It’s been almost one week since the San Francisco Giants beat the Kansas City Royals in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series, but people are continuing to talk about the awkward Chevy Guy who presented the MVP trophy to Madison Bumgarner.

The painfully awkward presentation lasted a mere 58-seconds and it didn’t take long for #ChevyGuy and #TechnologyandStuff to become top trending topics on a Twitter across the country. Chevy quickly capitalized on this, realizing it was probably best to address the situation in a light-hearted manner, as the way the rest of the world was. Chevy leveraged the social media hashtags and used them in their own tweets, as well as in a full-page ad in USA Today.

https://youtu.be/Fw1gc5dGXPk

If you love the outdoors, you’re going to love the new #ChevyColorado#TechnologyAndStuff #CHEVYSEMA pic.twitter.com/ooGYyMuYmj— Chevy Performance (@ChevroletPerf) November 3, 2014

Chevy gained a lot of earned media exposure from this potentially disastrous situation. This is a perfect example of leveraging what’s in front of you. Chevy easily could have ignored this blunder, but instead they decided to take advantage of the situation and turn it into a positive and successful marketing effort.