Japanese coffee company, AGF, has just launched what they call a “social gift campaign” where you can send a thank you gift to the Facebook or Twitter friend of your choice, even if you don’t know the recipient’s email address. It’s an endearing concept, encouraging people to give thanks to those who have helped them, but somewhere along the line things took a strange turn. Robotic voice iPhone man and jerky green Santa coming after the jump!
Every day starting April 7, a total of 500 registered users will be chosen to send a free Spring Santa to their recipient of choice. Here’s how the service works if you’re one of the lucky winners:
Use Facebook, Twitter or email to choose the person you want to send a Spring Santa and thank you gift to. You can enter your own personalized thank you message which will be delivered and read by Spring Santa himself.
Your chosen recipient will receive a message informing them they received a gift and will be asked to input their address so their present can be sent.
A few days later, a creepy little green santa arrives in the mail…
…filled with treats (yay!).
Scan the QR code on the back…
…and things get even creepier.
“Destroy. Destroy.”
Ok, that’s not fair. That was a screen shot. Maybe it’s not so creepy in action…
Nope, that’s worse.
Spring Santa is actually saying personalized words of gratitude, which is quite nice, but the makers have unfortunately given him a strange robotic voice. Check out the entire process and hear robot Santa speak in this promotional video:
Oh, and we forgot to mention. AGF also hired a real-life Santa for their jerky, stop-motion website intro on the Spring Santa homepage. Here are the highlights:
▼ Spring Santa does a jig.
▼ Spring Santa likes AGF coffee.
▼ Spring Santa takes over your home.
▼ Spring Santa burps out some letters.
▼ Spring Santa says, “Thank you!”
Like we said, Spring Santa is a very good idea (who wouldn’t want to receive a gift of gratitude from a friend or colleague); the final result is just a bit too creepy for our liking. But if you’d like to have a chance to send your own Spring Santa, check out the official website here (Japanese only).
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