Bullshit PR alert ahoy, skipper, AROOGA AROOGA. But the BBC is reporting it, it must be true! A man eating a winning scratchcard worth 10,000 Euros smacks of stretching credibility like a freak show schlong, but when you learn the scratchcard was won on board a Ryanair flight? Meh.

The story goes that the passenger won the scratchcard while flying from Krakow to the East Midlands on Thursday. Upon learning he couldn’t claim his prize money immediately, the passenger stood up and in a fit of rage he scoffed the ticket. Ryanair is now donating the prize money to charity, and allowing the public to vote which organisation receives it.

If only the story hadn’t broken on a gambling website with a string of blah cut and paste straight from a press release:

“Yesterday’s events prove that while Ryanair’s scratchcards offer large cash prizes they clearly taste great too!”

“Crew tried to stop the air Gourmet Scratch Card eater by offering him one of our great tasting sandwiches, pizzas or snacks instead, but clearly he had much more expensive tastes!”

Fuck entirely off. We’re not even mad at Ryanair – this is what they do – but seeing the BBC (and others) report it as a story? Maybe the corporation should get back to checking their facts on last weekend’s PM bullying exclusive before they’re allowed near the news agenda again.

You know us. We try and do our best, but overall we’re a ramshackle bunch of incompetent layabouts churning out nonsense day after day. We’ve played our part in calling out corporations, even the law on reasonably important matters – but if you like it best when we dick about and publish photos of supermarket price labels.

One thing we’re not, however, is a whorehouse, which means we won’t take money for product reviews. Obviously that sort of thing goes on, and we like to tell you when people ask us to do it – we wouldn’t want you reading reviews you consider impartial when they’re not.

So for the past few days, we’ve been chatting with an individual offering us money to place a review of domain registration company Doteasy. Not a huge amount of money, admittedly, but enough that we could have created a throwaway review and taken the bribe without people caring much. We told the individual that yes, we’d run a review. We were then asked if we wanted the review to be supplied? Yes! Brilliant! A step closer to Andy’s dream of work done by 8 and the rest of the day spent wanking like chimps and eating chocolate. Good times.

So here it is. We’ve had to tinker with the ending so it suited the style of Bitterwallet, but hopefully we’ll still get paid our money:

Having thoughts of getting a website?Though it is noticeable how billions of people are already creating their own websites, I’m guessing there are still more who would like to have their own but just couldn’t or just don’t know how to. Even after when blogs finally came into the picture which is, by the way, a lot easier to create, there are still many who are confused with the whole process. Well, it’s not surprising since there are things to consider before setting up a site especially a real website. But things aren’t really that complicated.

I wouldn’t even try discussing why people even bother to create one cause the advantages especially for a company is just too obvious. So where do you start? Well, above anything else, you should first find a web hosting provider where you’ll host your site with. If you’re short on the budget, you can find a lot of free web hosts around. But the problem with free web hosts is that most of the time, they just aren’t reliable enough and in the end, you get a lot of downtime issues. Some even put a lot of annoying banner ads and pop-ups in exchange for the free service they are providing.

Fucking shitehawks, eh? So why buy your domains from that bunch of piss drinking slags when you can buy them from Doteasy – their prices are looser than a hen night in Hull. Easydot – lube up and get conkers deep in their great value hosting packages today, but remember – there may be vinegar strokes, but you won’t blow a load.

To be fair to Doteasy, it looks like the work of a chancer called Iris Cal who signed up for their affiliate scheme, since the rest of their suggested blog post was riddled with hyperlinks and tracking codes. We’ll be letting Iris know we’ve published a glowing review and await payment. Meanwhile, if you’ve any suggestions what we should spend our ill-gotten gains on, let us know!

Take this…

…mix it with this…

…add in a tiny dash of this…

…and hey presto, you’ve got this!

This was the scene that greeted me in Somerfield on Sunday – that’s last Sunday, the one two days after Christmas Day. Now pardon my French, but what the fuck is going on here?

There’s the obvious rant about the commercialisation of relgious events – Easter occurs in April next year, so marketing Easter in December is not unlike launching the Christmas sales in August. But manufacturers and retailers presumably believe there’s a market and that yes, a person will buy a Lindt chocolate bunny the day after Boxing Day. No chain of supermarkets would ever provide precious POS space on an aisle end for a product nobody will buy.

What is the justification for this activity and how profitable is this advance trade? More importantly, who are these deviants? Who is buying Easter eggs two days after Christmas? Is it you? Start naming names, people.

Last week we told you how a marketing company called The Customer Club was already picking at the carcass of Borders – the book chain is yet to close down, but The Customer Club has acquired Borders’ mailing list and is spamming addresses with requests to join their loyalty scheme. The bait to sign up? A £40 voucher for Virgin Wines.

We suggested the Virgin Wines voucher was confusing at best, because the minimum spend in the small print read more like “£19.99″ than “£79.99″ – although the amount is clarified before the voucher is processed, the point is that some customers wouldn’t proceed that far if the amount was displayed correctly.

As usual, after publishing an article in the best interests of the consumer we were promptly savaged for criticising the company in question. Here’s what avid Bitterwallet reader Steve had to say in the comments:

Please…the font they have written the £79.99 in says 7 not 1. If you look at the rest of the numbers in the text, they are all the same font. Why would a Virgin branded company actually try to dupe customers. “deliberately cut and paste the “79″ from a different font so that the “7″ looks like the “1″ in the font used for the rest of the voucher” – Are you frickin kidding me!

Why don’t you write about what a shame it is these poor people are losing their jobs at Borders just before Xmas, or the sorry state of of our debt ridden country rather than an attack on Virgin Wines who actually sell some lovely wines, at great prices with award winning customer service! I know this because I’m a customer.

A couple of points straight off the bat – at no point did we attack the quality, pricing or service of Virgin Wines, and in fact there were plenty of comments both for and against the company in that respect. In terms of why a Virgin branded company might actually try to dupe customers; we don’t know the answer, only that they’ve tried it in the past – as we pointed out in the previous article, a near-identical promotion was banned by the Advertising Standards Agency a year ago.

However, Steve’s comments did prompt us to revisit the story in case we’d been too hasty in damning Virgin Wines. Was it only us who thought the “£79.99″ price had been doctored to read as “£19.99″? Here again is the voucher in question (you can click here to see it full size):

Look at the “£19.99″ typeface. Just look at it. With your eyes. At first glance it reads “£19.99″. Yes it bloody does. Has it been fiddled with? Well, there’s that gap between the £ and the 1 that isn’t wide enough to be a space. The first 9 is a different shape to the second two. And then there’s that 7. It’s wrong. You simply don’t see Arial-style fonts where the 7 has a vertical stalk while the rest of typeface is curved or angled.

So it was just us who had a problem with the voucher, then? Absolutely not, as we discovered when we decided to double-check the voucher last night (large version here):

Spot the difference?

Obviously somebody else felt the voucher might confuse the customer because somebody in the past couple of days has thoughtfully inserted a 7 from a typeface that actually exists. Not very well, though. So was it a genuine-but-completely-improbable mistake or a deliberate fiddle?

In the attempt to get noticed over other ear-tag vendors, fast-food shops like to do online campaigns which are a bit quirky. There was that dancing chicken bloke who you could make… well… do stuff.

Now, Burger King are at it, with some lass in a shower with what they’re imaginatively dubbing ‘Burger King Presents Singing In The Shower‘.

So, if you’re in the business of getting a lob-on over some no-mark in a shower, scrubbing her arse while she sings a pop hit every morning, this showercam should be the best thing you’ve seen since Porky’s Revenge.

Of course, the marketing chumps missed a trick here. What they should have done is something far more humiliating. They should have got a girl who can’t sing for toffee and forced her to squirm in a bikini shaped like a Chicken Royale Meal whilst people abused her live. That would have been funny. It would’ve been like The Wide Awake Club’s ‘Singing In The Shower’ section which got simpletons to butcher ’80s pop hits.

Burger King are also offering the chance to win a date with our little performing monkey, which I imagine, won’t go as hoped for many of the inevitable onanists as it won’t involve a quick soapy wank, but rather, an awkward encounter involving some blokes from Burger King’s marketing department constantly saying “Having fun?” and “No touching Burger Girl!”

Unless, of course, they’re actually going to prostitute this poor wannabe starlet.

Click here to see Burger King’s ShowerCam

The recent World Travel Market in London saw hundreds of tourism agencies, journalists, marketeers and publishers get together to look at how countries can better market themselves to consumers around the world. Writer Fiona Cullinan picked up on one of our favourite topics – the nonsensical slogans adopted by tourist boards to whore their countries to foreigners:

As well as pulling apart these half-hearted attempts to get us off our lardy arses and visiting somewhere else, Fiona also highlights our favourite slogan of the bunch. If there was an award for passive-aggressive marketing, Indonesia would win by a country mile:

“Indonesia – Admit It You Love It”

[Tourist vs Traveller]

Here’s a clever but slightly gruesome piece of advertising from Campaign Against Landmines – tomato ketchup sachets. Tear the sachet and you’re instantly reminded of someone getting their foot blown off by a landmine. Yum.


One for Tampax to think about for the future? Sorry, but look, if we hadn’t said it one of you lot would have.

Ah, Travelodge. You probably thought you were been incredibly clever with your mailshot late on Friday, but you appear to have achieved quite the opposite – you’ve highlighted a competitor’s special offer and made yourselves look like smug, petty fools.

In case you don’t subscribe to the email newsletter from Travelodge, here’s what you missed:

Premier Inn admits to website anomaly which may be overcharging thousands since June 2009

We know that Travelodge customers also use other hotel brands, so we were keen to let you know about some news which might affect you.

On Tuesday 24th November 09, following a complaint by Travelodge to the ASA, The Times reported that budget hotel operator Premier Inn has potentially been overcharging thousands of customers trying to book a Premier Offer £29 room since June 2009. Their television and newspaper advertising, featuring Lenny Henry, proudly claimed that the chain were offering 1,000,000 rooms for £29, but The Times reported that when customers arrived at the Premier Inn website those using the Quick Book on the homepage were not being offered £29 rooms when they were still available. Instead customers would only be able to find these advertised rooms by clicking on a different part of the website.

Independent price checking revealed that customers had a less then 1% chance of finding a £29 room if they used Quick Book compared with a 24% chance for those clicking on a Premier Offer banner.* This means thousands of customers may have been charged as much as double the price they should have paid. At no time did Premier Inn advise customers that lower prices were available in other parts of their website and encourage them to check for £29 rooms. There could be thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of customers affected.

Incredibly after being challenged by The Times, Premier Inn stated that “the anomaly of higher prices being offered through the quick bookings facility would disappear next week (1st December 2009)” but so far have not offered ANY refund to Premier Inn customers who were overcharged by this problem.

The purpose of this email is to build an online petition to encourage Premier Inn to offer a full refund to any customer who has booked a more expensive room when the same room was available on another part of their website for £29.

Think you might have been affected? Learn more about what action you can take or simply sign the petition here.

And look, they’ve created an online petition to hand over to Premier Inn to demand a refund for customers, at PremierOvercharging.com. Hooray for Travelodge, fighting for consumer rights! Almost. In fact, not at all. There are a few problems with the moral crusade Travelodge have undertaken:

• Customers may not have been overcharged, and in fact probably weren’t overcharged at all; by their own figures, there was a less than one in four chance of bagging an offer anyway, but their email suggests everyone should sign their petition regardless
• Travelodge seem surprised there was more chance of finding a promotional offer by clicking on the promotional offer banner – isn’t that how promotional offers work? Just to give you an example, here’s the sort of banner Premier Inn features – is it so difficult to figure out you’ll find the best deals by clicking on the image? Is this really worth spamming your own customers?

  

• The complaint to the ASA wasn’t made by a customer, but by Travelodge themselves – they initiated the whole process in their own interests, but are now championing their cause in the name of the consumer

Now that doesn’t mean Premier Inn aren’t in the wrong – consumers should expect to see all prices when booking through other areas of the site. That said, despite what Travelodge are suggesting, customers probably weren’t overcharged to begin with, and there’s a bloody big banner that provides perhaps the simplest call-to-action since the STOP sign was invented – it’s not as if the offers were hidden from view.

The reaction to Travelodge’s email seems to have had the opposite effect to the one intended; several readers forwarded the email to us, with many commenting that it read more like a spiteful attempt to run a competitor down, that it was nothing more than sour grapes – one commenter over at MSE points out that Travelodge themselves used to run a very similar offer. In short, Travelodge have just informed their entire customer base how to find cheap hotels with Premier Inn, and are looking slightly dickish for doing so.

…you like like a complete arse in those glasses mate…

…and so does your girlfriend.

[IBelieveInAdv]

Back when we were young pop fans, the singles chart was sacrosanct. It was also top secret, revealed to us one song at a time every Sunday evening. Or if you’re of a certain age, every Tuesday lunchtime on the Paul Burnett show, followed by its full publication in the Daily Mirror on a Wednesday morning, which allowed us to study its nuances more closely. So anyway, the sense of drama was palpable.

As we were saying before we got all misty-eyed and nostalgiac, the charts used to mean something. We all knew that these were the records that were the most popular across the nation at that given time according to sales figures (subject to the odd piece of chart-rigging by eager and naughty record companies.)

Do charts still mean anything in 2009? If you’re Asda, it seems not. Now this correspondent served enough time behind the counter in Our Price in the 1990s to know that instore charts don’t always reflect instore sales and that the chart positions have a tendency to be ‘massaged’ a little to allow for titles that are currently being promoted, normally at the expense of their producers and distributors.

But THIS chart is a disgrace.

It’s Asda’s PS3 top twenty from last weekend. Let’s have a look for Assassin’s Creed II and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – the two games that you’d expect to see nestling at the top of the official sales chart. They’re all the way down at… numbers 11 and 12. Oh.

So what could possibly be outselling these must-have games in Asda right now? It’s a bunch of older, slightly mustier games that Asda are currently selling at a reduced ‘Roll Back’ price. Do we really believe that each and every one of these games is outgunning Assassin’s Creed II and Modern Warfare 2 in the sales stakes? No, dear readers, we do not.

Asda, you have brought the charts into disrepute. If someone had asked Paul Burnett to broadcast a chart rundown like that back in the late 1970s, he probably would have placed a pistol into his mouth and blown the top of his own head off. Apart from that Jubilee week when the Sex Pistols should have been number one with God Save The Queen. That was a big old fix and everyone knows it.

Incidentally, if you grew up with a near-anal obsession with the singles chart, back when they were still genuinely exciting, you’ll probably enjoy wasting a few days at Chart Stats. No need to thank us because we know how you feel.

EDIT: From Asda’s own website, here is a link to their PS3 chart, as well as a link to their best-selling games. Hang on – what is a chart supposed to be if it isn’t a list of the best-selling games? FFS.

Fortunately, you can arrange the ‘chart’ in best-selling order. That way you get to look at what the ‘chart’ should really look like. Thanks Asda! Thasda!

(Thanks to HUKD member hncb0809 for the tip-off)

As those indoctrinated in pop culture never tire of telling us these days, Christmas doesn’t officially begin until you’ve Coca Cola’s yuletide television advert has been broadcast. And since it debuted last weekend, it surely means the season of belly busting excess and drunken yankee doodle at the office party has begun. But we won’t be the only folks having a little too much fun this year, as Bitterwallet reader Simon points out:

Don’t know if you guys have seen this yet but I just got a new Christmas-themed can of Coke and it’s got a picture of Santa really enjoying himself on it. Brings a whole new meaning to the “Holidays are coming” song!

Those of you with eagle eyes and long memories may recall a story we published around a year ago, concerning a discount scheme operated by Shopper Discounts & Rewards, which is owned by Webloyalty.

We explained the scheme began when you reached the checkout page of several major internet merchants operating in the UK, including TheTrainline and easyJet. The sites would partner with Shopper Discounts & Rewards to offer an incentive such as cashback on your next purchase. Accepting the offer meant accepting the terms of Shopper Discounts & Rewards, in that the merchant shared your billing details with the scheme, which in turn signed you up to a monthly recurring membership, typically billed at £10 per month.

Our post, which then proceeded to call out Webloyalty for this practice, was published on Bitterwallet but taken down shortly afterwards. Webloyalty’s legal team immediately lept into action.  We had said a whole bunch of stuff they didn’t like and linked to plenty of forums and newspaper articles – there are people who clearly weren’t fans of Webloyalty. It’s not often we comply with such notices – in fact this is the only time we have.

Why bring this up now? Michael Arrington over at Techcrunch is being far more vocal about Webloyalty and other companies, taking his cue from a report released by a U.S. Senate Committee called “Aggressive Sales Tactics on the Internet and their Impact on American Consumers”. It states that Webloyalty is one of the three largest companies involved in this activity, and that together they have earned over $1.4 billion (around £833 million) in revenue from 35 million transactions, with 4 million people currently enrolled in the plans.

Below is a list of partner companies profiting from this “post-transaction marketing”; obviously it is dominated by American companies, but it gives you an idea of the popularity of such schemes:

How much has Webloyalty earned from its UK transactions? The US State Senate report concerns only US consumers so it doesn’t comment. The report is certainly worth a read - it discusses various tactics employed to encourage sign-up, as well as details of Webloyalty settling a major lawsuit:

So your company has gone to the wall with not inconsiderable debts of over £8 million, and the people you owe the most cash to are your parent company which owns half the business. Bugger. And since nothing spreads faster than bad news, CDiscount.co.uk are now in the precarious position of having to continue trading as a going concern in an attempt to attract a buyer, while hoping customers trust the business won’t be wound-up the moment they place an order. Bugger again.

How do you fire up people to take a chance on buying your products? How do you keep whatever revenue you have from drying up overnight? You get a spanking new logo that’s what – a logo lets the world know you’re still in the game and you’re not going anywhere, no matter what anybody say. Something like this, then:

Because nothing says “we won’t go tits up if you give us your money” quite like “in provisional liquidation”.

Rammstein are a silly, silly metal outfit who deal in schlock shock and sleaze. Oh, and occasional Nazi imagery.

So in the face of people generally not being all that interested in buying tangible music related products, they’ve decided that a good way to get noticed is to release their new album, Liebe Ist Für Alle Da, with a range of executive massage devices… or, dildos to you and me.

For your buck, you’ll get five extra tracks (which will invariably be available on torrents) and a metal flight case filled with six vibrators. One can only hope that they aren’t designed on the six members’ members of the band. Oh, and for good measure, you’ll get some handcuffs and lubricant.

The download version will no doubt come with a soundwave shaped like a fanny or something.

Anyway, as a marketing tool, you can’t knock it because, lets face it, we wouldn’t normally cover the release of a daft German metal release on these pages.

[ClassicRock]