Congratulations! You've Won a Submarine Screen Door
Can someone explain to me what the point is to having a contest with prizes that one can't collect?
For some time, Coca-Cola has been stocking my company's vending machine with special 20oz bottles Diet Coke, where 1 in 12(!) bottle-caps is an instant winner of a free 1 litre bottle of the Coke product of your choice. There's only one teensy catch - I can't find a store that actually sells these rumored 1 litre bottles. Not my grocery store, the local inconvenience joint or any other beverage-selling establishment. Moreover, none of these places will take the caps for even the 20 oz kind. Thus, I am the proud owner 6 of these stupid and uterly useless little bottlecaps. I have until this March to redeem some of them, so I'm half-tempted to drive to Atlanta to Coke's headquarters, hand them to some unsuspecting secretary, demand my 1-litre bottles, then, when told I need to go to a local store to redeem them, defy said secretary to tell me where I might do this.
Still, the submarine-screendoor bottlecaps notwithstanding, Coke is still ahead of Pepsi. That's because at least Coke has grasped the most basic of business tenants: In order to sell product, you must have product to sell. Based on how well Pepsi keeps their fountain and vending machines stocked here at The Company, I can only assume the totality of Pepsi's management team was asleep during Business 101 when this little insight was handed out. When the Diet Pepsi fountain ran out, it took Pepsi 10 days to trundle over new tanks of their syrupy goo. And I kid you not when I say there are Pepsi machines here that have gone weeks without being restocked, much less stocked correctly. (Currently the record stands at 6.) And if you call their 800 number to kindly request additional product, you get the obligatory bubblegum-popping nail-filing type who's just thrilled with her job and will Get Right On It, as soon as the hangnail she's been working finishes growing out. Perhaps they're just too engrossed in the running of their may-contain-taco-like-substance and possibly-fried-chicken establishments...
For some time, Coca-Cola has been stocking my company's vending machine with special 20oz bottles Diet Coke, where 1 in 12(!) bottle-caps is an instant winner of a free 1 litre bottle of the Coke product of your choice. There's only one teensy catch - I can't find a store that actually sells these rumored 1 litre bottles. Not my grocery store, the local inconvenience joint or any other beverage-selling establishment. Moreover, none of these places will take the caps for even the 20 oz kind. Thus, I am the proud owner 6 of these stupid and uterly useless little bottlecaps. I have until this March to redeem some of them, so I'm half-tempted to drive to Atlanta to Coke's headquarters, hand them to some unsuspecting secretary, demand my 1-litre bottles, then, when told I need to go to a local store to redeem them, defy said secretary to tell me where I might do this.
Still, the submarine-screendoor bottlecaps notwithstanding, Coke is still ahead of Pepsi. That's because at least Coke has grasped the most basic of business tenants: In order to sell product, you must have product to sell. Based on how well Pepsi keeps their fountain and vending machines stocked here at The Company, I can only assume the totality of Pepsi's management team was asleep during Business 101 when this little insight was handed out. When the Diet Pepsi fountain ran out, it took Pepsi 10 days to trundle over new tanks of their syrupy goo. And I kid you not when I say there are Pepsi machines here that have gone weeks without being restocked, much less stocked correctly. (Currently the record stands at 6.) And if you call their 800 number to kindly request additional product, you get the obligatory bubblegum-popping nail-filing type who's just thrilled with her job and will Get Right On It, as soon as the hangnail she's been working finishes growing out. Perhaps they're just too engrossed in the running of their may-contain-taco-like-substance and possibly-fried-chicken establishments...
posted by The Doctor at Tuesday, February 15, 2005
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