On the way home this weekend, Ange spotted a posted for some band that had a new CD, and I forget who the band was, not necessarily because they were forgettable, but because the packaging clearly was going after a market that I’m too damned old for (at least visually. I’m sure I’ll get their songs in my head if they make it onto Siruis Hits 1, because I love what I do so much that I listen to top 40 music non-stop to dull the delight enough that I’ll actually go home to the family at the end of a day’s work.)
“What’s that about?” she asked, possibly because she was feeling the same way (without the questionable benefits of a top 40 firehose.)
Never wanting to say a simple “I don’t know” when I could make a (usually bad) joke, I hopped onto the fact that the poster was for HMV, and figured this would be good practice for one day when I tell the boys how music used to work:
“Oh, HMV? It’s like this music store, but instead of going to a website, you go to this physical place, like a grocery store, and you buy these plastic discs, that work kind of like download coupons, except when you get home you transfer the audio from the disc into your computer instead of typing in the code and downloading it.”
Badump-bump, yeah, funny, and we moved on.
Until LATER THAT SAME DAY when I went to the grocery store (which is kind of like an HMV but they sell food and food accessories) and noticed Pringles was having a promotion (the reasons for looking at Pringles is a whole post-level aside that I’ll skip for now.)
“Buy a can of Pringles and get 3 free MP3s”
OK, companies are still doing the “free music with purchase” thing? It’s kind of 2005-ish, but I guess 3 tracks for a $2.50 product purchase is an interesting statement on the value of entertainment, whatever, and I filed it all away for future knowledge.
Until I noticed the terms.
To get these three tracks, you have to mail in a receipt. In the physical mail. And not a proof of purchase like in the days of old, an actual receipt from the grocery store, with the Pringles item circled.
If you do that (combined with the order form, which has those cool little boxes per letter,) you’ll get the download codes, but via email. Assuming you’re one of the first 25,000 people to go through this (better hurry!)
Is this a hipster thing?
I can’t tell if the music is from iTunes or a specialized store, or if it’s from a list of top tracks, or if everyone gets the same MP3s, but if I were Pringles, I’d go full ridiculous.
(I know, but I can’t bring myself to use the original dialogue…)
After you mail the info over to them, why don’t they send a cassette tape back? I’d suggest an 8-track but I’m sure they want to save on postage.
I haven’t sent in my info, but that’s because if I have to send in a full receipt, I assume it’s so some newfangled data scientist wannabe hopes to find a correlation between Pringles and whatever else is on the receipt, so yes, I want to skew the data. Does anyone know a good porn or small engine repair shop (ideally both) in Toronto that sells Pringles?