You would expect more from a major corporation wouldn’t you?
But earlier today I received this email from: doritos_crashthesuperbowl4@yahoo.com
Its a yahoo email! Nice!
The email looks like a letter its got all of these inlined graphics and NO opt-out!
I went to the website (which is big and all Flash) and when I clicked on the privacy policy I found this: …you may cancel your registration and/or remove yourself from our emailing list, you may do so by following the “unsubscribe” contained in one of our communications to you…
Hey assholes! You forgot to include one!
It was hard to find any real information about who to contact but as Jaya Kumar is the Chief Marketing Officer, I blame him as well.
Also the included an attachment of a flyer for me to print and post – not a URL to a download one from – they actually sent me an unsolicited attachment! What complete morons!
The worst part of all of this is that if this email had included the opt-out and didn’t look like it was written by a marketing firm that was owned by teenagers I would be interested in a contest like this for myself or my students. But you don’t get involved with companies who don’t play by the rules!
Again – major assholes!
Here is the email:
Dear …
GIVE YOUR STUDENTS A CHANCE TO BE
FEATURED ON ONE OF THE BIGGEST TV
ADVERTISING STAGES, THE SUPERBOWL.
It’s time for your class to Crash the Super Bowl. Doritos® is
giving your students a chance to write, produce and direct
their very own 30-second Doritos® commercial to be aired
during the big game. America will vote for their favorite
spots and the top 3 will be featured during Super Bowl XLIV.
But that’s not all. When the Doritos® commercials take
the top 3 spots on the USA TODAY ad meter, we’ve got
$5,000,000 for the winners.
We’ve attached a flyer to share with your students. Online,
they can also find tips and tricks from last years $1,000,000
winner, the Herbert brothers.
Be sure to have them visit crashthesuperbowl.com
and submit your video by 11/09/09.
Best of luck.
Michael Fox
Brand Manager, Doritos
I work for Doritos and wanted to reach out to you and apologize for this. Whenever we send out communications like this, we try to include an opt-out function and, unfortunately, the third-party we worked with on this promotion forgot to include it. We are taking steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again and all future communication will have an “unsubscribe” option.
Please know we truly were just trying to get the word out about the contest to aspiring filmmakers and students looking for an opportunity to showcase their creativity, but we definitely understand and appreciate your frustration. Again, we apologize for the mistake and appreciate you bringing this to our attention.
Chris, thank you for your reply. I appreciate seeing companies step up to the plate like this – and that is partly what this site is about. It is a shame that people are forgetting that when they hire third party contractors they are putting their good name in their hands. And especially where students are involved it is up to the big companies to demonstrate the correct (both legal and ethical) ways to go about these projects.