This is the story how “Dr Pepper” online promotional campaign for million dollars was stopped from one single mother

Have you ever heard of “2 Girls 1 Cup” movie?

Me neither, but one  mother of 14-year-old girl saw it on her daughter’s Facebook status update and didn’t like it at all because she has heard of it and she knew this was a pornographic movie!

It all started on a good old-fashioned forum. One mother posted on the parenting forum that she was shocked at her recent discovery of a pornographic status update on her daughter’s Facebook profile. She dug a little deeper, and found that it was part of Coca-Cola’s Dr. Pepper promotion requiring that users allow Dr. Pepper to hijack their Facebook status for a chance to win $1,000 each week. Her daughter had entered, and her Facebook status changed to include reference to the infamous 2 Girls 1 Cup porn movie, reading: “‘I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards.” Very nasty joke by some Coca Cola social media employee.

And the story doesn’t end here. It seems that the victim-daughter had attempted to find out what the movie was, which was the last straw for this concerned parent that reported the abusive content of the campaign at large. Coca Cola ended the promotion preliminarily.

And that wasn’t all. As a compensation, the mother was offered theater tickets and a night in a London hotel. Really lovely, the problem was, she lives in Glasgow. Oh, Coke. You are so naughty.

Now, some people may argue that Mrs Rickman was just overly sensitive and that the status message should not have been censored. There is, no doubt, some truth to this, as her daughter did willingly sign up for the promotion – however, a pornographic reference probably should not have been part of Coke’s repertoire. And even if this message does not offend everyone, it is encouraging to see that a single individual online has the power to stand up against a company with a multi-million dollar advertising budget.

After all, if we don’t stop them, they will never..
*referring to international companies promotional expansion, not pornographic movies…

I am sorry, I don’t have no choice but to categorize this campaign in ‘dummies’.