horrified by their children throwing up what appeared to be blood and having it turn out to be red dye. To your point, he probably should have had Vic be an executive or a salesperson for the cereal company vs. an advertisement firm.
Of course I'm not a genius author who has been entertaining millions for over 4 decades, so I tend to overlook it.
It took me three hours to figure out that FU was Felix Ungar.
I never understood that either. He was in charge of the advertising, not the actual product. Surely heads would roll in the cereal company, but to blame it on the ad agency? Lame.
shareI could understand if he was personally upset. The events of the recall would probably mean that their work was all going to waste and wouldnt get a chance to be used. Taking the blame makes no sense though.
shareIt was all optics. The public always wants somebody to pay. The mascot for the company was a Professor who would look at the cereal and say, "Nope. Nothing wrong here!"
And of course, there was something wrong. In the book, it was explained that just the perception that the company had taken action, like firing their advertising, would help their tanking stock.
I feel the ad team is stressed because of the recall because the need to come up with something fast to make the cereal company look good to the public. The ad company wouldn't be sued but I think it would be a snowball effect. The cereal company depend on the ad company to make them look good in the public eye and "see nothing wrong here" is the quote from their ad that would be mocked by the media.
shareIn the book, it is really just more about a new look for the cereal company after the incident. They mentioned what the other poster said about the stocks rising by investors just seeing a change in things. They also mentioned the top exec of the company didn't really like the idea of the slogan "Nope, nothing wrong here" but he couldn't really explain why he didn't like it. After the incident with the red cereal, that slogan was used as the butt of a lot of jokes about the company.
shareI thought the same thing.
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