questions → how's this for a marketing ploy?

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How's this for a marketing ploy?

Feb 1, 2013 7:50 PM

So today here at the office we get a box in the mail, the size of what you would expect flowers to come in by one of those through the mail flower services, yet it's from Amex. We open it and it has quite a nice sized RC helicopter in it, along with a note that says "Call me and I'll bring the remote control to your helicopter to our meeting." Boy, how disappointing it was to not be able to play with this thing. But disappointing enough to meet with them and get the remote? Not sure yet, I'll have to take it home tonight and check it out more. Being it's February and we're right in the middle of year end work here in accounting, it's not the right time of the year to be meeting people, now if it was June, I'd be getting a remote!

Does your office get things like this and do you meet with the people?

lmensor lmensor

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I remember getting a rather large box from HP that a network switch would come in; inside it was a large stack of fake money. We had no idea what it was about, as there were no flyers or explanations with it. Turns out that one of our vendors was trying to sell us network switches from HP, and it was a promotion of sorts.

subether subether
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@subether: That would have been cool if you could have used the fake money towards the purchase of the switches. But since you couldn't, what a waste. It probably had everyone at the office talking about it though, and that was probably one of their goals. It just amazes me how much money these companies will spend on stuff like this.

lmensor lmensor
vote-for14vote-against

I would go out of my way to find one on eBay just for the gratification at this point.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1311.R1&_nkw=helicopter+remote+control&_sacat=0&_from=R40

coondogg97 coondogg97
vote-for14vote-against

What brand Helicopter? You might be able to find a remote for it elsewhere.

baqui63 baqui63
vote-for8vote-against

haha if you do buy a remote, you should send the box back with the receipt for the remote in it

jyoz22 jyoz22
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Yeah, you can absolutely get a remote for it elsewhere.

j5 j5
vote-for5vote-against

that sounds like someone is really trying to get a foot in the door. I don't know if this is a new technique or not, but it is an interesting attempt. In my office that thing would have disappeared in a second, and no one would have ever known....

ecriscit ecriscit
vote-for2vote-against

I have seen this, keep the car perhaps they will send you the remote by accident. So far I have seen this twice, the first no one did anything for the remote but we already tossed the car. The second time we stored the box and marked the box "throw away after a date (the date was 1 year after we received the copter)

caffeine_dude caffeine_dude
vote-for2vote-against

They can't know much about accounting if they sent it in Feb.
Call them and set up a meeting in April.

dontwantaname dontwantaname
vote-for1vote-against

@coondogg97: Thanks for the link!

@baqui63: I kept forgetting to bring the thing home, finally remembered and I can't find a brand name on it anywhere.

After going to @coondogg97's ebay link, it made me decide to search for amex heli's on ebay and there's actually 2 different sellers listing them right now, for ridiculous prices IMO, with no remotes!
I will probably just give it to my FIL at this point, he's really in to RC toys and I'm sure he'll figure out how to work it. I'm too busy with work right now to play with it anyway :(

lmensor lmensor

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