thread of egregiously shitty brand communications about the coronavirus

inspired by this email about the coronavirus from everyone's favorite parasite of deceptive business practices, intuit/turbotax:

As a valued customer or partner of one or more of our products and services — TurboTax, Turbo, QuickBooks, Mint, ProSeries, ProConnect and Lacerte — I want you to know that we understand the importance of the products and services we provide to you and your business. You rely on us to help power your livelihood, and we understand the responsibility that entails. Meeting that responsibility day in and day out, in any environment, is our primary focus.

translation: don't worry, as society hurtles into the unknown but probably bad, we're not going to waive our fees or anything

The thoughts and prayers from Dippin' Dots mentioned on another thread pretty much takes the cake.

To Our Taco Bell Fans,

Like most of you, I’ve been reading the news about the spread of coronavirus and I am convinced that Taco Bell, our franchisees and team members have an obligation to do something to help stop this from spreading. It’s the right thing to do, but outside of increased cleaning in the restaurants like we’ve been doing, how can we make a larger impact?

As regions of the U.S. begin to mandate public closures and self-quarantine, we are equipping our restaurants to serve our guests via drive-thru and delivery only, where necessary. Should we need to temporarily close our dining rooms, we would be limiting millions of guest interactions and further enabling social distancing. We are going to redefine what it means to be a social brand during this coronavirus pandemic, while at the same time keeping our team members safe, and continuing to provide our fans with the delicious Taco Bell food they love.

We aim to be the safest place to eat AND the safest place to work. Our 7,200 managers are well-trained and prepared, and we’re going back to them to revisit our existing industry-leading training and operating procedures. Their personal well-being, safe food preparation, restaurant cleanliness and illness policies are our top priorities and are best practices from our operators from around the globe.

Because our people are the heart of our organization, and we understand the impact these actions can have, we’re amending our sick policy at our company-owned U.S. restaurants to better accommodate our teams while ensuring no one works who is sick. We’ll be paying employees who are required to stay at home, or who work at a restaurant that is closed, for their scheduled or regularly scheduled hours during their time away from work. We’re actively working with our franchise partners to encourage a similar approach.

Our purpose—to feed people’s lives with unexpected good—guides us in times like these, and we are thankful for your support. You can count on us to keep you informed as new information becomes available.

Mark King
CEO, Taco Bell Corp.

Stick to your bass, Mark.

fuck you, Mark, bring back the double decker taco

Match.com

We’re erring on the side of caution
The health and safety of our members is our top priority. In light of Coronavirus (COVID-19), we are cancelling Match Events through the end of March. While we love providing these experiences, we feel this is in our community’s best interest and apologize for any inconvenience it may cause.

For members registered for an event during this time period, please expect a refund in the next 3 to 5 days.

All April events are still scheduled to take place at this time. We are actively monitoring the situation with the health and well-being of our community in mind.

We ask all members to stay informed and follow guidelines set by the CDC.

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

Your friends at Match

Intuit is not horrible to their professional customers, though i was annoyed that the free docusign add-on was only available to new customers. They are kinda on par w/Apple imo

“Hey, take advantage of Coronavirus”

Yep, great email, thanks Product School.

This is the opposite of the spirit of this thread:

https://newsroom.heb.com/h-e-b-gives-3-million-for-coronavirus-community-support/

Finally, we all must be mindful: History has its eye on us. Exceptional actions carried out under exigent circumstances often define new norms, for good or ill. Permissible exceptions to longstanding norms should be explicitly established with reference to the attendant risks and tradeoffs, but also with a fixed point in the future for sun-setting or, at minimum, re-examining. We must not blindly accept the mantra of “desperate times call for desperate measures,” but instead forge solutions that can survive a return to normalcy and not fundamentally alter our societal values. Any exceptional measures must be clearly justified by the facts and conditions of the moment but, also, in enacting them, build in mechanisms for rolling them back after the crisis and soberly evaluating the extent to which they were necessary and how we can do better next time. This is an emergency — perhaps the defining one of our age. In acting decisively to defeat this pandemic, we must do so in a way that we will recognize ourselves when it’s done.

Author
Courtney Bowman, Palantir Privacy and Civil Liberties Engineering Lead

I think my dentist is handling this well. pic.twitter.com/gMqq1Q7Lvt

— Miles Kahn (@mileskahn) March 16, 2020

great thread

The "Asian massage" parlor down the street is closed, with a sign on their door saying "These are un-precedented times".

Delighted to have received a detailed email on COVID-19 RESPONSE from a below-average pizza chain based in an adjoining state that I ordered from exactly once (at least 10 years ago). Thanks for checkin in!

You can't spell pandemic without 'panic', but don't!

Wash your records (and hands) regularly!

In light of the global COVID-19 Coronavirus that is causing so much social and economic disruption around the world, we would like to reassure the music community that our operations remain unaffected and fully functioning. Our team continue to work hard, in some cases from home, answering your emails and enquiries, returning all calls promptly, and processing your artwork and audio files with minimal delays. There are rigorous health restrictions in place at the plants which are enabling production to continue to run smoothly and at almost full capacity.

Our lead times for vinyl production (4-5 weeks) and CD replication (2-4 weeks) remain steady, and we will keep you regularly updated on that front moving forward. With the current social sanctions estimated to lift later this spring, and a mass of penned up collectors stuck at home with nothing new to listen to, now could be a prime time to get those pressings underway and ensure that your merch tables are fully stocked up for when the pandemic eases. Record Store Day has been postponed until June 20th, potentially providing you with a renewed opportunity to sneak new and/or exclusive releases into the nation’s record shops.

Should you have any questions or concerns regarding your existing or upcoming orders, please feel free to reach out to us via email or telephone message. Rest assured, if any orders do experience any unexpected delays, you’ll be the first to know. Finally, please follow the current health advice to protect yourselves and one another, and please take the temporary request for social isolation seriously. Our thoughts are with every business, artist and worker impacted by this global pandemic, and we will continue to work as hard as ever to mitigate any impact on our customers throughout this challenging time.

Please stay safe, and wash your records (and hands) regularly!

DMS Vinyl Pressing
DMS Homepage
DMS CD Production

Don't worry, our operations remain unaffected and fully functioning. Our dedicated team continue to work hard, many from home, answering your emails and enquiries, returning all calls promptly, and processing your artwork and audio files with minimal delays.

The DMS Family

Keep in the loop...

Disc Manufacturing Services Ltd, (…), Plymouth (…) | Not feeling it? You're always welcome to unsubscribe.

(when this first came through i thought it was from the vinyl tiling company i bought my bathroom floor from)

Yesterday Mötley Crüe released a lyric video for one their classic tracks ‘Home Sweet Home’ WATCH THE VIDEO HERE
Where not only we can re-live some of the scenes from the movie but in a way the band is also promoting a positive message. Due to the Corona Virus pandemic most people around the world are currently on lockdown and the band has posted the video declaring ‘Stay safe out there and stay Home Sweet Home’.

The message is being received by fans and the comments on the YouTube view are picking up on this, and many are listed below for you to quote in any articles.

Since the release of this globally acclaimed film, the band gained a whole new fan base, in fact the streaming data shows 18-24 years old being their current predominant audience. Due to the high demand coming from new and old hardcore fans, Mötley Crüe decided to reform last year and are now getting ready to tour with Def Leppard, Poison, Joan Jett and Tuk Smith on the Stadium Tour.

Machine Gun Kelly, Daniel Webber, Douglas Booth and Iwan Rheon are the actors who impersonated the LA rockers in The Dirt movie and some of them have already shared their own homages to this special anniversary through their socials.

Some new stats:
• 460M Streams in the last 12 months on Spotify
• 72M Streams for ‘The Dirt’ Soundtrack in 12 months on Spotify
• Instagram followers - now over 1 million
• Spotify followers - now over 2.4m
• YouTube views – now over 224,000,000
• Facebook fans – now over 4m
YouTube Comments

rihards tuka 22 hours ago
Ain't no better way to spend time in quarantine, than listening to Crüe.

MIZORAM - Mafaka Hnamte 21 hours ago
Time to isolate ourselves in Home Sweet Home...


Ultimate Sin 20 hours ago
I wasn't going to stay home but now because of Mötley Crüe I am going to

Philipp Müller 21 hours ago
During these corona times. Home Sweet Home it is! 🤘🏻🤘🏻

sebash789 47 minutes ago
Probably one of the most underrated movies of 2019 is now a year old? This is the best song of all time, it changed my life forever

FASOMAN 18 hours ago
This is great for one month of quarantine :'-D

İso Reiz 21 hours ago
Quarantine day 6

Jack Ennis 11 hours ago
🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻 I have Watch this movie 1000 times it’s one of my favorite movie ever it hank you so much long live Mötley Crüe can’t wait to see you in Philadelphia🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🎸🎸🤘🏻🎸🎸🎸🎸

Gottes Geschenk 10 hours ago
HOME SWEET HOME during quarantine hahaha

HYDE96 17 hours ago
Stay home sweet home during this virus 😂🤟

Sarah 20 hours ago
Stay in home sweet home so you can enjoy a litle more with the girls, girls, girls

Diego rene 16 hours ago
Well, best song to be in quarantine Love u Crüe

Some Fudge 21 hours ago
Stay at home Sweet home

AsherTheSlasher 14 hours ago
I have the Crueonavirus! 😎🤟🔥💯


Stella Jabro 21 hours ago (edited)
One of my favourite songs and loving the new video too. Thank you Mötley Crüe for uploading this video


Joseph Cruickshank 2 hours ago
After work song in the UK lock down on Friday


maiden4 greece 20 hours ago
Stay Home...Stay Safe,Stay Heavy...and Metal.Cheers...


Mrs. Stradlin 11 hours ago
Time to rewatch The Dirt


Coola boy 22 hours ago
Just watch the film

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost reprised their #ShaunOfTheDead characters to share their plan to stop the coronavirus spread. https://t.co/BG2yqWmn7n

— Nerdist (@nerdist) March 19, 2020

fuck off all of you

Man, if you don't like that, you're dead inside.

Dead like a zombie hahaha ha zombies are funny haha hahaha nerds lol references hahaha hahaha ow my sides

otm to both of you

World Happiness Day!

Richard Layard: How to Create Happiness

Whilst we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic crisis, we thought it might be worth still recognising that today is World Happiness Day.

As many of you had tickets to see Professor Richard Layard speak at our Spring Festival, here's a TED talk Richard did in 2014 that you might enjoy watching, should you have some time to fill.

Take care and we hope you are all safe and well.

I found quite a lot of the early Covidballs emails I got to be strangely well-judged in tone, even if it was a bit like "why do I need to know what the CEO of this corporation thinks about coronavirus, in a disarmingly personal email / how the fuck does UEFA even have my email address"

After two weeks of no cash flow they're all becoming properly deranged now tho

Subway - and I cannot stress this enough - thank you pic.twitter.com/Ztm3yK3Rza

— Ferg (@Rave_Prentis) April 3, 2020

not egregiously shitty but my apartment's management company made a "resources" page on their website and i'm weirded out by the cute little coronavirus banner

https://i.ibb.co/p1nZXdT/covid.png