A few days ago, I was shopping through Wal-Mart and picked up a few personal items including Secret's new Flawless Touch Conditioning Solid antiperspirant (I warned you!). After first being disappointed that my usual deodorant no longer graced the shelves, I was persuaded to buy this new product because of a tempting sticker that suggested I could win a $15,000 diamond! Well, I tossed it in the cart and promptly forgot about the contest until this morning.
I noticed the sticker again and had a few spare minutes, so I hopped onto the
internet and visited www.secretdiamondgiveaway.com. I typed in the "secret" code from my dispenser to find out I if I was a winner of a fantastic bauble but was roadblocked! Before I could find out if I had won anything I was flashed into a screen that firmly stated I had to share some personal information with Secret before they could reveal whether I was a winner or a loser (sadly, I did not win a gorgeous gem).This seems to be a popular ploy for a lot of brands and businesses these days... they offer these great online promotions and contests, but you cannot enter without first giving up your name and email address at the very least. I've even seen registration screens that want to know your address, income, education level and marital status! Clearly, these results are all going towards marketing research, and they are trying to be cleverly disguised as contests or ongoing rewards programs (e.g. MyCokeRewards and Pepsi Stuff).
Sometimes, there aren't even contests at all! A few months ago, I was introduced to Marc Jacobs new fragrance, Daisy. I went online to find out what products were available in the line but I had to register just to view much of the (ridiculously Flash-heavy) website! Like many other online brands, there were quick computer games to play that let me earn daisy points which I could exchange for desktop images, icons and avatars - things that I normally can download for free....
Maybe I should stop myself here and segue this topic into next week's blog ---- brands that expect me to advertise for them for FREE via icons, avatars and screen savers. Yikes!
