Friday, October 31, 2003

Small print.

I enjoy reading the small print in things, to find out who's behind advertising campaigns or the real odds of winning the sweepstakes jackpot or somesuch other information that they're required to tell you but they really don't want you to know. (It's probably the same impulse that forces me to sit through the credits at the end of a movie where you can find out that the production actually had someone with the job title of "roach wrangler.")

Folger's Coffee has a promotion supporting The Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundation, where they're hoping to raise as much as $1 million through donations and the purchase of Folger's Coffee, and the Foundation will use the money raised making improvements which will allow the Staute of Liberty to reopen, having closed on 9-11. A pretty decent promotion, I'd say. To have a purchase count towards the fund, you have to send the inner seal of the coffee to some address, and they'll give $1 for the first 500,000 inner seals sent in.

I received an email from Folger's telling me about the promotion - not spam, as I'd signed up for Procter & Gamble emails - and I was delighted to see this gem towards the bottom of the email (although it's not on the web pages associated with the production): The purchase of coffee is not tax-deductible.

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