UK beer company pulls “free beer” April Fool’s prank, makes everyone mad
Turns out that people don't like thinking they've won free beer for life when they haven't
Aux Features Bier Company
Every April 1st, the world is flooded with bad jokes. At best, we get easy-to-ignore pranks like Krispy Kreme saying it’s going to change its name. At worst, we get a K-pop star lying to his adoring fans that he contracted COVID, or an official government channel cracking wise about interfering with foreign elections on Facebook.
Somewhere in between are stunts like the false promise of free beer for life from UK beer subscription site Bier Company.
Bier, as Newsweek explains, decided to invite the wrath of customers by sending out text messages and emails with “URGENT” in the subject line and the exciting (untrue) news that the reader was “this month’s winner of free beer for life.” The recipients, livers shivering with excitement, were told to click on a link and input a special promotional code to get their prize just before learning that the whole thing was a prank. Oh, and that by following the prize instructions they’ve also been signed up for a Bier subscription for £22.95 a month.
Unsurprisingly, those who tried to claim their nonexistent prize weren’t too happy with how the joke played out, especially when they learned that canceling the unwanted subscription is such an opaque process that one woman contacted by Newsweek said she was in touch with her bank to stop payment.
After what must have been a very exciting day of fielding messages and inquiries, Bier Company tried to flip the whole mishap on its head and tweeted that everyone who used the promo code (“SLOOFLIRPA,” or “April Fool’s” backwards) was actually going to receive a free month of its subscription service.
“Congratulations to everyone that used the SLOOFLIRPA code,” the tweet reads. “You will ALL receive a first free month of Bier Club, absolutely FREE—well done!”
Bier also stated that customers could use the code for the rest of the day and, in a presumed attempt to make us all feel bad that its crumby prank backfired so horribly, added the gloomy observation that “Our accountants are going bananas—it will cost us £££’s [sic] to fulfil this promise!”
Let this be a lesson to all companies for April Fool’s to come. The person in your marketing department with a “hilarious” idea must be ignored for the continued financial health of your operations.
[via Boing Boing]
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18 Comments
Sorry to change the topic, but I haven’t seen anything yet on GMG about the United States House of Representative voting to legalize marijuana and expunge convictions associated. When I first saw the news, yeah, I thought it was a prank.I grabbed this from NBC – https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-vote-bill-legalize-marijuana-rcna22527, but refer to news source of your preference.Again, sorry to interrupt.
What’s the point?It’ll never pass the Senate.Between Private prisons and tobacco industry $$, no way it would make it through.
I would never have believed my state would legalize recreational use at the state level; then it did. The taxes they are leveling are insane (and a good portion of it is going to cops), but it happened. We can say “never” but if we just start to believe it we might as well never even try.Further, Big Tobacco is hard at work securing a place in the cannabis industry and our privately run prisons will never run out of occupants – with or without convictions tied to cannabis.
It’s currently legal in 18 states.At best that’s 36 Senate votes. 20 years and they won’t even more it to a Schedule 2 narcotic so that it can be studied in America.It’s going to take 25 legal states to even start the discussion that it’s a possibility.
I only started to take advantage of the plant a year ago and now I have zero interest in alcohol. It’s the most equable drug imaginable and I’m using it to train myself to recognize anger triggers because it’s just about impossible to get angry, I’ve found. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Repubs are always angry and misery loves company. Even if we can’t get it legalized federally for use we at least need research, as you noted.Your point about prisons is also well-taken. Cannabis has become the medium for the new Jim Crow: Arrest Black citizens for a little possession and they immediately have a record, then on to more possible arrests (profiling), convictions and then, later, some felons can’t vote, have great difficulty finding homes, jobs, acceptance. My state is working on ‘forgiveness’ but not quickly enough. I’m just happy it’s in the news. Now we need to get people talking about our disastrous healthcare industry. People aren’t bothered to care until the press decides we should. I won’t be here in 25 years and I don’t have kids, but I feel obliged to do (and say) what I can.
As if Manchin and the GOP will allow it
I am partially optimistic about this. I live in a state that it’s not legal but I would love it for two of my kids who have seizures. IF this passes then it would shove my state into making it legal too.Also as a person who has never partook, and really never plan to, I have always found the severity of it to be insane.
Funny, my local bar was doing the same thing, but their sign said it’d be free beer tomorrow. I’ll have to remember to go!
This isn’t a prank…it’s borderline false advertising and manipulative behavior by this company. Getting people to sign up for a real subscription by offering something for free, as a joke, is despicable.
Nothing borderline about it, this is a company who obviously doesn’t have an inhouse legal department or the sense to see why they need one.
Yeah, this company’s troubles over this promotion are only beginning, I think. They aren’t wrong that it’s going to cost them a lot of money – and not just in free beer.This is one of the most catastrophically bad promotional ideas in recent memory. Like, holy shit
Only said borderline because I was too lazy to read the article at the time. But yea – reading the article, there’s a lady quoted who said the company runs a real contest for free beer for life (random drawing they have had since 2017) and that the T&C said nothing about this being a prank or anything like that. If those things are true, this company should be held responsible for honoring this promo. Although that could just mean this company goes bankrupt.
Yeah. If somebody says they’ll give you something if you do something, and and you do it, that’s a contract. Right?There’s probably some wobbly language in the text, but you can’t wait until after somebody fulfills a contract, and then say “PSYCHE!!!”And “First Month Free”??? Come on. That’s no deal. That’s standard (at least) for every subscription service ever.
It reminds me of a Nigerian prince scam except it’s a subscription service that I bet is hard to opt out of.
The person in your marketing department with a “hilarious” idea must be ignored for the continued financial health of your operations.They are just learning why in all major companies marketing has to run all their ideas through legal before going to copy. If they had done this then legal would have shit a fucking brick over it.
When I worked in radio promotions, we had to get legal department approval for the tiniest giveaways. That stuff is sooooo carefully managed – which just makes this all the more stunning.
The accountants are fine – it’s just an introductory offer delivered in a “zany” way. Although I’m not sure how effective it has been because I live in the UK and this article is the first I’ve heard of “Bier”.