Recently my rock trio KPB participated in the s.Oliver Band Contest. Basically, another corporate campaign to promote and transport a company’s Brand, disguised as a music competition. We were happy and thrilled to participate because we want to play our music in front of lots of people. Period.
Using traditional and alternative online marketing methods, none of which conflicted with the THEN posted TOS from s.Oliver, we managed to make our way to the top spot. Let me define our methods in a nutshell;
TRADITIONAL method
Begging your so-called FRIENDS and FANS to vote for you everyday. Basically, getting on their nerves to do something that frankly, they don’t really benefit from in any way but some comply because they have time, genuinely like/know you or simply have nothing better to do. Whatever the reason, it’s all good.
ALTERNATIVE method
Canvassing – collecting votes on location. Yes folks, pen and paper, iphone & ipad sign-ups, in 3 Cafes, 1 Nail Salon, 2 Theaters, 1 Fitness Center and my personal fave, outside of 2 s.Oliver Retail Locations. These votes were entered manually at a later time.
Opt-In Registrations – The majority of our 3000+ votes originated from people joining/subscribing some other website in the vast Empire Network which we are members of and at the signup page, gave their CHECKMARK allowing that website to use their contact info to support/vote KPB. Those Niche websites span the realms of Auto, TV & Music Entertainment, Adult, Restaurants and even Faith based subscribers.
That’s the scoop, like it or not, I don’t care but DON’T CALL MY BAND KPB CHEATERS.
Mr Scholz,
My name is Allan Cohen, I am an attorney and representative of the Empire Media Group, an online conglomerate of independent websites, user forums and micro-networks originally formed to counter the effects of corporate social networks dominating the Internet traffic and content distribution. Basically, anti-Facebook.
Under our network umbrella, are several websites owned by former campaign contestant Kamary Phillips, or better known as KPB, thus I represent the band on this matter.
All of our Partner and Member websites are subscriber based. Our many thousands of members have all opted in allowing the use of their contact information for the good of our network, and as such determined by the network.
A few of Mr. Phillips’s websites which partner with us are;
Underground TV.net
Model Time TV.com
Wine Time TV.net
Your online voting based competition requires a legitimate email address to participate and in every case where we have voted on behalf of KPB, that address is directly linked to a member of our network.
It is not reasonable nor feasible for each individual member to make a vote on behalf of KPB. Our members simply opted in upon registration to our network giving us the full legal Right to do so on their behalf from several server-based locations in Europe and the United States. We do not however, have the jurisdiction to reveal a members place of residence, as you might understand. If that information is necessary to qualify KPB’s 3000+ votes, then we will make our best efforts to produce such information.
After once again reading your terms of service, there is little contrary in this method of creating votes for the contestant KPB. It is our opinion that the decision to disqualify KPB is unjust and as such we cannot accept it.
We request that KPB be reinstated into competition with no penalty. Mr. Phillips has requested a personal , written apology which he will post on his website, as he feels this is a major insult and this will adversely affect his personal social network, consisting of over 60,000 Internet subscribers. Please Google “Kamary Phillips” to understand his presence online. The first 40 pages of results will relate to him.
I would advise you to read KPB’s twitter feed during the campaign period. (@KamaryPhillips) It is abundantly clear their role has been to motivate, rally and inspire. One entire days tweets, for example, was dedicated to helping the other bands that have very few votes.
We anticipate a prompt response and would greatly appreciate closure to this obvious misunderstanding and unfortunate occurrence today.
With all professional respect,
Allan Cohen, AAL
Empire Media Group
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On 28.03.2012, at 13:33, “Scholz, Wolfgang” wrote:
Hallo Herr Phillips,
leider haben wir beim Voting zu ihrer Band KPB Manipulationen bei der Stimmabgabe festgestellt
und aus diesem Grund, laut unseren Teilnahmebedingungen, ihre Band disqualifiziert
und von der weitern Teilnahme an unserem s.Oliver Band Contest 2012 ausgeschlossen.
Diese Maßnahme war aus rechtlichen Gründen erforderlich, und um den anderen Bands ein faires Verfahren
der Stimmabgabe zu gewährleisten.
Wir bedauern diese Maßnahme sehr, wünschen Ihnen aber für die Zukunft viel Erfolg.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Wolfgang Scholz
Wolfgang Scholz
Team Leader New Media
s.Oliver
Bernd Freier GmbH & Co. KG
s.Oliver-Straße 1
97228 Rottendorf
Tel.: +xxxxxxxx
Fax: +xxxxxxxx
Mobil: +xxxxxxx
www.soliver.com
www.soliver.com/facebook
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