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!?

SS - yes I think we shall!

GOOD POST BATHBUNS

oops sorry caps.

Even if was was "normal" porn being referenced, "normal" sex acts, it would still ve wildly inappropriate to be referencing them as part of a campaign for a soft drink, let alone a campaign aimed at under 18s

I have emailed the Guardian business desk re the open profiles etc, hopefully they will see it is to their advantage to go back and do a second take on this story.

No point taking pot shots, help them out and hopefully better story will be written.

oh, yes, of course ISNT. I completely agree.

Just by using some of the posts here the article will write itself.

Wonder what the quote from cocacola will be? How will they explain how this happened?

I am almost as angry at the fecking Guardian now

As a former journalist, I disagree - by using the posts here, the article will come across as a whole load of hysterical mums.

What they need is real perspective from experts on porn and the internet, from advertising specialists (who will hopefully be able to say how damaging this campaign will be - unfortunately it could go the other way and just garner lots of publicity for the brand), from internet safety experts and from named, photographed individuals.

That is what will make a good story. Unfortunately to do it properly takes time, so it probably won't be instant.

It looks like a placeholder article to me to get first dibs on the article. Hopefully they wilkl follow up.

A poster stated earlier that this may well have been staged to make Dr Pepper appear youthful and edgy.

By not refering to the film itself - which I imagine they cannot - journalists are gagged, and the full weight is hard to convey. And we look hysterical.

This is starting to look like a v clever 'your Mum will hate it' campaign.

totally unacceptable if my grandkids (3 on facebook) had this message put on their status blood would flow and it wouldn't be the kids! (shock)(angry)

Report to advertising standards watchdog, faceboo, tweet about it and the newspapers.

The offer of compensation was grossly offensive too as if that would make it accceptable, I don't think so.(hmm)

Whatever you decide good luck with getting the outcome you want.

think it is horrendous. don't want to believe that this stuff exists, let alone peddled by mulitinationals, targeting teenagers.

I'm just amazed that this promotion has been going on for 2 months and this is the first time a parent has noticed the filth on their child's FB page. Do other parents not check what their under-age children are doing/saying on the internet?!

Agree with you Annie - odds are that either parents aren't aware of what their teens (and younger - we've seen comments acknowledging 9yos lie about age to be using FB) had been posting...

or, perhaps a much easier thing to do (teens being fast to learn from friends) is to have a 'safe' identity for family and some friends, and then a separate identity for them to be able to post all the 'out getting smashed' pix and writing comments about rivals and parents that would not necessarily be seen so easily.

(Sorry if that sounds like I am overly 'cloak and dagger' but when I was in education, we sometimes had malicious hackers, people adding software to pools of PCs etc etc... I may have never been the poacher, but have had some experience as a gamekeeper!)

I think someone said that the statuses grew more embarrassing as the competition went on, so perhaps the really offensive ones only came quite recently?

I'm not even sure 'offensive' is the right word, actually - that's what the article called it, and it made it sound like someone was being oversensitive. The status wasn't exactly offensive, more criminal in what it exposed children to, and what it appeared to endorse. That's the part that I don't think has come across in the press so far.

"By not refering to the film itself - which I imagine they cannot - journalists are gagged, and the full weight is hard to convey. And we look hysterical."

Sorry - but I don't understand that. How can it be that the reference was made on FB by Dr Pepper on teenager's open profiles but somehow newspapers can't print the true facts?

Have been following this thread avidly-the guardian article is disgraceful lazy lazy journalism, nice fat logo right there in your face as well. It simply doesn't take the matter at all seriously.

Bugger me-thst orlando sentinel article isn't much help either "Popular pornographic movie" ahem you are joking aren't you? It's so much worse than that. Utter debasement.

Muchos respect MRsR-I really think you are a star. At the very least I am glad you bought this to my attention. I work with 14 plus vulnerable teens and facebook is the bane of my professional life. So many of my young women have opne profiles and scary, pervy men trying to get contact with them through it is DAILY occurence. forn DR pepper to make references to this sort of thing is increasing the risk massively. It's an open invitation!

I've linked to this thread on my Facebook page. I hope all my friends with teens will learn an important lesson from it.

MrsR - glad that's not your real name...

Just thought of a couple of changes to the Guardian article which Mr Dodd could use to give sufficient information for the complaints not be dismissed as those of some over-protective parents, by explaining in a bit more detail what was wrong...

item 1 to change " which could be seen by friends entitled to view their Facebook profile. " to

" which could be seen by anyone viewing their Facebook profile, as one of the terms of the promotion was to make the profile available for public access - not ideal for the teenagers (from age 14) that may well disclose mobile phone numbers and other personal information."

item 2 is "controversial because of practices it depicts" could be replaced by
"controversial because of the scatological practices it depicts"

(extra information without identifying the video clip)