MSE News: Colgate forgets its toothbrush in promo fail, as it's kicked off...

NekoZombie

londonsaffa wrote: »

I got a toothbrush! Thank goodness I was there at 6:30!

Someone on twitter saying they got there at 6 and queued until 9, and didnt get a toothbrush. I dont think so somehow, lol! I was there at 7.15 and the event got closed down at 7.40!

vaderag

Was still going at 8.15 when I finally left...

Crouching_Hippo

We must have arrived about the same time then as I was literally behind the stand when they shut it all down, pobably about 30 from the front. At first the staff were saying that they had run out of toothbrushes (lie) and then it became apparent that this was not the case as one of the Network Rail staff was talking to one of the promo staff and I heard him say 'we have to shut you down as this is interfering with our operations'. Which is fair enough to be honest in a massive transport hub in the middle of London...

Agree - fill out the forms, send them in to Colgate HQ and they should honour the promotion. People got up early (I was up at 0445 this morning!) to be there, so that's why they are annoyed. Failure of epic proportions! And I didn't even get a form...

chick1006 wrote: »

I lined up from approx 6.45am. Even then the queue was at 200 strong before me and another 500 behind me by the time i got near the Colgate stand. Then they just stopped the promotion due to numbers of people in the station at rush hour and safety concerns this caused. There was talk of re-starting the promotion once the morning rush hour had died down so they started providing (including me) with the forms everyone had to complete and promised if we came back at 10.30am those with forms will recieve the toothbrsuh. I've now learnt from this forum that isn't going to happen.
My suggestion is for those people that have the form why don't they as a way of making amends advise them to send the forms into there offices and they then honour the promotion at least?
Good product but massive failure on organisation

SusieEllen

Vikkivikki2 wrote: »

Hi

I was there at 6.15 this morning and was the tenth person in the queue. My details were taken and I had a toothbrush literally 5 mins later.

After my details were taken we were moved from the left hand side of the stand to the right to receive the brush. Even at this point early in the morning before the eventual crush happend this caused confusion with passers by. Passers by automatically joined the queue I was in as they thought that it was the shorter queue - the staff at this point pointed them to longer queue that snaked around waterloo. I think this was probably what caused the initial confusion.

From what I saw later on, various queues were being moved due to health and safety concerns.

I don't think all of the blame can be aimed at the Colgate staff - there were clearly far too many people in the queue and they should have informed exerted some sort of crowd control. I looked down on the crowd later on and there were clearly people pushing and shoving to get the toothbrush which hampered the issue.

I do feel sorry for anyone that didn't receive a brush.[/

SusieEllen

hanks to a hot night I decided to catch an earlier train and arrived just after 6.30. About 6.40 I saw the Colgate staff moving four metal barriers about and assumed they would direct the queue, however after a conference they decided not to. I reached the stand just after 7 and got a brush, but by then I was aware that there was a mass of people who appeared to be jumping to the front of the queue and there were angry people. There was a large man behind me who shepherded myself and another lady to his side to protect us. Thank you man in the wooley hat.

liz545

epm-84 wrote: »

Busy commuter railway stations at rush hour are usually popular for companies who have promotions to offer and Network Rail (who own and manage the major stations in Britain) must allow companies to run their promotions there at peak times.

And usually that works fine if it's just promotions staff handing out free samples to passers by - at Waterloo they usually do it on the station approach rather than inside the concourse. But this was an expensive item which people had to queue and fill out a form for, right in front of the platforms where people would be getting on and off trains. There was bound to be a lot of demand and it's clear that Colgate hadn't thought through the crowd management.

martin8_2

Me and the wife got there around 645, was amazed at how long the queue was already! Didn't attempt to push forward or anything so didn't realise that they were handing out the forms. Very disappointed!!

me_and

I arrived about 6:40; I'd left my house an hour earlier to try to get there in the hope of getting a replacement for my almost-dead Oral-B. The queue was already pretty long, but seemed to be moving quickly until I was near the front, at which point station security turned up and told the staff to shut it down.

I could have predicted the long queues – that's why I got there early – so I'm pretty bemused that Colgate's PR and the station staff couldn't. It was advertised on MSE, and it was being advertised on the big electronic billboards at the station too, so it being a popular deal was pretty much guaranteed.

Plus, when we were told to head off, it seemed like crowding the poor stall staff wouldn't achieve anything, so I did. If it turns out that folk who did crowd in were given leaflets and are able to get their toothbrushes when other folk couldn't, I'm going to be even more peeved at Colgate.

brian36

as someone previous wrote there are other cities besides london !
should have been online and fair,all our family of 5 use colgate but after this it's obvious colgate don't think out of london so will use other make:mad:

techno12

Surprised to see everyone up at the crack of dawn to try to get this offer as I would have thought they'd have been rationed throughout the day.

I happen to be in London when the Victoria thing is on and was planning to take my old Braun in around midday.

Hopefully they'll tweak the procedure and give some out every hour, rather than a mad Boxing-day sale type crush full of bargain hunters!