Coca-Cola accused of using porn to attract children
is facing flak for using porn to attract children on Facebook in a promotional campaign gone wrong.
Coke has withdrawn the ads and apologized for its Dr. Pepper promotion, where users allowed their Facebook status box to be taken over by the company. More than 160,000 people signed up and allowed Coke to send "embarrassing" messages posted under the users name, which would be seen by all who viewed their Facebook profile.
But Coke ran into trouble when the parent of a 14-year-old girl in the U.K. complained her daughter's profile had been updated with a direct reference to a hardcore porn flick notorious for the obscene practices it depicts, according tothe Telegraph, and the girl searched for the porno on the Internet.
The message, according to Mrs. Rickman: "I watched 2 girls one cup and felt hungry afterwards."
Mrs. Rickman wrote on the parents' networking site Mumsnet: "I am absolutely fizzing with rage and disgust, and want a full apology and explanation." Get it, fizzing? Ha, ha.
Coke says it's investigating what went wrong. "It has been brought to our attention that the Dr. Pepper promotion on Facebook posted an offensive status update. We apologize for any offense caused. As soon as we became aware of this, we took immediate action and removed the status update from the application. We have also taken the decision to end the promotion. We will take all steps necessary to ensure this does not happen again."
Coke offered Mrs. Rickman a night in a hotel and theater tickets for the West End, but the gesture was not well received: "Fat lot of use to me, we live in Glasgow," she wrote.
Other examples of status updates posted by Coke included, according to The Guardian:
* "Lost my special blankie. How will I go sleepies?"
* "What's wrong with peeing in the shower?"
* "Never heard of it described as cute before."
