Nestle: Buy Our Candy So We Can Hunt You Down
from the and-scare-the-nougat-out-of-you dept
Corporate contests. They so often lead to hijinks at the hands of technology, such as that time the internet decided Mountain Dew's new flavor should be "Gushing Granny." Oh, and there was that one online promotion that sent something called Taylor Swift to sing at a school for the deaf. But, lest you think that this volatile mixture of technology and corporate contests is good only for laughs, picture the following.You're walking down a street in a European city, reading about how something someone did somewhere upset a major world religion, and you decide you need respite from the madness of the news. So you walk into a corner store, buy a candy bar, and tear it open, ready to bite into a soft, gooey explosion of stress-melting flavor-gasm. That, of course, is when the black helicopters and MiBs appear out of nowhere, rushing you with an ominous black suitcase. If someone froze you right there in that moment, what do you think you would likely expect to happen next?
Image source: CC BY 2.0
Well, you'd be wrong (probably). Because those aren't darkly dressed neo-terrorists that have for some reason decided to specifically blow you up with a neutron bomb (dear lord, you're self-centered). No, it's your friendly folks at Nestle, responding to the GPS technology in your treat to hand you £10,000 in cold, pants-crappingly terrifying cash. It's all part of the new Nestle contest to reward customers by tracking them down via GPS technology in their candybars within 24 hours of being consumed. They named this campaign "Nestle: we will find you!", because apparently "Nestle: we could find and kill you for eating our products anytime we wanted to" didn't strike quite the right tone.
Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that there's no reason for me to think this contest will play out the way I described above. Well, here's Nestle's own ad for the contest.
Now, I'm generally all for creative promotions, but this all seems terrifying. A private company is going to track me down via GPS and throw a suitcase at me in a major city? Well, not me, since not only am I not European, but I'm one of the six people on the planet that absolutely hates chocolate...but you, sweet Euro-reader! It could be you who fudges your pants after eating fudge! So, in conclusion, the article gives a listing of the candy bars you should avoid if you don't want to be hunted down.
The grand prizes for Nestle's We Will Find You promotion, involve these four chocolate products: KitKat 4 Finger, KitKat Chunky, Aero Peppermint Medium and Yorkie Milk.
($10 says there's a porno parody of those candy names out there somewhere.)
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Filed Under: candy bar, gps, location, promotions, scary
Companies: nestle
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In any case I'd be one of the people avoiding their candy... No srsly, doesn't this violate any right? I mean you are virtually tracking the movements of a person?
I too am in favor of creative promotion but that's a bit too creative ;)
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:)
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Learn, buddy! You'll make it someday! :)
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There go all my work deadlines for the rest of the year :)
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As far as trolls go, that's pretty funny right there.
Traveling.
Too bad for you TD's "second string" beats your starters hands down every time.
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Your first comment is wrong. Either spelling of Travel(l)ing is acceptable. Double L is more common in the UK.
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Thanks for the tip. Didnt know that.
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http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2004-05-09-coke_x.htm
And even the US military got the heebie jeebies from it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5345132/ns/us_news-security/t/coca-cola-promotion-prompts-securit y-measures/#.UFxgwdaPWKY
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Perhaps the eyePhone? even though that was targeted advertising but didn't seem to involve location tracking. Just recording and analyzing everything the user does with the eyePhone.
So, nope, I can't really think Futurama did anything like this. But it could be a cool episode!
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LOL
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Re: LOL
I can't help but to laugh at the MIB scene Tim described if a child wins the prize.
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I smell a lawsuit
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Re: I smell a lawsuit
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On one hand, I get to enjoy something that I might like and get 10,000 pounds (euros? Either way, I'm netting something in between $13,000 to $16,000) just for eating a bar of chocolate and getting the money from out of nowhere.
On the other, I'm eating a GPS tracking unit and being watched by a chocolate company, being followed by my every movement, waiting for the right moment to strike and terrify me. Plus I have to deal with the thing inside me for... a few days before nature kicks in, and also I'm curious on how that thing's going to taste if I were to eat it. Then again, since teeth are involve, would it be strong enough to resist the crushing of teeth and stomach acid?
Hey, if it's for money and candy, sign me up!
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What if they're like the FBI and ask for the GPS unit back, after you had eaten it?
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Now I know what coffee in the sinuses feels like.
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Thank you Tim. Now I have to get that image out of my head.
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Cue TSA buying 100000 chocolate bars and running them through their X-rays.
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Either way I think the idea of a Faraday cage wrapper fails because you would need a pair of wire cutters to open it. X-p
May I please have some of your coffee?
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Though I believe it ended up on the 9/11-list of inappropriate content, I think it is a better reference for this than the cute romantic love-story about London 2020 called "1984".
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Oi! Techdirt writers.
s/Europe/United Kingdom and Ireland/g
Europe consists of more than just 2 countries. Like in one of your previous posts about Amazon releasing a streaming store in "Europe" meaning only UK, France and Germany.
So as you know, Europe is much larger, because next to the aforementioned countries it also contains, Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and Vatican City. Plus an assorted number of partially recognized states (Abkhazia, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, Transnistria and South Ossetia).
This ad campaign only covers two countries, the United Kingdom and Ireland (as per the source of the article)
I *am* a European, with a sweet tooth, but I cannot participate in this event, because I'm not British, nor Irish.
So, why are you addressing ALL Europeans when you mean to only address the Brits and Irish?
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Re: Oi! Techdirt writers.
Because most of us are American. We do geography the way we do healthy eating; which is to say, not at all....
In any case: sorry Europe. Hopefully this afront doesn't lead to embassy riots....
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Are you in the Canadian Olympics?
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Well, at least it makes getting rid of hay more faster.
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nestle = hersche
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nestle = hersche
that will send the message when the beer store has 5 billion instant coffee's they can't give away
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The thing I can't wrap my brain around
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http://www.spychips.com/faqs.html
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I don't think the money would cover their hospital bills
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If eaten, the device might end up in the loo and if it is large then the consumer gets no chocolate?
Maybe I need more coffee because this is a bit confusing - and yes I read the article.
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Got to here
Damn. Ouch. She is a hottie.
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Re: Got to here
Ok, now I know there is something seriously wrong with you. :)
Hates chocolate...
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This puts Orwell's "TVs that watch you" idea to shame.
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but when I do, I prefer Du Rhone.
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Still not as scary as Willy Wonka ...
Because of that film, I do NOT want prizes in my chocolate, thank you.
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I can see all sorts of pained claims about it being bait and switch and millions being demanded....
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My guess is that you'll have some enterprising shopkeepers just weighing all the bars. I doubt they'll be able to put a transmitter of any kind in something that weighs as little as a medium Aero bar.
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Yes, this is possible to do. The GPS+cell phone combo that would be needed for this stunt can weigh nearly nothing. The heavy part is the battery, but if the unit is powered down until activated, and only has to work for a short period of time, that won't be too heavy, either.
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Deferring to Fenderson, I add that if GPS+Cell are anything like the candy bars they will be found in, they will keep getting smaller and smaller in order to retain somewhat comparable pricing. (Wait, that was Hershey who invented making chocolate smaller to keep the price stable... nevermind.)
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Sound reasonable?
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Comments disabled
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I am just saying...
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Wait this isn't an Onion article??
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Filming
If there isn't, there will be by the end of the weekend.
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