Video: Is This The Reason LaCroix Dropped Joe Mande As Fake Spokesperson?

Richard Martin•

A few weeks ago, I interviewed comedian Joe Mande at the Food Republic Interview Lounge at the W Austin in Texas, mainly discussing his tour with Aziz Ansari, his dining adventures and his new comedy mixtape. (We'll have that video and interview on the site soon.) But we also discussed Mande's unofficial role as spokesperson for LaCroix mineral water, a role that in the past week has turned controversial. To start, watch what Mande has to say about how the sponsorship began:

Over the past few weeks, LaCroix apparently realized that Mande's rambunctious twitter feed — read by over a million followers — might be having a negative effect on its brand, and sent a series of cease and desist letters to the comedian, who is also a writer for NBC's Parks and Recreation. Fast Company detailed the turn of events on its website yesterday, in a thoughtfully titled thinkpiece, "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Joe Mande? Advice For A Social Media Conundrum."

Mande quickly tweeted an answer:

The Fast Company story focused on the increasing interaction between brands' social media outlets and consumers, some of whom happen to be famous, or "(semi) famous" as writer Jeff Beer — is that his real name? — playfully alluded in the case of Mande. "But what about when things go wrong?" Beer hypothesizes. "There are always angry Facebook commenters, inappropriate hashtag takeovers and more, and everyday consumers now have potentially significant enough reach to greatly impact, positively or negatively, any brand's social presence."

As Mande notes in our interview, he'd caused "at least three boycotts" of his once-beloved mineral water brand, albeit by "Tea Party types" who probably don't represent LaCroix's target demographic, given that it's marketed as a healthy "100% natural" product. While he was joking about the situation, LaCroix obviously was becoming serious about it. Mande soon received pleas to back off over Twitter, and subsequently, cease and desist letters from the company's attorneys, which he posted on his own site, along with a call for Perrier or San Pellegrino to hit him up. He subsequently launched the #destroylacroix hashtag and changed his LaCroix-promoting Twitter bio to note that he's "currently at war with a seltzer company."

So Mande, fittingly for a comedian, gets the last laugh. Though he may have to return to drinking tap.

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