Picture this.
You’re out on a date with an attractive certain someone when you suddenly realize they have something stuck in their teeth. You usually have two choices. You can keep your mouth shut and hope that piece of spinach finds a way to extricate itself and restore order to the world. Or you can smile and cheerfully tell them about it so that they get rid of the food, share a quick laugh and move on with their lives.
Or, perhaps you go for option three, where you, driven insane by your inability to handle mildly tainted teeth, take out your smartphone and immediately go to Colgate Canada’s website and use it to anonymously send your date a tweet or an email that tells them they have food stuck in their teeth. While you have almost certainly shamed another person in writing, (on a public social media platform no less,) on the flipside, they will now receive that crucial $1 discount on their purchase of Colgate’s new SlimSoft toothbrush. Win win.
This is an actual campaign from Colgate Canada, titled “There’s something in your Tweet.” The mildly endearing pun may be the only thing that makes sense in this entire promotion. For one, how does anyone expect to remain anonymous? If you’re at dinner with me, and you suddenly get an anonymous message telling you about your disgusting, food filled teeth, pretty sure there’s only one suspect. And I don’t know about you, but I’m also pretty sure I wouldn’t redeem a measly $1 discount coupon that identifies me as someone who had something embarrassing about them pointed out.
It’s not a big deal if you have food stuck in your teeth. Happens to everyone. It becomes a big deal when someone goes through the trouble to go to a website to send you an “anonymous” message that embarrasses you and then assumes it can make up for it with a laughably small discount offer. Thank you Colgate for creating technology we can use to shame each other more efficiently.
