Need help with a very sensitive complaint against a massive multinational!

[MrsRickman]

Ok, here goes.
Coca Cola are running a promo via their Dr Pepper brand just now on facebook. It is called 'status takeover' and involves the application putting an embarrassing or funny status on your FB page.
My 14 yo dd participated and I was HORRIFIED to log into FB and see that her status read - 'I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards'. For anyone who doesn't know what this means, please stay ignorant, for those who do, you can imagine how I felt. This was compounded later on when a quick search through dds internet history revealed she had tried to find out what it was for herself. Thankfully, our ISP has a wonderful child filter!!
So, after various emails and phonecalls to CocaCola marketing I have been offered (quite offensively) as way of compensation, a night in a hotel and theatre tickets for the West End. Fat lot of use to me, we live in Glasgow.
So, how do I proceed? ASA? I am absolutely fizzing with rage and disgust, and want a full apology and explanation. CocaCola are saying they use outside marketing teams for different brands and it's outside their jurisdiction. Help!?

MrsR, yes it does say you have to keep your profile public, I was ed at thta when I read them!

This thread has been tweeted a few times today. I suspect it's going to be a big story within the next 24 hours.
Thanks everyone for keeping the momentum going.

just posting to add my support, what an appalling way of carrying out a promotional campaign.

Well done on getting the story out there, Mrs R. Imho, press focus on this story can only be a good thing. The sexualisation of children by corporations should not go unchallenged or ignored. Coca Cola deserve widespread condemnation for this corrupting advertising campaign run in its name. I hope that you (and all the underage children who have signed up to participate) will be getting sincere apologies from the senior board of the company shortly. A sizeable charitable donation by Coke to a relevant children's charity would also be appropriate given the circumstances.

MrsRickman....I am appalled and glad you are taking this further.

OMG what an utterly ill-conceived campaign, even without the scat porn element.

Actively encouraging children (and anyone else for that matter) to make all their private FB stuff PUBLIC is bad enough. Adding in 'hilarious fake updates' with sexual content ('polishing the lighthouse' etc) and unleashing it all on the internet... I'm just lost for words at the sheer stupidity of anyone involved.

Good luck Mrs R.

Mumsnet Towers have tweeted about it.
Thank you.

Horrendous. I admit I had to google the meaning. Bleugh but horrified that it was aimed at your daughter. Take this as far as you possibly can.

From Marketing Magazine (March 31, 2010):

A Facebook UK fan page for the drink will host news as well as brand content, and users will be invited to play the Dr Pepper Status Takeover challenge...

Cathryn Sleight, marketing director at Coca-Cola Great Britain, said: "The Dr Pepper, 'What's the worst that could happen?' creative has a successful nine-year heritage for the brand, and continues to resonate strongly with our teen audience.

"In 2010, we're looking to bring the message to life, giving consumers a personal experience in social environments and scenarios that are relevant to them, and appeal to their sense of humour."

So the lovely Cathryn Sleight admits this distasteful campaign was clearly targeted at teens and her phrase: "Giving consumers a personal experience in social environments" in MrsRickman's daughter's case is particularly vile.

Perhaps Ms Sleight would like to come on here and see 'The worst that could happen' is that young teens could seek out utterly degrading porn and be upset/horrified by it. Scat porn = totally 'relevant' to your teen.

TWATS

Good post, Substandard.

You are doing completely the right thing in taking this further. Please do not let them fob you off by them saying that the competition made clear that references to pornography could be expected. Firstly, if this competition is aimed at 14 years and above, then there should have been NO reference to pornography of any kind. 14 year olds are counted as minors legally. Secondly, to reference such an infamous act/film is definitely out of line.
They will already be working out what to say to defend themselves. "Very sorry" "regrettable incident", "person is question has been reprimanded", "we take these matters very seriously" etc etc.

I'm totally speechless

Well done MrsR - totally behind you. Please do keep us posted.

HalfTermHero Thanks. Am enraged - can you tell?

Is there something we can do to support this complaint? People to email, etc?

Oh my God! That's absolutely horrendous. Ugh, thank goodness I've kept my foot down about my kids having a facebook page (my eldest is 9 and therefore too young by facebook's rules, but most of his friends have a page by lying about their date of birth).

Perhaps I won't want to know the answer but what does scat mean?

This is horrible for you MrsR. Heads will roll at the company and so they should.

This is absolutely horrible. The awful thing is that, once innocence is taken away, you can't get it back; and once images are inside your head, they will stay there. I am furious that such a large brand thinks it's OK to circulate such degrading, misogynistic material to impressionable teenagers. I don't know what's worse - boys being given the message that this is what girls are for, or girls that this is in some way 'normal' or OK. Please let us know if there's anything we can do to take this further. I'll be boycotting Coca-Cola, for starters.

I was looking on Twitter to see where Mumsnet had tweeted about this but can't seem to find it. Can anyone help?

Oh, did that actually come from Mnhq? Ha ha, they have really got with the programme with the lingo and all haven't they?

If anyone wants to find out more about the meaning and history of the offending phrase without risking going onto a dodgy site, it has a record on Wikipedia.

runoutofnameideas - scat is short for scatalogical - basically toilet-related output (!) Sorry, yes it is messy and TMI really.