In This Economy?

Dear Mars,

I’m disappointed in you.
You may opt to redeem yourself by giving me free chocolate, however.

xoxo,

Breadwinner

*NOTE: Milky Way is NOT among the free chocolate choices.

It’s no secret: America is all about chocolate these days. Vanilla is so not sexy, and so last year. Chocolate has risen to the top, in more ways than one — and I think you know what I’m talking about.

Chocolate BAILOUT!

Well Mars (the chocolate company, not the planet) is seeking to get a piece of that chocolate love, and they want you to know that their chocolate is more chocolatey than other companies’ chocolate. Something about cocoa butter. Anyway, to prove it to you, perhaps, or just to get in on some of that sweet “Food Bailout” PR that other companies have been enjoying, they’re giving away a free chocolate bar, or bag, to 250,000 people per week through September 25th. It’s called the Real Chocolate Relief Act. It’s very political/economical-sounding!

So how do you get your hands on yours?

that's hot.

Well, that’s the hard part, sadly. First, head to realchocolate.com and endure its paaaaaaainfully sloooooooow site loading time. Give them your birth date and attempt to register to receive your free chocolate coupon in the mail.

[Aside: I was honestly a little disappointed when I didn’t see any adult content once I got in, considering the whole birth date thing. No Barry White voice over as Dove chocolate melts in some hot model’s mouth? No sweet M on M lovin’? WTF, Mars?]

I digress. You have only five short minutes to register, before you lose your place in line to become one of the lucky 250,000. That normally wouldn’t be a problem, but at the rate this site loads, and with the amount of trouble it’s having just bringing up its own pop-up windows, it’s likely going to slow things down for you. In my opinion, websites should load faster than chocolate melts in your hand, but that’s just me. Error messages are so not delicious.

so not delicious.

Supposedly you get your choice of Snickers, Twix, Dove, 3 Musketeers, or M&Ms. How to choose? It doesn’t really matter because the site is a total botch job.

I’d like to be able to say, “Hurry, because today is the last day of this week’s 250k!” but saying “hurry” is just ridiculous at this point. Maybe realchocolate.com works better on a PC with IE or Netscape or whatever. It’s worth a shot, I guess. Well, if “a shot” means one free candy bar = $1 of your time…or something.

actual contact us form, filled out by yours truly

In my blind, most likely hypoglycemic fury, I took the slow load-time as an opportunity to contact Mars and let them know about my user experience. Yeah, pretty high on the nerd scale. But in the end, I did receive an email letting me know that I made it into this week’s 250k (YES!) and will be receiving my coupon in the mail. So all’s well that ends well.

Suffice it to say I will not be following M&Ms on Twitter.

Tags: chocolate, economy, free, M&M, mars, real chocolate, twix

This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 3:26 PM and is filed under Deals & Free Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.