Dr Pepper bitchslapped

[sneeks]

What a stupid thing for Axl and his lawyers to complain over. Surely they must have more important things in life to amuse themselves with.

[DarkFairy]

How did Dr P make any money off the GNR name? Offering free cans doesn't seem like a particularly good way of making money to me.

just on this board I've seen people from all over buying dr.pepper on the release dates to celebrate..

[oldgunsfan]

Wow.  That is unfortunate.  I don't know what to say about the legalities of it all, but I do know that's it very hard to gauge and prepare for the amount of traffic that might come in a situation like that.  I've been in dozens of situations were we thought we prepared servers to handle the load, and then found it out wasn't nearly enough, or where we've completely overbuilt to handle way more than necessary, and cost the client lots of money in doing so.

On the other hand, maybe Dr. Pepper shouldn't have done their promotion at all if they weren't absolutely positive they could handle it.

myspace had no problem handling the traffic

[Annie]

Wow.  That is unfortunate.  I don't know what to say about the legalities of it all, but I do know that's it very hard to gauge and prepare for the amount of traffic that might come in a situation like that.  I've been in dozens of situations were we thought we prepared servers to handle the load, and then found it out wasn't nearly enough, or where we've completely overbuilt to handle way more than necessary, and cost the client lots of money in doing so.

On the other hand, maybe Dr. Pepper shouldn't have done their promotion at all if they weren't absolutely positive they could handle it.

myspace had no problem handling the traffic

I agree. The way the server crashed just made the promotion seem insincere to me. I'm still not sure if my order went through. My brother and I were discussing this, and he said, "YOU would defend Axl no matter what," and I said, "Damn proud of it!"

[Sukie]

You know...I'm one of the ones that say, "It's soda!"  I really can't get all worked up about this one. 

But, I'd like to point out that it's not a CAN of soda.  It's a 20 oz. which means it's a bottle.  And those cost more than 50 cents or whichever number keeps getting bandied about here. 

Not quite sure, but I think around here a 20 oz. costs about $1.40. 

Still, I just don't think this should be a huge issue in the whole scheme of things.

[Kasanova King]

THE TRUTH BEHIND THE DR.PEPPER CAMPAIGN - WHY IT WAS A SCAM TO BEGIN WITH

Take a look at these happenings and then judge for yourself:

- Kaneda - a known member of mygnrforum.com has repeatedly said the album would never be released.

- Kaneda's PR. Firm is contracted by Dr.Pepper, nonetheless.

- Several stories surfaced in the past year as to Dr.Pepper losing ground in the global soft drink market.

- Kaneda, being a "supposed" fan of the band, approaches upper marketing management with his ingenious idea to get free publicity for the company.

- Kaneda convinces Dr.Pepper upper-ups that there is no chance the album would be released this year.

- Kaneda is so convincing that Dr.Pepper does not even get insurance on the marketing proposal. (On a side note, I have run similar marketing campaigns for multi-million dollar dealerships. Free give aways, $100,000 cash give aways, etc. There are insurance companies out there that will insure these type of promos...unfortunately, Kaneda & Dr. Pepper apparently didn't want to spend the $500,000 - $1,000,000 (just a guess) or so it would cost to insure this magnitude of a promo - to them it was a sure bet that Chinese Democracy would never see the light of day.)

- Look what happened when it was almost certain Chinese Democracy would be released:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=...p;art_aid=91506


Coincidence?? I think not.

- Once it was a sure thing Chinese Democracy was going to be released they had to figure out a way to save their own asses. They figure, we'll give the fans 24 hours to fill out a form on our website only. They knew their website would only be able to handle a certain amount of traffic. After the 24 hours were up, they maybe would have to give out a few hundred thousand drinks max (if that) ....not bad for a promised 300,000,000+

- Fans start to complain so in order to avoid public scrutiny, they issue a few statements and extend the promo a day. Big f'n deal....they knew their phone lines would only handle a certain amount of customers, max....

- Dr.Pepper cashed in on hundreds of articles written about Chinese Democracy - they were mentioned in almost every one. Had the album not been released, it would have been one of the most ingenious free marketing campaigns ever created. Unfortunately for Dr. Pepper & Kaneda, Axl came through...

[BlowUpYourVideo]

How did Dr P make any money off the GNR name? Offering free cans doesn't seem like a particularly good way of making money to me.

just on this board I've seen people from all over buying dr.pepper on the release dates to celebrate..

That's fair enough, but it was their choice to their spend money on it.




On a side note, I wonder if Axl ever got his free can? Perhaps he didn't and that's the real reason for this lawsuit.

[ShotgunBlues1978]

It's hilarious how some people will paint Axl and the band to be the bad guy no matter what the situation

I couldn't care less about getting the can of Dr. Pepper, it really makes no difference to me.  Strictly from a business perspective, the lawsuit makes sense

Dr. Pepper made the offer, and the band didn't put up a fight because it was free promotion for them.  Okay, fair enough, both parties were getting positive publicity

But it's obvious now that Dr. Pepper never really expected the album to be released.  Personally I don't care but some of you guys complaining about the lawsuit aren't even thinking about the business and marketing aspects of this situation.  Because the bottom line is that Dr. Pepper's botched delivery of the free soda made GnR look bad even though they were never formally involved with the promotion.  That is the issue here.  It's not about an individual person being pissed off about not getting a free soda.  It's about a huge company using someone else's image and reputation to promote their product without a contract or permission, and then failing to deliver on a promise and by association making Axl and Guns look bad

To me it's fucking hilarious that people are actually upset that Axl is trying to make Dr. Pepper keep their promise and deliver the free soda to all the fans.  Like Axl is insulting you by trying to make sure that everyone who wanted a free soda gets one.  What the hell?

[FunkyMonkey]

From Dr. Pepper's PR firm regarding the concept of their disruptive PR campaign targeting Axl/GNR...


To use a real life example, take the case of Dr Pepper, a Ketchum client. Its primary target audience is young men, and its primary brand attribute is that it's flavorful. Given that, its marketing and PR voice has always been a bit irreverent.
 
But our client Greg Artkop challenged us to go beyond that. No more doing the stuff that the brand thinks is cool; let's engage our enthusiasts by doing something that they think is cool, with the hope being that it would create a deeper connection.
 
Our concept: Encourage Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose to release his decade-in-the-making album Chinese Democracy by offering a free Dr Pepper to everyone in America if the album drops in 2008.
 
At first blush it might seem bizarre, but to date it's generated over 300 million impressions and has created an almost immeasurable connection between the brand and millions of GNR fans. Why? Because the brand put itself in the place of one of its subdemographics ? music enthusiasts ? and approached it from their perspective: what would they appreciate, find entertaining, and think is cool. And we made it authentic and funny by purposely excluding estranged GNR guitarists Slash and Buckethead from the free Dr Pepper offer ? a small but critical touch.
 
It worked so well that the reclusive Axl Rose actually thanked Dr Pepper on the official GNR Web site, and revealed that he would share his Dr Pepper with Buckethead because a few of his tracks were still on the album. That might seem like an insignificant thing to most people, but to the GNR fans we were targeting, this was news ? big news. They appreciated what Dr Pepper had done, mostly because it was so unexpected, unusual, and out of the ordinary for a company. Their feedback to us (in the form of thousands of blog posts): who knew that Dr Pepper had a sense of humor?
 
Disruptive PR isn't about attention grabbing stunts, cheesy ploys, or message-driven campaigns. Quite the opposite: It's relating to enthusiasts in a way that attracts their attention ? disrupts them so to speak ? on their terms, not ours. It's not easy ? in fact it's very hard ? but it's going to be essential for brands to remain relevant.

http://www.ketchum.com/nick_ragone_chris_kooluris_era_of_disruptive_pr_article

[The Catcher]

Fucking mooching frauds...

Imagine this whole thing turning out like this for Dr. Pepper... Bet they didn't see that one coming...

[Mysteron]

From Dr. Pepper's PR firm regarding the concept of their disruptive PR campaign targeting Axl/GNR...


To use a real life example, take the case of Dr Pepper, a Ketchum client. Its primary target audience is young men, and its primary brand attribute is that it's flavorful. Given that, its marketing and PR voice has always been a bit irreverent.
 
But our client Greg Artkop challenged us to go beyond that. No more doing the stuff that the brand thinks is cool; let's engage our enthusiasts by doing something that they think is cool, with the hope being that it would create a deeper connection.
 
Our concept: Encourage Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose to release his decade-in-the-making album Chinese Democracy by offering a free Dr Pepper to everyone in America if the album drops in 2008.
 
At first blush it might seem bizarre, but to date it's generated over 300 million impressions and has created an almost immeasurable connection between the brand and millions of GNR fans. Why? Because the brand put itself in the place of one of its subdemographics ? music enthusiasts ? and approached it from their perspective: what would they appreciate, find entertaining, and think is cool. And we made it authentic and funny by purposely excluding estranged GNR guitarists Slash and Buckethead from the free Dr Pepper offer ? a small but critical touch.
 
It worked so well that the reclusive Axl Rose actually thanked Dr Pepper on the official GNR Web site, and revealed that he would share his Dr Pepper with Buckethead because a few of his tracks were still on the album. That might seem like an insignificant thing to most people, but to the GNR fans we were targeting, this was news ? big news. They appreciated what Dr Pepper had done, mostly because it was so unexpected, unusual, and out of the ordinary for a company. Their feedback to us (in the form of thousands of blog posts): who knew that Dr Pepper had a sense of humor?
 
Disruptive PR isn't about attention grabbing stunts, cheesy ploys, or message-driven campaigns. Quite the opposite: It's relating to enthusiasts in a way that attracts their attention ? disrupts them so to speak ? on their terms, not ours. It's not easy ? in fact it's very hard ? but it's going to be essential for brands to remain relevant.

http://www.ketchum.com/nick_ragone_chris_kooluris_era_of_disruptive_pr_article

I doubt Ketchum will be a going concern for much longer 

[leatherebel]

FunkyMonkey, that's an old article, no? The way you posted may appear to some that the article was written in response to the law suit which it isn't.  Or, did you mean to bring it to the attention of the GN'R lawyers who may be collecting evidence about Ketchum/Dr Pepper whose intentions all along were to boost their reputation and sales respectively at the expense of the GN'R name?

Mysteron, I don't think the law suit is any way directed towards Ketchum. Although, yes, they certainly have a damaged reputation right now and most likely ended any contractual agreements with Dr Pepper.

KasanovaKing, I agree with some of your theory, but not all. I don't follow mygnr much but yesterday I saw a poster dig out some of Kaneda's posting history from 2006/07. I was surprized to see how negative his posts were. Posters such as him would have been banned here long ago (and maybe he was). So, yeah, it may seem like the guy never believed the album will truly come out. However, his posting history totally changed in 2008 and his messages to the few fans he sent free 6-packs a few months ago certainly suggested the guy is actually optimistic about the album release now. So, my view on the whole situation is that the option of the album being released was certainly considered in the equation. But maybe, just maybe, in that case Ketchum/ Dr Pepper expected GN'R to contact (or join) them in a co-promotional campaign, which then would've been perceived as benefiting both parties involved. But since that didn't happen Dr Pepper had to get out of the situation incurring the least possible costs. So, then they erected that mountain of obstacles for people to clain their free soda, including taking down the web site with their "press releases" on the matter and not mentioning GN'R or their album in any way anywhere anymore.
You are talking about hundreds of thousands people responding to their offer. I think it's way less than that - like 10,000 at best. Think about it, the offer was known mainly to the GN'R message board fans a large percentage of whom didn't even wanna take advantage of it due to the personal info collection and the 6-week waiting period to claim the soda. Also, on that first day, the web site was operational for only a few hours, like 5 or 6. On the following day, a customer service phone number was given but that was just one number again active only for a few hours. Adding to that the fact that suddenly a limitation of one soda per household was imposed if you ordered from the web site, the numbers shrink substantially. So, Dr Pepper would not have spent more than a few thousand dollars on the whole thing. Which is absolutely ridiculous compared to the hypothetical upper bound of 20M someone came up with if they were to give a free drink to every American as was their initial promise.
I agree that in the case of a no album release scenario the big winner in this whole situation would have been Dr Pepper and Ketchum, as they would have then be perceived by the American public as the good guys trying to to do something generous for the whole country, while Axl and Guns would have been depicted as the bad guys breaking on yet another promise and not caring about America in general. Look, who's laughing now?

[loretian]

Wow.  That is unfortunate.  I don't know what to say about the legalities of it all, but I do know that's it very hard to gauge and prepare for the amount of traffic that might come in a situation like that.  I've been in dozens of situations were we thought we prepared servers to handle the load, and then found it out wasn't nearly enough, or where we've completely overbuilt to handle way more than necessary, and cost the client lots of money in doing so.

On the other hand, maybe Dr. Pepper shouldn't have done their promotion at all if they weren't absolutely positive they could handle it.

myspace had no problem handling the traffic

Just to be clear, yes, Dr. Pepper screwed up, and they shouldn't have done the promotion if they weren't sure they could handle it.

That said, the server load issue is one that I am particularly sympathetic too because I have been in several similar situtations, and I know how difficult it can be to prepare for the vast bombardment of traffic that will come.

Regarding myspace, there is absolutely no comparison.  Myspace has a massive cluster spread out across multiple datacenters and routinely handles incredibly massive amounts of traffic.  Dr Pepper is probably hosted a on single server environment.  It's like comparing an ant to a lion.

Regardless, still, they shouldn't have been making promises they couldn't keep.

[GNRreunioneventually]

THE TRUTH BEHIND THE DR.PEPPER CAMPAIGN - WHY IT WAS A SCAM TO BEGIN WITH

Take a look at these happenings and then judge for yourself:

- Kaneda - a known member of mygnrforum.com has repeatedly said the album would never be released.

- Kaneda's PR. Firm is contracted by Dr.Pepper, nonetheless.

- Several stories surfaced in the past year as to Dr.Pepper losing ground in the global soft drink market.

- Kaneda, being a "supposed" fan of the band, approaches upper marketing management with his ingenious idea to get free publicity for the company.

- Kaneda convinces Dr.Pepper upper-ups that there is no chance the album would be released this year.

- Kaneda is so convincing that Dr.Pepper does not even get insurance on the marketing proposal. (On a side note, I have run similar marketing campaigns for multi-million dollar dealerships. Free give aways, $100,000 cash give aways, etc. There are insurance companies out there that will insure these type of promos...unfortunately, Kaneda & Dr. Pepper apparently didn't want to spend the $500,000 - $1,000,000 (just a guess) or so it would cost to insure this magnitude of a promo - to them it was a sure bet that Chinese Democracy would never see the light of day.)

- Look what happened when it was almost certain Chinese Democracy would be released:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=...p;art_aid=91506


Coincidence?? I think not.

- Once it was a sure thing Chinese Democracy was going to be released they had to figure out a way to save their own asses. They figure, we'll give the fans 24 hours to fill out a form on our website only. They knew their website would only be able to handle a certain amount of traffic. After the 24 hours were up, they maybe would have to give out a few hundred thousand drinks max (if that) ....not bad for a promised 300,000,000+

- Fans start to complain so in order to avoid public scrutiny, they issue a few statements and extend the promo a day. Big f'n deal....they knew their phone lines would only handle a certain amount of customers, max....

- Dr.Pepper cashed in on hundreds of articles written about Chinese Democracy - they were mentioned in almost every one. Had the album not been released, it would have been one of the most ingenious free marketing campaigns ever created. Unfortunately for Dr. Pepper & Kaneda, Axl came through...

wouldn't doubt it one bit if thats what really happened but i thought Dr Pepper was like the world favorite soda? that kinda suprises me that i'm not the only one that think they suck. really, who the hell needs 23 flavors? do they even make "REGULAR" fucking Dr Pepper any more?

[Duffio]

FunkyMonkey, that's an old article, no? The way you posted may appear to some that the article was written in response to the law suit which it isn't.  Or, did you mean to bring it to the attention of the GN'R lawyers who may be collecting evidence about Ketchum/Dr Pepper whose intentions all along were to boost their reputation and sales respectively at the expense of the GN'R name?

Mysteron, I don't think the law suit is any way directed towards Ketchum. Although, yes, they certainly have a damaged reputation right now and most likely ended any contractual agreements with Dr Pepper.

KasanovaKing, I agree with some of your theory, but not all. I don't follow mygnr much but yesterday I saw a poster dig out some of Kaneda's posting history from 2006/07. I was surprized to see how negative his posts were. Posters such as him would have been banned here long ago (and maybe he was). So, yeah, it may seem like the guy never believed the album will truly come out. However, his posting history totally changed in 2008 and his messages to the few fans he sent free 6-packs a few months ago certainly suggested the guy is actually optimistic about the album release now. So, my view on the whole situation is that the option of the album being released was certainly considered in the equation. But maybe, just maybe, in that case Ketchum/ Dr Pepper expected GN'R to contact (or join) them in a co-promotional campaign, which then would've been perceived as benefiting both parties involved. But since that didn't happen Dr Pepper had to get out of the situation incurring the least possible costs. So, then they erected that mountain of obstacles for people to clain their free soda, including taking down the web site with their "press releases" on the matter and not mentioning GN'R or their album in any way anywhere anymore.
You are talking about hundreds of thousands people responding to their offer. I think it's way less than that - like 10,000 at best. Think about it, the offer was known mainly to the GN'R message board fans a large percentage of whom didn't even wanna take advantage of it due to the personal info collection and the 6-week waiting period to claim the soda. Also, on that first day, the web site was operational for only a few hours, like 5 or 6. On the following day, a customer service phone number was given but that was just one number again active only for a few hours. Adding to that the fact that suddenly a limitation of one soda per household was imposed if you ordered from the web site, the numbers shrink substantially. So, Dr Pepper would not have spent more than a few thousand dollars on the whole thing. Which is absolutely ridiculous compared to the hypothetical upper bound of 20M someone came up with if they were to give a free drink to every American as was their initial promise.
I agree that in the case of a no album release scenario the big winner in this whole situation would have been Dr Pepper and Ketchum, as they would have then be perceived by the American public as the good guys trying to to do something generous for the whole country, while Axl and Guns would have been depicted as the bad guys breaking on yet another promise and not caring about America in general. Look, who's laughing now?

10,000 at best??  don't be naive, this was all over the radio, and regular news broadcasts..
don't be ridiculous, even though i think axl (or "gn'r") are being ridiculous by having more lawsuits and court cases.. even as something as free press..?

the free soda thing was known, even people that i know that give half a crap about gn'r, sort of like "even average joe" knew about the free soda.

[FunkyMonkey]

FunkyMonkey, that's an old article, no? The way you posted may appear to some that the article was written in response to the law suit which it isn't.  Or, did you mean to bring it to the attention of the GN'R lawyers who may be collecting evidence about Ketchum/Dr Pepper whose intentions all along were to boost their reputation and sales respectively at the expense of the GN'R name?

I didn't say it was in response to the lawsuit...but that it was an article explaining their PR campaign using Axl/GNR.  And I did not post it to bring it to anyone's attention.

Did Dr. Pepper "boost their reputation and sales respectively at the expense of the GN'R name"...

[Kasanova King]

THE TRUTH BEHIND THE DR.PEPPER CAMPAIGN - WHY IT WAS A SCAM TO BEGIN WITH

Take a look at these happenings and then judge for yourself:

- Kaneda - a known member of mygnrforum.com has repeatedly said the album would never be released.

- Kaneda's PR. Firm is contracted by Dr.Pepper, nonetheless.

- Several stories surfaced in the past year as to Dr.Pepper losing ground in the global soft drink market.

- Kaneda, being a "supposed" fan of the band, approaches upper marketing management with his ingenious idea to get free publicity for the company.

- Kaneda convinces Dr.Pepper upper-ups that there is no chance the album would be released this year.

- Kaneda is so convincing that Dr.Pepper does not even get insurance on the marketing proposal. (On a side note, I have run similar marketing campaigns for multi-million dollar dealerships. Free give aways, $100,000 cash give aways, etc. There are insurance companies out there that will insure these type of promos...unfortunately, Kaneda & Dr. Pepper apparently didn't want to spend the $500,000 - $1,000,000 (just a guess) or so it would cost to insure this magnitude of a promo - to them it was a sure bet that Chinese Democracy would never see the light of day.)

- Look what happened when it was almost certain Chinese Democracy would be released:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=...p;art_aid=91506


Coincidence?? I think not.

- Once it was a sure thing Chinese Democracy was going to be released they had to figure out a way to save their own asses. They figure, we'll give the fans 24 hours to fill out a form on our website only. They knew their website would only be able to handle a certain amount of traffic. After the 24 hours were up, they maybe would have to give out a few hundred thousand drinks max (if that) ....not bad for a promised 300,000,000+

- Fans start to complain so in order to avoid public scrutiny, they issue a few statements and extend the promo a day. Big f'n deal....they knew their phone lines would only handle a certain amount of customers, max....

- Dr.Pepper cashed in on hundreds of articles written about Chinese Democracy - they were mentioned in almost every one. Had the album not been released, it would have been one of the most ingenious free marketing campaigns ever created. Unfortunately for Dr. Pepper & Kaneda, Axl came through...

wouldn't doubt it one bit if thats what really happened but i thought Dr Pepper was like the world favorite soda? that kinda suprises me that i'm not the only one that think they suck. really, who the hell needs 23 flavors? do they even make "REGULAR" fucking Dr Pepper any more?

Actually, I believe Dr.Pepper has dropped to #4 Worldwide - it was once #3.  As to the 23 flavors, that is just their "ingredients" for each Dr.Pepper - not 23 different sodas.

[D]

The only problem I have with this is, I never expected in a million years that the first word from GNR after the CD release would be a lawsuit against DR pepper instead of promoting the CD


Hello GNR.... u do realize your CD is out right?

[leatherebel]

FunkyMonkey, that's an old article, no? The way you posted may appear to some that the article was written in response to the law suit which it isn't.  Or, did you mean to bring it to the attention of the GN'R lawyers who may be collecting evidence about Ketchum/Dr Pepper whose intentions all along were to boost their reputation and sales respectively at the expense of the GN'R name?

I didn't say it was in response to the lawsuit...but that it was an article explaining their PR campaign using Axl/GNR.  And I did not post it to bring it to anyone's attention.

Did Dr. Pepper "boost their reputation and sales respectively at the expense of the GN'R name"...

Yes, I believe until 2 days ago (starting March) Dr Pepper did boost its sales and at the same time Ketchum boosted (or tried to) its reputation as a marketing agency by issuing statements as the one you quoted. Basically, they are bragging about how ingenious their idea was and how much publicity it generated for Dr Pepper, no? It's like adding an item to your resume. Only problem is, it wasn't well thought and it came back to bite them.

[jarmo]

This is not a lawsuit. It's an open letter to Dr Pepper.

For those who might be easily confused, Axl is actually on our side in this.


There's not really any reason to start pointing fingers at Axl or the band.




/jarmo