How Not to Promote a “Special Offer”

I received an email yesterday from the Kansas City Chiefs with the subject line: “Ultimate Football Weekend.” The body of the email contained this embedded html message, promoting the two football games (KU/MU, Chiefs/Raiders) being played on consecutive days, November 24th and 25th at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.

Whats going on here? The KU/MU football game has reportedly been sold out for nearly two weeks. Did KU and the Chiefs hold back some tickets just for me? Apparently they did! There, at the bottom of the page is a link to purchase tickets and to use my “special offer” code, JAYHAWKS.

Amazed at my good fortune, I followed the link, which took me to this page on the Ticketmaster website. There are three items for sale there - tickets to the Chiefs game, parking passes to the Chiefs game, and parking passes to the KU/MU game. No KU/MU tickets. Apparently, that game is still sold out, but you wouldn’t know that from the language of the email that I received. Thats a pretty “special” offer if you ask me. Now that I know I’m on the mailing list, I can’t wait for the next one!