By 4:30pm today’s hundreds of eager customers were lined up in the stifling heat outside Emack & Bolio’s store on Cochrane Street. Why, because on the 19 June Emack & Bolio’s sent out a press release and announced in their social media channels two hours of Free Ice Cream!
The exact wording of the press release was:
Free Ice Cream for Summer Solstice… celebrate the start of summer with a free scoop of your favourite Emack & Bolio’s ice cream!!! Just visit any of our stores between 5-7pm on Wednesday 21 June, and follow us on FB or IG.
Only one per customer, our decision is final.
Yet hundreds of customers left angry and frustrated because it wasn’t a 2 hour promotion as announced and advertised, it was a 200 scoop promotion. A fact the company didn’t bother to mention in it’s desperate desire for publicity.
This is not the the first time the company has hosted this type of giveaway but obviously they subscribe to the trump pr playbook of telling lies and using fake facts to get publicity no matter the cost or inconvenience to others.
By 6pm the branch staff were outright lying to customers who turned up saying social media had got it wrong. Social media spread the Free ice-cream promotion correctly, Emack & Bolio’s just failed to honour the offer as announced. Adding the extra condition once the promotion had gone viral. Sadly consumers have little recourse to duplicitous companies like this other than to take their business elsewhere.
