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

1408 replies

MrsRickman · 16/07/2010 17:58

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!?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
mumwhatnothing · 22/07/2010 14:13

As I said.

confuddledDOTcom · 22/07/2010 14:19

Just because you did it for fun and not the money doesn't mean everyone did. Most people playing it had their account open for everyone - friends list or not, member of Facebook or not - to see. It was aimed at teenagers, it had a minimum age of 14 that means 13 year olds were exposed to it - even if not from your account!!! Get your head out of your own world FFS

mumwhatnothing · 22/07/2010 14:22

Get your head in the real world. The internet (including Facebook) is not a safe secure environment for children and they should not be using it except under strict supervision.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

NetworkGuy · 22/07/2010 14:28

Best read through the last 3 days, if not the whole thread, before you put "strict supervision".

It is blatantly clear that MrsR only allowed her daughter to participate because one can (one hopes) trust a big corporation like Coca-Cola to not use material that would be OTT.

There has to come a time of some independence, freedom, and (unfortunately) some possibility of making (not too serious) mistakes, as such experiences help one mature.

Teens cannot be watched 24x7, they'd go nuts, as would parents.

If you honestly expect parents of teens to monitor every phone call they have, every "messenger" chat they have, every e-mail they send or receive, every text message they write/read, then you are not living "in the real world".

Timeforabiscuit · 22/07/2010 16:05

mumwhatnothing - if I came up to your teenage child in your local town centre in a coca cola t-shirt and clipboard, and then in conversation made reference to a pornographic film while intimating they should know in detail certain sex acts in that film, you, I hope would not be best pleased.

The virtual world IS now real life, so people and organisations need to be accountable for how they conduct themselves in public spaces.

mumwhatnothing · 22/07/2010 19:52

The dr pepper status did not intimate that anyone should know nor find out what the status meant. And I have already said I don't think it should have been on there. I have also said I don't think it should have been available to children, nor do I think face book is necessarily suitable for children.

I control what my child sees on the internet, just as I would control with whom they interact in real life.

confuddledDOTcom · 22/07/2010 20:28

Obviously you've still not read the thread.

Anyway, regardless of what should and shouldn't be, the fact is it was. Facebook is for 13+, the comp was for 14+.

cattj · 22/07/2010 21:17

It's a shame that all of the posts in this thread will be deleted after 90 days - as if it had never happened.

See announcement at top of the page.

NetworkGuy · 22/07/2010 21:51

cattj - check the web address... mine says "childinternetsafety" instead of "_chat" as someone at MNHQ must have taken the decision

(a) to allow more than 1000 posts and
(b) not to keep it in _chat where it would be deleted automatically.

Initially I assumed some people visiting from other websites would not see it, but it seems MNHQ has added a link so it works from chat as well as from childinternetsafety but if you view it from chat you may get a warning about automatic deletion.

tokyonambu · 23/07/2010 09:45

"I control what my child sees on the internet, just as I would control with whom they interact in real life."

I bet you don't, unless you home school and never let your child take part in any activity for which you are not stood by their side.

Let's take my 14 year old daughter, like MrsP's, who's a Facebook user. She's at school today. It's a small school, but there's still 1000 pupils and a commensurate number of staff. I don't know most of them from Adam, and certainly have no control over them. I carry this risk because the school can be assumed to exercise some due diligence.

This weekend she'll be at an National Youth Orchestra workshop. There'll be a couple of hundred players there, most of them older. I can have no control over what they say and do during the day, but it's a risk I carry because it's vaguely supervised, and because I know my daughter. The same applies, in spades, to the week long residential orchestral course she's going on in a few weeks time.

In all these cases I carry the risk that I am not able to control whom she interacts with because I place some faith in the organisers and in her common sense.

In what way are the NYO or the organisers of a small orchestral course based out of a boarding school in the Home Counties more trustworthy than the Coca Cola corporation when it comes to child protection? Why shouldn't I regard major companies as being reasonably careful not to promote scat porn?

LeninGrad · 23/07/2010 10:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NetworkGuy · 23/07/2010 10:35

From an item in the Observer :The next 400 - "Keep an eye on these shining stars: you'll be seeing a whole lot more of them"

... Dave Bedwood, Lean Mean Fighting Machine, founder ... Oh yes, though for the wrong reasons.

Seems 'The Boss' Tom Bazeley, has been away on holiday this week. Perhaps a very good time to be out of the office!

NetworkGuy · 23/07/2010 10:43

Oh dear - I am very slow - I had honestly thought that there was nothing to link Dr Pepper with the status messages, but see from the (enlarged) image on a blog that it says 'via Dr Pepper Status Takeover'

I suppose with 500M users, and expecting to reach 1Bn users, FaceBook is almost "unstoppable". They are making money and some advertising agencies seem to love them (along with Twitter, YouTube, etc) for "spreading the word". Happy to avoid any marketing using these social networks, for now at least (why I won't have a business related blog, either).

NetworkGuy · 23/07/2010 10:56

Seen today in comments following a blog entry

" This agency clearly has one tech savy guy, and a room full of cocaine snorting, never-read-a-book, never-learned-a-thing pretty morons writing copy. "

Don't blame me, I'm only the messenger.

Here's a link to the blog entry titled "Dr. Pepper learns about social media boundaries the hard way" (but check the web address - that may have been the original subject line for the entry)

FellatioNelson · 23/07/2010 17:23

this is very supportive

Sorry if it's already been linked - getting hard to keep up with what has and hasn't been mentioned on this thread!

Still absolutely stunned by the general apathy in the national press.

doughnutty · 23/07/2010 19:02

Maybe, given the week they've had to realise that there might be a story worth telling, one of the weekend papers might pick it up.

Or am I just naive?

piprabbit · 23/07/2010 19:06

doughtnutty I was wondering the same thing. There's often a bit more space in the Sunday papers for pontificating on this sort of thing.

sdia12 · 23/07/2010 19:26

NetworkGuy thanks for your help in info gathering for my piece. Can you pass me your email, cheers

DunktheBear · 27/07/2010 15:14

Hello

Coca Cola has sacked the agency that came up with this campaign for them. The agency has been removed from all Coca Cola work across all of its brands.

Http://tinyurl.com/3xeqbdf

It is however worth remembering Coca Cola marketing team signed off e.g. approved all of the content of this campaign. So are they really that blameless?

LeninGrad · 27/07/2010 17:11

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NetworkGuy · 27/07/2010 17:37

I suppose it depends on how many dozen crass comments they had to read, in part, and perhaps it was left to someone new to the marketing department to do the boring bit, who may have felt embarrassed to ask about the 2 girls 1 cup reference, just because it seems 'cool' not to need to ask...

They have had the marketing people criticised as being incompetent for not asking about it, and how "hip" they probably felt they were being to use social networking site but that this has probably been their worst nightmare.

I'd still point the finger very much in the direction of the agency - the Coca-Cola people must have indicated their target audience, and I bet the agency was left to do "the rest", so they came up with the messages... If Coca-Cola came up with the messages, then I'd point the finger at them, after all, the client is always right (and the most an agency might do is point out a possible error, and keep their name well away from the campaign if they felt it was "dodgy").

Every week I hear or see something "out of the ordinary" (ie unknown to me) which may be slang of an offensive kind. Had never heard of a "Chelsea Smile" until this thread. Had never heard of "crack one off" (until I was up late and it was said on Big Brother).

There must be 1001 expressions of varying levels of crudity which we, as individuals, may never have heard.

Regarding 2 girls 1 cup, I had not seen a thread about it on MN, nor did I even know the name, but someone on geeky_stuff enquired about stopping her son from viewing porn via his mobile or the net {sorry, some months ago} and I happened to have seen something on C4 or Five about teenagers, where that clip was described.

The presenter had been told what was in the clip by two teenage (14-15) lads, and I could hardly believe what I was hearing, yet the lads seemed quite unconcerned (presumably having seen other filth, too).

As with the "reactions" clips (about seeing 2G1C) on YouTube, there was (within the TV show) a part when the parents saw it, so we as TV audience could see their reactions.

Don't remember anyone being actually sick, but most of the Mums covered their eyes, and looked ill. The Dads also showed signs of revulsion, but in all cases, it was a massive shock to them that their sons had seen such revolting muck.

So what I'm getting at, is the likelihood (as per a poster's comments much earlier) that perhaps someone young in the agency included it, thinking it "acceptable" to use that line, and the agency had a duty of care to come up with (suitable) goods!

LeninGrad · 27/07/2010 17:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

tokyonambu · 28/07/2010 22:28

You can only admire a brand that thinks that The Aristocrats is the basis for a campaign.

sdia12 · 29/07/2010 17:37

Personally I blame the agency - they seemed to not want to take the blame, though. Whenever I'd phone up with a clarification, they'd say "talk to Coca-Cola, bye" and hang up. Way to dump the junk on your client!

I called up to clarify if they had been awarded Best Ad Agency fairly recently, and got the same 'telephone slammed down' response.

For being self-acclaimed "experts" in promoting an image, I must say they faffed around terribly at promoting their own.

NetworkGuy · 31/07/2010 21:00

I notice they wiped mentions in their blog of being involved with Dr Pepper (wiped a few months of blog entries out completely).

Not sure if you got my e-mail, sdia12, but I did send a message within an hour of you asking a week back...

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