While Samsung was hoping to drum up hype for its latest curved television sets, plans to have blockbuster director Michael Bay promote its products backfired when the "Transformers" filmmaker -- known for making movies with large explosions -- caused a scene of his own, abruptly walking offstage mid-presentation.
Bay was hired by Samsung to help promote its new lineup of high-definition television sets for 2014. The director took to the stage Monday at a Samsung press event and began talking about his job as a director before technical issues marred the presentation.
Clearly flustered by the lack of a working teleprompter, Bay first attempted to improvise his onstage dialogue with Joe Stinziano, executive vice president of Samsung America.
"The type is all off, sorry, but I'll just wing this," Bay first said after the teleprompter began to fail.
The director then tried to continue but appeared at a loss for words. Stinziano attempted to get Bay back on subject by asking him what he thought of the new, massive 105-inch curved television set behind him.
"Excuse me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Bay said as he abruptly walked off the CES stage in Las Vegas.
"OK, ladies and gentlemen, let's thank Michael Bay for joining us," Stinziano said after Bay trotted off. Left alone onstage, the Samsung executive said: "Welcome to Vegas. It's a live show, folks."
Bay, an action-oriented director who has helmed three "Transformers" movies and other blockbusters like "The Rock," "Bad Boys" and "Armageddon," later took to his official website to express embarrassment over the incident, which managed to gain more publicity than Samsung's products themselves.
"Wow! I just embarrassed myself at CES --Â I was about to speak for Samsung for this awesome Curved 105-inch UHD TV," the post to Bay's website reads. "I rarely lend my name to any products, but this one is just stellar. I got so excited to talk, that I skipped over the Exec VP's intro line and then the teleprompter got lost. Then the prompter went up and down --Â then I walked off. I guess live shows aren't my thing."
Though Bay's onstage appearance proved to be a failure, the director said he's still going to be promoting Samsung's new curved television sets in an around-the-world tour. The ultra-high-definition TVs that will be put on display will feature footage from Bay's upcoming film "Transformers 4."