It’s obvious that the fake Chick-fil-a-defending Facebook posts were not the work of PR
By now, you’ve seen the (non-)story going around about the conversation on Chick-fil-a’s Facebook page where a defender of Chick-fil-a was caught using a stock image photo as their profile picture, meaning that it was a good guess that it was a totally fake account.
What was a bad guess, though, is that the fake Facebook account was run by Chick-fil-a’s PR as a way of trying to spread lies. I’ve been truly amazed by how many people believe that this is the case when it’s obviously not.
If those responses from Abby Farle were from a PR firm, they’re absolute geniuses AND complete morons. Not that I would put it past a PR firm to be dumb enough to use a stock photo as a fake profile picture, but to do that and figure out that they should write the reply without capitalization, almost no punctuation, end the first comment with “John 3:16”, AND—the pièce de résistance—ending the second comment with “derr”. That’s a combination of cunning and carelessness that is nearly impossible.
Look, we’ve all seen fake PR responses before. If those responses really had come from PR, they may still have had the stock photo and name, but it would have looked something more like this:
You’re wrong, Chris. The toys were recalled weeks ago. Check your facts.
…and then would have just said variations on the same thing. Until they got busted for using a stock photo and being totally wrong, that is.
Look at the second comment by “Abby”. What PR firm would have tried to cut down this argument by trying to say “my friend was in one three weeks ago and there weren’t any toys”? The worst PR firm in the world, that’s who; one so bad that their answer to the question “what demographic would most project the status of a factual smackdown” would be “high school kids”.
I’m no defender of Chick-fil-a. I don’t even like their food much (though I am very pro-pickles-on-chicken-sandwiches). But it’s obvious that this fake account was the work of an individual, not-very-bright defender of Chick-fil-a and the company’s politics and not some slick PR professional trying to pull one over on us.
