Thomas Cook sent the message asking for a free holiday to Paris, most of the message, which can be seen below, was tongue in cheek and quite witty, but what happened next has envoked lots of backlash against the holiday operator
Thomas Cook UK politely explained that they could not offer a free holiday to Paris, however that they had many low prices on their site and that Thomas should check them out. Now in our minds we do agree, why should someone get a free holiday for having the same name? But rather than turn him away we think we’d have made the most out of the situation and done things differently, and here is why.
lowcostholidays.com quickly responded to the post and offered their condolences on having such an unfortunate name and from all the teasing Thomas endured as a child. They then amazingly offered him a free week in Paris for him and a friend!
Now think of the marketing opportunity this has caused for lowcostholidays.com the PR has been immense. Thomas is now back from his holiday to Paris and is sharing photos and stories across various social media platforms. Thomas Cook UK has been slated for not making the most out of a brilliant PR opportunity rather than just shunning the idea, and it appears from comments posted on Facebook that lowcostholidays.com will be getting a fair few more customers this year.
To make matters worse Thomas Cook UK are now using Social Media to try win back followers by inviting Thomas Cook on a holiday to lapland to meet Father Christma,s as a volunteer as part of a disabled children’s charity outing. This has caused even more outrage by users who have commented it is in bad taste.
Here is the Facebook Timeline and how the conversation went:
