Checking my feeds this morning, I was surprised that only one PR blog among those I follow reported on the Circuit City/MAD Magazine story. After all, the best part of the story is the action taken by a PR guy.

The tale begins with the publication in MAD’s current issue of a four-page spoof of those Circuit City ads inserted into newspapers. The “Sucker City” insert features high prices for HDTVs, a game for the Nintendo Wii called “Epilepsy Victim,” and the Wii gaming system itself guaranteed in stock (if you’re friends with an employee who hid it in the back for you). It’s a typical MAD parody that’s typically well done.

At Circuit City, an executive took umbrage with the parody and ordered those Circuit City stores that carry magazines to remove the current issue of MAD from their shelves and destroy them. The email from Elizabeth Barron of Corporate Operations was reproduced in a post on Consumerist.

The story took a turn for the great, though, when Jim Babb, who works in Circuit City’s corporate communications department in Richmond, Virginia, sent a note to Consumerist. The note is a lesson in how to handle what could have turned into a significant annoyance for Circuit City (the story got 1,935 Diggs, for example, and was covered in an AP story) featuring charges of censorship and allusions to the First Amendment:

Hi, Ben,

I spotted the article about Circuit City and MAD Magazine on your site.

fyi, I became aware of this “situation” only this morning, and I have sent a note today to the Editors of MAD Magazine.

Speaking as “an embarrassed corporate PR Guy,” I apologized for the fact that some overly-sensitive souls at our corporate headquarters ordered the removal of the August issue of MAD Magazine from our stores. Please keep in mind that only 40 of our 700 stores sell magazines at all.

The parody of our newspaper ad in the August MAD was very clever. Most of us at Circuit City share a rich sense of humor and irony…but there are occasional temporary lapses.

We apologize for the knee-jerk reaction, and have issued a retraction order; the affected stores are being directed to put the magazines back on sale.

As a gesture of our apology and deep respect for the folks at MAD Magazine, we are creating a cross-departmental task force to study the importance of humor in the corporate workplace and expect the resulting Powerpoint presentation to top out at least 300 pages, chock full of charts, graphs and company action plans.

In addition I have offered to send the MAD Magazine Editor a $20.00 Circuit City Gift Card, toward the purchase of a Nintendo Wii….if he can find one!

All the best,

Jim Babb
Corporate Communications
Circuit City Stores, Inc.
Richmond, VA

Consumerist writer Ben Popken responded glowingly to the letter, noting that Babb hit all the right notes, admitting the company made a mistake, putting a stop to the action, and apologizing. “Check check and check on all three, plus points for speed. You go, girls.” High praise from a site dedicated to looking out for consumer’s rights.

Comments to the post are nearly universally positive, as characterized by this one:

Leave it to the PR guy to recognize the appropriate response to a situation. Look, I know PR flacks can be annoying, but companies really need to run things by the publicity department so someone can gently point it out when the company is about to do something hopelessly bone-headed.

(MAD magazine’s editors were apparently taken with the response, too.)

What’s more, Babb was able to use the coverage to note that a sense of humor isn’t new to Circuit City, pointing to a a YouTube video touted as one “we’ll never see” and which was produced by Circuit City:

But there is one more point to be made about this story. The action by the think-skinned executive should never have been taken in the first place. If reputation were a priority at Circuit City, it would not have been possible for an executive to take such action in a vacuum. Instead, recognizing that there could be reputational fallout, the decision would have been run by whoever has responsibility for such matters. Charles Fonbrum suggests companies should have a Chief Reputation Officer to review these types of decisions regardless of the department that is making them.

Circuit City would do well to consider promoting Mr. Babb to this position. Unless they follow the advice of one of the Consumerist commenters: “Jim Babb should be made CEO. NOW!”