mijan | CONTACT PEPSI. Tell them to drop their 6A Sponsorship!

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CONTACT PEPSI. Tell them to drop their 6A Sponsorship!

Please forgive the lack of an LJ-cut, but I want to get everyone's attention. I'm sure you know about this by now:
http://news.livejournal.com/102286.html
(Make sure you've read the article on LJ-news before you do anything else.) In response to the new Pepsi advertisements, V-gifts, and logos all over the place, in VIOLATION of LJ's customer contracts, I say we take a stand, and hit Six Apart where it counts.

I just got off the phone with Pepsi Customer Relations. I told them that Pepsi's corporate sponsorship of Six Apart might be a very bad publicity move. I explained that Six Apart had, over the past several months, created a couple of nasty customer service snafus, leading to horrible customer relations. I mentioned how the last time Six Apart and Livejournal irritated us, we did a bit of a census to see how many of us were angry (do you remember "fandom_counts"?), and we raised a count of over 30,000 people in just a few short days. That's power in numbers. As I continued to explain, I said that Six Apart is now violating customer contracts by placing advertisements on Paid Accounts, which is infuriating a lot of customers all over again. The advertisements they're using are Pepsi advertisements, which I'm certain hadn't been Pepsico's intent. I pointed out that I was sure Pepsi wouldn't want its own logo to be used in advertising that violated customer contracts. So, basically, we're getting spammed with Pepsi advertisements, which, if anything, is bad publicity for Pepsi, and could easily lead to people refusing to buy Pepsi products on principle. I didn't say that there was any boycott of any sort being discussed - however, I did say that it was enough to make me stop buyng Pepsi products, and it would probably have the same effect on other people as well. In other words, Pepsi's own advertising campaign could backfire and give them negative publicity if they continue with Six Apart.

Pepsi is a large enough corporation that they don't need the headache of dealing with a corporate cockroach like Six Apart. If Pepsi smells bad publicity, they'll bail. I'm NOT, repeat NOT doing this to hurt Pepsi. (If you call Pepsi, make sure you do it with full awareness that this is not Pepsi's fault.) Go into it attempting to persuade Pepsico to withdraw corporate sponsorship from Six Apart for their own corporate reputation.

So, in short, I suggested that it might bode well for Pepsi to get out of their corporate sponsorship deal with Six Apart as soon as possible.

Here's what I'm asking you to do:

CALL PEPSI. Tell them what's happening with Six Apart. Explain that 6A is violating customer contracts by placing Pepsi advertisements in paid accounts, and that customers of LiveJournal are angry - NOT at Pepsi, but at LiveJournal and Six Apart. Tell them that it will look bad for Pepsi to continue advertising with Six Apart, and that Pepsi should withdraw their corporate sponsorship for their own good. Again, don't be rude to the Pepsi people! They have nothing to do with Six Apart's stupidity, and they probably don't even know about this. Just pass on the information.

I didn't call the customer service line directly because I couldn't find it at first, but I got connected through the vendor's number. I think THIS is the Customer Service line: +1(800)433-2652
Or the basic phone number for the headquarters: +1(914)253-2000 That should connect you to anybody at the Headquarters, and I'd recommend this number most.

Here's the link to a page listing their entire roster of Corporate executives and offices:
http://www.pepsico.com/PEP_Company/OfficersDirectors/index.cfm

Here's their address:
Pepsi Customer Relations

Pepsico, Inc

700 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577

(OMG...

evilimp, you and your friends from your college can go directly to the office! DO IT! Seriously, will you???)

Also, for the UK:
PepsiCo United Kingdom
    1600 Arlington Business Park
    Theale, Reading
    Berkshire, RG7 4SA UK

44-118-930-6666

Salman Amin
President

And most importantly... TELL YOUR F-LIST! Feel free to copy/paste all of this information. Pass it on. Flood Pepsi with phone calls. Hit Six Apart where it hurts the most. Six Apart wants to piss off their original source of income - their paying customers - so we'll remove their shiny new source of income. Come on, we're fandom. We can do anything. Who's with me?

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Haha, you can count on me .. you will see this in a post created by me in the next couple mintues, and with all the people on my list, it will move, thank you.

[kisses]

♥

Make sure you include this link:
http://news.livejournal.com/102286.html

That gives information about the sneaky way in which they're placing the ads everywhere. I updated my post to include that link.

Their putting ads on paid accounts? Do they really want to get us mad now?

I wish I could phone them, being in Europe makes it difficult, even phoning to England would be something right now that doesn't go with my purse. But I'll pimp this post, you can bet on that.

This is how the ads are being placed in accounts:
http://news.livejournal.com/102286.html

They're being snuck in through V-gifts and stuff like that. Even a new Journal Layout.

And try e-mailing Pepsi. ;)

*Is confused*

Where are they putting adverts onto paid accounts? I don't have any on mine.

Read this article:
http://news.livejournal.com/102286.html

Oh right - yes I've seen the layouts with the Pepsi theme, but *shrugs* no one is being forced to use them, so what's the problem? Or am I being silly?

It's the V-gifts. If one of them shows up on your profile page, because someone sent it to you, it's an advertisement on your LJ. Which violates contracts. Make sense?

Normally, I wouldn't nit-pick like that, BUT... LJ has pissed me off. *grins*

I still don't see the problem. If someone sends one to me, then I don't see it as any worse than some of the other V-gifts, a couple of which I'd be more offended at having on my profile page. As for the whole advertising thing, well, we advertise HP and other things all the time on our profile pages.

And can't you delete them?

If I may butt in here...
If someone uses one of the Pepsi mood themes in their journal, then the only way to get rid of it is to defriend them, or change your friends page view to view your friends page with your own mood theme. Why should I forced now to change my lj settings or delete advertising when I was assured, as a paid user, that I wasn't supposed to see it in the first place?

Exactly.

I do see what you are getting at, but my point is that LJ hasn't forced that person to use Pepsi mood themes ... it's their choice and they decided to use it because they liked it enough to pick that particular theme.

well this sucks. I hate hate HATE diet coke. Love love LOVE Diet Pepsi :(

When did this happen? Where?

http://news.livejournal.com/102286.html

Can't people say no to v-gifts?

They don't have to buy them to give to other people, but if someone sends it TO you, it'll show up in your account.

It seems really odd that you don't have a choice in the matter. You can turn down other gifts, like lj time, but not v-gifts? I'm surprised at how silly that is rather than how much it violates contracts.

you know, i find it quite outrageous that lj is masquerading ads as gifts, too, but considering the precarious situation fandom is in right now, i'm not sure that flooding pepsi with calls is the way to go. the less limelight on fandom right now, the better. it's not like sixapart can't make the connection between the two, esp. because several fandom people have already filed complaints with lj about the pepsi-sponsored gifts.

just my two cents :)

I don't think Pepsi will dig into fandom stuff. They'll look at the Paid User contracts, and see that LJ is violating those contracts with the Pepsi logo, and they'll pull the ad. I've dealt with corporations enough to know that much.

The only thing that Pepsi can/will do is to pull their sponsorship from LJ, which is exactly what we want. Even if they decide that the customer base is "wierd", that will only drive them away more. And Pepsi isn't "law enforcement". They're not looking for "bad guys". They're only looking out for their bottom line. So, don't worry - I promise, this is the one thing we can do that WON'T backfire on fandom. Think about it.

*waves* ♥

Far be it from me to fail to join in rebellion against corporate exploitation...=)

Have I mentioned how amazing you are?

*snicker* I wouldn't say amazing, but I try. ;)

I... I hate to say it, but I think you're barking up the wrong tree. Pepsi made a deal with Live Journal/Six Apart, not with LJ/6A's customers. It's not up to Pepsi to make sure LJ/6A honors its promises to its customer base. Yes, dozens of corporate conglomerates threatened to pull their sponsorship to MSNBC when Imus made those racial remarks, but this isn't even in the same county, much less the same ballpark as that incident. People boycotted Exxon after the Valdez incident, and last I checked, especially after the multi-billion dollar merger with Mobil, they're doing just fine.

If I go to my local supermarket to buy my diet wild cherry Pepsi, and they're constantly sold out, I'm not going to call PepsiCo to demand, as an irate customer, they make sure Waldbaums supermarkets has my diet wild cherry pepsi in stock. If I have a problem, I call Waldbaums and complain. Granted, when Coca Cola changed the formula for Coke, millions of people complained. To Coca Cola. Because that was an issue with the company itself.

If people want to boycott Pepsi/Frito-Lays/KFC-Taco Bell, etc., then that's their right of course. If you want to tell Pepsi that LJ renegged on their promise to their paid customers, that's fine, too. (though I should note that it says right on the news page that paid customers won't see the sponsored copy attached to the gifts.) But to scapegoat Pepsi when it's LIVEJOURNAL that made the deal, when it's LIVEJOURNAL who renegged on its word

If the mood theme offends you (general you), and people on your flist are using it, then force your mood them on your flist, or ask the person using it to not use it, or defriend them. I have people using mood themes that I'm not particularly fond of, and some journal layouts hurt my eyes as well as my sensibilities, but who the hell am I to tell anyone what layout to use on their journal or what mood theme to choose? If you don't want to receive Vgifts, then tell your flist not to send them to you. You can't send the Pepsi ones anonymously.

I just... I don't think this is the right way to handle it. People are unhappy with Livejournal/Six Apart, and yes, with good reason. But this smacks of skirting the issue. If people are unhappy with the service LJ is providing, with its new rules and the implementation of those rules, then as a customer, you leave and take your business elsewhere. Plain and simple. When my dry cleaners raised its rates, I went and found somewhere cheaper. I grocery shop more at Stop & Shop now than I do at Waldbaums. I didn't like Ford, so when I bought a new car, I bought a Jeep.

The problem is, people are comfortable here, they like the perks, we've built our community here and we don't want to leave, but that's not really Pepsi's issue either. They made a business deal - money in exchange for advertising, and to be honest, it's a pretty good deal from a business standpoint. And I wouldn't be surprised if LJ/6A is getting more money from Pepsi than from all of our paid accounts combined.

The problem we have is with Livejournal, and Livejournal's choices and decisions, and while I understand why letting Pepsi know that we're upset is a valid avenue, I honestly don't think it's going to make one iota of difference. The Better Business Bureau is the place to lodge a complaint. Boycotting Pepsi feels... trite. Do you know what I mean?

My intent isn't to boycott Pepsi! I think you read me wrong here. I'm not calling Pepsi to bitch at them at all. I'm calling them with the approach of letting them know that they're advertising with/sponsoring a corporation that is violating their contracts with customers.

Pepsi is a company with a HUGE world market. There are no small advertising venues that they "need". If they find out that one of the companies they sponsor is pissing off customers, they'll pull their sponsorship faster than you can drop a hot potato. So, I'm not calling Pepsi to say "We're boycotting you because you're sponsoring Six Apart!" I'm calling Pepsi to let them know that one of the companies they sponsor has horrible customer relations, and is USING the Pepsi logo in the violation of their customer contracts. It's an FYI to Pepsi. Pepsi doesn't care about LJ, but they do care about sponsoring companies that make them look good.

Make sense? I hope I seem like less of an idiot/villain now.

Oh, I don't think you're an idiot. Hell, it took a lot of gumption to call Pepsi in the first place. I just don't think it's going to amount to LJ changing its ways. I mean, okay, from the looks of things, LJ is trying to "clean up" to make itself more attractive to corporate sponsors. It makes sense from a business standpoint, but the adverse effect has been, well, everything that's been going on. Heh.

But Pepsi is a huge world market, as you say. Do they have a history of pulling their sponsorship in this manner? I mean, we're essentially saying to them "Hey! We're paid customers at LJ and being paid means we're not supposed to see your advertising, but your products are being shoved in our faces by surreptitious means and we don't like it!" Um....

I just... I don't think they care about the paid customers, because they're all counting on revenue to come from free and sponsored accounts, and those accounts outnumber paid and permanent by a ridiculous amount. (Not to mention by using adblock, free and sponsored accounts can get around the ad thing.) So I think there's a disconnect there.

With regard to the boycott though:

We're going to stop drinking Pepsi and purchasing Pepsi products. We're going to avoid anything sponsored by Pepsi. We're going to tell our local restaurants and retailers to stop carrying Pepsi.

Isn't that a boycott, or the threat of one?

What I actually said to the lady on the phone was that it could have that effect on some of the people who are seeing these things. I told her that I, personally, will refuse to buy a product if I get spammed by their advertisements, etc., and I know other people will react the same way. I was hoping that the potential for customer loss would motivate Pepsi to see a real reason to pull their sponsorship.

You're right though. At the risk of appearing to backpedal, I'll remove that part.

I understand where you're coming from and why you're upset, but I have to decline to participate on the grounds that I do freelance field work for PepsiCo

That should be all the more reason to do this, really. I'm not trying to attack Pepsi here. If anything, I'm warning them, for their own corporate image, to get out of their sponsorship of Six Apart. Pepsi wouldn't sponsor a company with a bad customer service reputation, and if they knew that Six Apart was infuriating the LiveJournal users, AND that the Pepsi logo was part of that source of infuriation, Pepsi would be glad for the information, and would likely pull their advertising. Does that make more sense?

But if it would be better not to mix up fandom/Livejournal stuff and your career, then I understand. Thanks for listening. :)

Well, I’d love to, but I’m from Georgia, and I hate Pepsi anyway. I think PepsiCo knows that Coke already has this little corner of the world…

i'm not on your f-list but since this post is not locked, i assume you've meant it for general consumption. i'm sorta outraged more by your action than anything i've read about LJ's marketing partnership with Pepsi.

I just got off the phone with Pepsi Customer Relations. I told them, very politely, with utmost concern for their corporate image, that their logo is being used in advertisements by Six Apart on Livejournal Paid Accounts, in violation of customer contracts. I explained how the good corporate image of Pepsi could be tarnished by their sponsorship of Six Apart. I let them know that we, the customer base of Livejournal, are infuriated at Six Apart. We're going to stop drinking Pepsi and purchasing Pepsi products. We're going to avoid anything sponsored by Pepsi. We're going to tell our local restaurants and retailers to stop carrying Pepsi.

I told the Pepsi representative that we're going to tell our friends. And there are a LOT of us. I used the estimate of 30,000 irritated fans, going by the number we got from Fandom Counts. I hope you think that's a fair number for me to use.

If all of these statements on behalf of fandom had been made AFTER you had polled and got 30k people (or actually as you mention it all of fandom) to agree with you, that's one thing. To call up a company and make these broad sweeping statements without any backup seems very outrageous to me. I for one am not planning to boycott Pepsi, LJ or anything else - I'm curious to know how you concluded that those strong statements were the general view of fandom and that you were voted as the spokesperson to voice these. I feel very uncomfortable about how you seemed to think these kinds of actions, rather than legitimizing any of fandom/LJ users concerns, just seem like broad, unbackable statements that could reduce our credibility as a whole.

I'm sorry if, in my excitement, I got a bit carried away, and possibly didn't make my approach or intent clear.

I'm not boycotting Pepsi, and I hadn't intended that. I did NOT blame Pepsi in any way, shape, or form, for the advertisements on LJ. Yes, I know it might have looked that way, but give me a moment, please. What I said to the Pepsi representative on the phone, in a bit more detail, was that Pepsi's corporate sponsorship of Six Apart might be a very bad publicity move. I explained that Six Apart had, over the past several months, created a couple of nasty customer service snafus, leading to horrible customer relations. I explained how the last time Six Apart and Livejournal irritated us, we did a bit of a fandom census (do you remember "fandom_counts"?), and raised a count of over 30,000 people in just a few short days. That's power in numbers. As I continued to explain, Six Apart is now violating customer contracts by placing advertisements on Paid Accounts, which is infuriating a lot of customers all over again. The advertisements they're using are Pepsi advertisements, which I'm certain hadn't been Pepsico's intent. I pointed out that I was sure Pepsi wouldn't want its own logo to be used in advertising that violated customer contracts. So, basically, we're getting spammed with Pepsi advertisements, which, if anything, is bad publicity for Pepsi, and could easily lead to people refusing to buy Pepsi products on principle. I didn't say that there was any boycott of any sort being discussed - however, I did say that it was enough to make me stop buyng Pepsi products, and it would probably have the same effect on other people as well.

Pepsi is a large enough corporation that they don't need the headache of dealing with a corporate cockroach like Six Apart. If Pepsi smells bad publicity, they'll bail. I'm NOT, repeat NOT doing this to hurt Pepsi. I'm attempting to persuade Pepsico to withdraw corporate sponsorship from Six Apart.

I never mentioned the Harry Potter fandom. I never mentioned the word "fandom". I referred only to the large and well-documented irritation of LiveJournal customers by Six Apart's idiocy. I didn't tell the Pepsi rep that I was speaking for anyone else, but I did mention that a lot of other people were quite unhappy with Six Apart (which you know is true), and that a part of our displeasure stemmed from the unwanted Pepsi logo advertising.

So, in summary, I suggested the Pepsi withdraw its corporate sponsorship from Six Apart, for its own corporate reputation. That's all. A apologize for getting carried away in my rally-call on my own LJ. I should realize that it's easy to cause a ruckus online, especially with a public post, because not everyone knows me. So, does that make more sense? Are you a little less infuriated at me? Even if you don't like my point of view, can you at least agree that I'm not trying to instigate a boycott of Pepsi, and that I'm not speaking "for fandom"?

In all of this mess, the only people I've seen speaking for fandom are the idiots who called the Attorney General of California to complain about Six Apart. Yeah, that's what fandom needed - get the GOVERNMENT involved. I was just suggesting that Pepsi pull its advertising. *Sigh* I need more coffee.

that's much better, thanks for clarifying. good luck with your rallying efforts!

with this revised statement of what you you say you actually conveyed to them, i can agree that you weren't claiming a boycott or speaking for fandom.

Thank you. I appreciate that you read and listened to my clarification. This is what happens when a distraught fandomer gets a good idea, and then gets onto her laptop with too little sleep, too little coffee, and tries to convey a long and good-quality phone conversation in a few short paragraphs. I got carried away in my rally efforts, and didn't say things clearly.

So...
Me = overtired, overenthusiastic, but hopefully not stupid or malicious.
Me also = grateful to you for making me realize that I hadn't stated things clearly. (Must revise my original post to somehow be concise yet accurate.)
You = cool for hearing me out.
Pepsi = big corporation that will hopefully pull its advertising to avoid company like Six Apart.
Six Apart = *ded*

How's that sound?

Okay, I'm home and it's 3:30am, but I finally figured out what I wanted to say. Here's my deal: I don't have a problem with Pepsi doing this. I have a problem with LJ doing this. Does that make sense? Pepsi is a big multinational corporation and doesn't owe fandom a damned thing. That's their game, to pursue profits and advertising wherever possible. What I don't like is that LJ opened the doors to that sort of thing from any company. The fact that it's Pepsi is irrelevant to me. I care about the fact that the TOS that *I* signed when I got my account have been changed, that my service provider has broken promises. As for Pepsi, it's nothing less than I would expect from any other corporation, either. LJ is the one at fault here. IMO.

That's why I wrote this:

"...6A is violating customer contracts by placing Pepsi advertisements in paid accounts, and that customers of LiveJournal are angry - NOT at Pepsi, but at LiveJournal and Six Apart. Tell [the Pepsi rep] that it will look bad for Pepsi to continue advertising with Six Apart, and that Pepsi should withdraw their corporate sponsorship for their own good. Again, don't be rude to the Pepsi people! They have nothing to do with Six Apart's stupidity, and they probably don't even know about this. Just pass on the information."

I'm really not trying to attack Pepsi at all. I'm trying to get Pepsi to drop their corporate sponshorship of Six Apart by telling Pepsi just how horrible Six Apart is. They wouldn't want to have a contract with a company that is violating customer contracts (especially if the violation involves their own Pepsi logo), and would probably even be grateful to get out of a sponsorship of a company with a bad PR record.

In short, I know we can't tell Pepsi what to do, but we can try to persuade them, "for their own good", to get the hell away from Six Apart. THAT'S what I'm trying to do. Does that make more sense?

I don't think pepsi will give a shit, sorry, have you seen their sockpuppet journal

pepsi2dmax? Especially this post?

I mean talk about offensive... of course some people reckon it's parody but I don't know... feels real to me.

*shrugs* I still think anything is worth a try.

hey! Why isn't there a report abuse link???!!!

i don't know... but i haven't seen this much mentioned report abuse link anywhere...

it's usually on the bottom of the entries - together with other links like FAQ and such. But perhaps it only appears if the account is paid and the theme doesn't revert to a basic post inside an LJ-cut. It is there on the profile page, though.

wouldn't that be the other way round? I have never seen a faq link on a post either unless it was showing without layout

same thing I said... eh or wanted to say. :D

That only happens on non-paid journals... i thought the report abuse link happened on every post. But I have yet to see one. Could be because I'm paid.

yes, I think it should appear on every post but apparently it doesn't -- or you just can't see it because it is below the top layer. And if you see other journals through your own layout then that would be every time, right?

here it is.

Hmmm but I can't see it anywhere. Even when not viewing through my layout. Weird...

Yeah, looking a friends entry with no layout I still see no 'report abuse' link... where am I looking?

I thik Pepsy already knows it - they most likely planned it like that, too. Because the fact you got it from another user makes it not their or 6A's fault it is there. Everything is allowed that isn't forbidden, right?

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CONTACT PEPSI. Tell them to drop their 6A Sponsorship!

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