Carbonite this past quarter took a surprise hit in customer acquisition as it ended a relationship with conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, after Limbaugh made some colorful comments.
“It turned out to be a bigger issue than we had anticipated, because at the time there was a lot of noise,” said CEO David Friend. “We had a huge spike in web traffic around that time, and just because of all of the interest in the whole subject.”
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2012/08/zipcar-car-sharing.html
““We had a huge spike in web traffic around that time..”
In other words, professional agitators, community organizers and their useful idiots are leeches on society and will make a lot of noise without having much to spend in the economy.
I've never heard of ZipCar. Methinks they are not only advertising to the wrong demo, but are being ripped off by their agency or marketing department.
Any way, from what I remember of the Carbonite faux pas, their customer acquisition costs were through the roof even with the Limbaugh reach.
It's probably over for them as Carbonite. Between alienating Dittoheads and all the bad publicity about the quality of their service, I wouldn't be surprised to see them acquired by a real backup company for substantially less than what they paid for their constantly dwindling customer base.