Copley Square Swag Report: 3/15/06

[mabfan]

There hasn't been much swag to report, I'm afraid.

Monday evening I got a flyer urging me to give up my lunch hour to save the seals.

And this morning, a lone woman was passing out copies of the Boston Globe at the southeast corner of Boylston and Dartmouth. The Globes came wrapped in a Starbucks Coffee insulating sleeve, since we all know how hot the news is today. The sleeve advertises the fact that Starbucks is giving away free coffee today from 10 AM to 12noon. All one has to do, I am told, is drop by.

In other words, my swag for this morning is a newspaper I already get and the promise of a free cup of coffee.

Pathetic. If Starbucks really wanted to brighten up my cold morning, they wouldn't send a lonely woman out to the corner to pass out newspapers and the promise of free coffee. They would send out a cart at every corner, and give away free cups of coffee directly. Hordes of grateful commuters would grab their coffee, warm their hands, drink down the smooth tasting beverage, and sigh with contentment.

Well, except for me. I don't drink coffee.

So this is my appeal to corporate America. Don't kill the Swag Report just as it's getting started! Get your people out to Copley Square every morning and give me something good to review!

Comments

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

If you send a Weekly Swag Report to the Globe, you'll find that the quality of swag at that station will take a huge jump.

[eeka13.livejournal.com]

Last summer there was a Starbucks Doubleshot promo in which a guy rode around on a bike with a crate of them and handed them out. Only it wasn't a good "promo," because the guy rode around the Bullfinch Triangle area where I work EVERY DAY. I ended up with 2 or 3 each day, and coworkers who didn't like them started grabbing them, so we had a fridgefull for weeks. This didn't exactly convince us to start buying the product, you see...

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Ah, but when you ran out, did you all go buy more? Then the promo would have worked.

[eeka13.livejournal.com]

Ha, nope. We literally had dozens of them in our fridge, and only a few of us were into the stuff, so we had as much as we wanted for over a month. I guess we gradually went back to drinking office coffee. And RedBull -- also an ineffective promo, because I buy so much of it regardless of whether they're handing out free ones at fairs and things!

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

seems the starbucks thing is national. a friend in indianapolis told folks that apparently today was "national coffee break" day with free coffee at starbucks from 10a-12p.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It's a variant on Heisenberg: you can either get swag or report on swag, but not both!