posted on November 26, 2001 08:39:46 AM new
What will happen is when you purchase items at Burger King there will be a point value for each item. Once you have enough points you can redeem them for prizes. Most likely ebay will make a special site for the Burger King auctions. Since the items will be free it cant be like a regular auction. I know thats it for me eating at burger king again.
posted on November 26, 2001 09:27:01 AM new
Pepsi once did the same thing (but w/o ebay), and it was hugely successful. I mean some people had close to a million points. That is a lot of Pepsi to drink, at 50 points per bottle.
Burger King won't be competing directly with other ebay sellers. It's more like Burger King customers are just redeeming points for a prize.
posted on November 26, 2001 09:58:06 AM new
Was that the Pepsi promotion with the Harrier jet up for something like 3 million points? Some guy was able to amass the 3 million points and Pepsi welched on the deal and he sued Pepsi. Never heard how he did in the lawsuit but he must have lost. Similar to the lawsuit against Hooters Restaurant where the employee won a new toy-Yoda in a sales promotion. All were lead to believe it was a new car not a star Wars figure.
posted on November 26, 2001 10:48:30 AM new
I remember that story. I hold back a lot of jokes because people take things way too seriously. Like if you're if an airport and you yell, "HIJACKER!" Watch your butt end up in jail.
posted on November 26, 2001 02:03:05 PM new
I think I recall reading about the guy who tried to redeeem the fighter jet offer winning a court judgement, I think that led to a payoff settlement.
posted on November 26, 2001 04:38:46 PM new
Doing Burger King promotions on ebay with prizes is courting more problems. I believe the kids will collect the bonus points and prizes, and then come on ebay to see what they can get.
They will then stay, stray into our auctions, and bid (for fun of course) and end up not paying.
Of course, ebay thinks it is great - a national brand is everything to them - but it is going to be more problems for us sellers. NPB's are already at record levels, and climbing.
One more thing - didn't these burger franchise chains end up rigging the winners of their contests so a few select employees won? (There was quite a stir about it in the papers and on the national news - until the chains reminded them how much they spent on advertising.)
On the other hand, I am not sure if ebay renewed its sponsorship of the PBS collectibles series. Whatever its problems, at least it targeted the right people and raised consciousness about scarce, unusual and fine quality items. Those are the people I want looking at my items, not kids and kmart shoppers.
posted on November 27, 2001 02:04:47 AM new
litlux, it wasn't the franchise chains that were cheating, it was the company they hired to set up the contest.
McDonald's gave away a lot of extra money to make up for the game being fixed.
