Virtue Is Its Own Reward? Says Who?

Not since Ponzi have so many “rewards” programs blossomed in our midst.

The catalyst, of course, is the World Wide Web, whose fertilizer-enhanced tentacles ensnare the unwary and enrage the wary.

Bruce Koppenhoefer of Revere Control Systems called the My Coke Rewards program to my attention.

“My wife,” he told me, “consumes what I believe to be a large amount of caffeine-free Diet Coke. We saw the ads for My Coke Rewards, and my wife encouraged me to sign her up. The 2-liter caps are good for three points each. I figured that if the program lasts a while, she’d eventually accumulate enough points to earn something semi-nice (that was before I found that it takes more than 200 points to get a lousy basketball).

“Lo and behold, upon entering the codes and receiving a display of the accumulated six points, I noticed that points only remain valid for 90 days from date of entry. So, if I’m entering codes on a regular basis, the best I can hope to accumulate is 270 points in a 90-day span. If we want anything besides a basketball, bottle tops have to be accumulated over some long span of time and code entries made all at one sitting. And how long would it take me to key in 180 or 270 codes at one time? Goodbye My Coke Rewards and the associated ‘loyalty.’ Buy Pepsi or Coke, whatever’s on sale.”

Wait. Why give up before you get that basketball? You never can have too much money or too many basketballs.

Bruce also was a Jonah with Parrot Bay’s Pop the Top rewards program. The instruction: Go to their Web site (www.parrotbay.com), register, and enter codes from the caps. Lots of prizes, including the lowest level, a music download from Rhapsody.com.

“I enjoy music,” Bruce explained, “and purchase a fair amount of downloads, so I was happy when my first cap produced a download prize. Retrieving requires registration at Rhapsody. Multiple attempts to get logged in returned a repeated message, ‘Your Session has Expired.’ No support on the Parrot Bay Web site, naturally — no e-mail, no phone number.

“I redeemed my second bottle cap, registering again, this time using my work address. Immediately upon receiving my confirmation e-mail (yes, I’d won another music download), I went to Rhapsody to claim it. Again, multiple log-in attempts produced repeated ‘Your Session has Expired’ messages. So I replied to my confirmation e-mail and described my problem. No response. I tried a third time and won another download. Amazingly, this time I was able to log in at Rhapsody. I got a message that to claim my download I had to go to ParrotBay.com. I did. Nowhere was anything about claiming my download.

“What I finally discovered is that I’m registered for Rhapsody basic, which lets me listen to 15 songs per month but doesn’t allow any downloads. That requires an additional fee.”

Well, Bruce, you aren’t alone. Marketers ranging from Walgreens to Boston Market to Sears to Amazon are milking the Web with peculiar loyalty and “satisfaction survey” programs offering peculiar potential prizes and adding to our patina of cynicism.

I suggested to Bruce that his wife might perform a public service by offering to lift RC Cola out of its deep cave. Music? Just carry a recorder into a trendy restaurant or a Gap store.

Don Kuchenski of Accurate Alloys is another guy Coke caused to burp.

His story:

“On Coke’s 20-ounce bottles they advertise their My Coke Rewards program. You register online and enter a 15-digit code located under the bottle cap to earn points, which you exchange for Coke merchandise. Have you tried reading the codes under the cap? The lettering is blurred by a piece of plastic covering the code, letters and numbers are difficult to differentiate (is it a 6 or G, etc.?), and if you make a mistake entering the code, forget about trying to get it right. Do they think everyone has X-ray vision to read through the plastic? Maybe some of their rewards are Coca-Cola reading glasses…I’ll get those first. ‘Have a Coke and a smile? No, more like ‘Have a Coke and frustration.’”

One of my own: The “Institute for Partner Educational Development” (no, I didn’t make that up) has offered me $10 to take a “10-minute” survey. It’s tempting…because a local supermarket is offering four 24-can cases of Coke for $10. Bruce and Don, don’t you wish you had the contacts I have?

HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS (www.herschellgordonlewis.com), principal of Lewis Enterprises in Fort Lauderdale, FL, consults with and writes direct response copy for clients worldwide. Among his 30 books are “Hot Appeals or Burnt Offerings,” the curmudgeonly titled “Asinine Advertising,” and “On the Art of Writing Copy” (third edition).