I get at least 8 different emails every day from different group buying sites. Last week, I received one from Groupon with the following subject line:

"Gifts for the Man Who Gave You Birth"

Uhm.

Okay.

I was much more of an English and Theatre girl than a Math and Science girl, but even I remember a little bit about biology. Add to that the fact that in our house, it was ME that gave birth to our three daughters, not their Father. Not trying to take anything away from the Dads out there, but this is one task you just can't do.

So I threw out a funny little tweet mentioning the subject line and the improbabilities of it ever happening. The only response that I got back was from the Groupon rep in Charleston, SC, who said, "All families are different."  Why yes, Charleston... if my father had birthed me, I would definitely be different.

Anyhow... they goofed when they sent out an email to the entire subscriber base since this promotion was a national one, not just a local one. We all make goofs, but we're not all a giant, very public, very social company like Groupon.

Not even 5 minutes ago, I got this email from Groupon: 

Bravo, Groupon, Bravo!!!

They did exactly what they should have done; they turned the tables around to make fun of themselves. Now instead of a goof, they have a funny and memorable campaign going on to promote their Father's Day deals. I honestly am not sure at this point if the original email was goofed on purpose or not—I'm assuming that it was, but it very well could have been part of the plan. Either one is clever, and if in fact it was a goof, I'm super impressed with their recovery.

Hey—we're all going to hit send with a bad subject line at some point in our careers. It's how you handle it after you see that "message sent" display that really matters.

Have you got the chops to recover?