this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
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Woolworths tells 79,000 they won a prize, then rescinds it (www.rnz.co.nz)
submitted 6 months ago by Dave@lemmy.nz to c/newzealand@lemmy.nz
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Woolworths has apologised to thousands of customers after mistakenly telling about 79,000 people they had won a competition.

The email for the Big Night In prize was meant to be sent to about 1000 winning customers.

Instead, 79,000 extra so-called winners were sent the same email - awarding them 4000 points towards the supermarket's Everyday Rewards card system, which would equal $30 worth of groceries.

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[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 29 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Stingy bastards.

They'd likely get more than 79000 × $30 of marketing 'captial' for just saying "oops, our mistake, but your benefit" and honouring it.

And chalk it up to not training your marketing team on how to use excel.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I was thinking about this. And under the rule of "if doesn't matter what they are saying about you as long as they're talking about you", perhaps the marketing power is higher to deny it and make front page? It wouldn't have been as big of a big news story if they had just paid it.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There is such a thing as bad publicity.

The only people that think otherwise are marketers who get paid their consulting fees regardless and millionaire executives that have no idea what the average person thinks because they've never been one and believe those consultants at face value.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Well I guess they have to decide what that bad publicity is worth.

$30*1,000 = $30,000 planned to give away.

They accidentally emailed an extra 79,000 people, so paying out would cost $2,370,000 (on top of the $30k already budgeted).

It's a pretty significant difference so I can imagine they got together a committee and decided paying out wasn't worth it.

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2 points 6 months ago

They're prepared to pay up $400m to rebrand countdown supermarkets to Woolworths. They're not strapped for cash ;-)