My Coke Rewards

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My Coke Rewards is a customer loyalty marketing campaign from ePrize for the Coca-Cola soft drink. Customers enter codes from specially marked packages of Coca-Cola products into a website. These codes are converted into virtual "points" which can in turn be redeemed for various prizes or sweepstakes entries.^[1]

The program was first launched in 2006. ^[2] By November of that year, over one million prizes had been redeemed.^[3] The current phase of the promotion began on April 16, 2007. Although the "My Coke Rewards" promotion was supposed to end by December 31, 2007, the program has been recently extended until January 31, 2009.^[4] While the prize selection dwindled in the months leading up to the promotions' proposed end, the official website reports that more rewards will be added soon.^[5]

1 Point values
- 1.1 My Coke Rewards
- 1.2 Limitations
2 Code reuse
3 Controversy
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Point values

Different products are worth different point values. The current values are as follows:^[1]

[edit] My Coke Rewards

12 oz (355 mL) cans (24 pack): 50 points (specially marked packages)
12 oz (355 mL) cans (32 pack): 25 points
20 oz (591 mL) bottles (8 pack): 24 points
12 oz (355 mL) cans (24 pack): 20 points
500 mL (16.9 oz) bottles (24 pack): 20 points
24 oz (710 mL) bottles (6 pack): 18 points
12 oz (355 mL) cans (12 pack): 10 points
500 mL (16.9 oz) bottles (12 pack): 10 points
Single bottles of sodas (all sizes), Minute Maid lemonade, Minute Maid juices, PowerAde, and various other brands: 3 points

Rewards range in cost from 0 points (discounted tickets to Six Flags amusement parks) to 18000 points (replica Coca-Cola cooler).

[edit] Limitations

Some people consider the rewards program to be severely limited. For instance, the program does not allow more than 10 entries per day. Hence, if a customer were to consume a case of 15 Powerade bottles, it would take him or her two days to enter the bottle caps.

Customers have complained to Coca-Cola that the program is fraudulent due to these limitations and argue that a program set up to breed potential lifelong Coca-Cola customers is instead causing them to lose interest in the Coke brand. MyCokeRewards now lets you know when you enter codes that you can only enter 10 codes a day.

Many customers complain that the prizes they have been saving up for are out of stock or no longer available. Other customers have stated that when the prizes that were out of stock return that they cost more points. One example is a $75 dollar Blockbuster gift card that went out of stock at 722 points, and returned at 1020 points.

Also, MyCokeRewards features an expiration date of codes that are entered. Currently, points expire after 90 days of user account inactivity, meaning a customer must either add points to their account or claim a prize within 90 days to ensure their points do not expire. ^[6]

[edit] Code reuse

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There are two types of codes: single-use and multi-use codes. Single-use codes like those found on Coke products contain a mix of letters and numbers. These codes can only be used once; if they have been entered in any account they will not work again. By contrast, multi-use codes are identified by being all numeric and may be entered by multiple users. Thus far the multi-use codes have all started with the digits 10008. They have been distributed through email, including during the 2006 Christmas holiday season, as well as through direct mail and print advertising campaigns in various magazines and other publications. Both Blockbuster and Disney (with Pirates of the Caribbean) have participated in such special promotions.

[edit] Controversy

The program is one of several marketing campaigns that have come under fire from the Center for Digital Democracy, an advocacy group interested in regulating how food products are marketed to children. Coca-Cola's online marketing techniques are included in a 98-page report issued in May 2007 by the center and the American University called "Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing: Targeting Children and Youth"^[7]^[8] which criticizes the program for collecting personal information from children and for promoting obesity.^[9]

Childhood obesity was also a concern for weight-loss instructor Julia Griggs Havey who sued Coca-Cola over the program in 2006, but dropped her lawsuit a few weeks later. ^[10] The lawsuit was dropped for the specific reason of it being frivolous, since there was a misinterpretation as to what was required of a user in order to accumulate Coke points and obtain the currently available reward prizes. The first assumption—that those who have Coke codes must purchase the product in order to redeem them—was shown to be untrue, as Coke stated they took into consideration that users may obtain codes from others. Second, it was pointed out that the CocaCola Company has other products besides Coca-Cola, including Nestea, Powerade and Dasani water that are available for those who wish not to consume high amounts of sugar or caffeine.