This Agency's $25,000 Christmas Tree Lighting on Facebook Live Was Shockingly Lame

It’s agency holiday card season, and here’s a fun one from Marcus Thomas. 

The Cleveland agency organized a Facebook Live event called “$25,000 of Light” for this past Monday night. A four-day promotional campaign—including email and paid social—led up to the big event, promising an insanely impressive holiday display “so bright, you can see it from space.” 

It didn’t quite turn out that way. Here’s how it went down: 

Many of the Facebook Live viewers seemed disappointed, and a few were borderline hostile. Among the comments: 

“E for effort?”
“I want, I demand, that time back.”
“Honey of a tree, Clark”
“I would get my $25,000 back”
“What I saw was beautiful my phone must be on the fritz you guys did a great job”
“Ummm…??”
“Bummer.”

A second Facebook Live video on Tuesday explained the shenanigans—that Marcus Thomas had actually donated the $25,000 to the United Way. 

“While the holiday lighting display may go down in history as one of the lamest ever, helping to drive over $25,000 in donations for the United Way sure did brighten the holidays for a lot of their neighbors in need,” says a rep for the agency.