Ooh, That Spell. Can’t You Spell That Spell?

by, Justin Finnegan, Senior Account Executive, Fusion PR – @justinfinnegan

I’m always amazed when obvious typos make it past the proofing stage and are made available for public consumption. Yesterday, Activision unveiled the cover art for the upcoming video game Guitar Hero: Metallica. Instead of featuring a picture of the band on the cover, they instead listed all of the bands that have songs in the game.

Unfortunately for Activision, they misspelled Lynyrd Skynyrd as “Lynyrd Skynrd.”

Now, I know that the seminal Southern Rock group has an unusual name to spell, but an article on Rolling Stone makes a pretty compelling argument:  

“Even the (properly) misspelled Mercyful Fate get [sic] their name handled correctly, and the oft-mangled Mastodon pass the fact-checking test.”

Though arguably the most arduous part of any PR professional’s job, proofing is an essential skill to develop. It’s amazing to think of the money and time that would have been saved had one extra person reviewed the art above. At least the good people at Activison can take solace in the fact that the Canadian band, Bottleskup Flenkenkenmike, wasn’t included in the game as well.