5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

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surfpirate
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by surfpirate »

BTW. I voted today for CHELSEA'S HOPE. I have admired their campaign
and the way they went about spreading their message,
and they have also expressed their disappointment
that our entry did not get selected as a finalists.

I wish them the best of luck and they have my vote each of the next 10 days.

If you wish to vote for CHELSEA'S HOPE, or any of the other finalists,
please consider doing so. No matter Toyota Racing's poor decisions and
communication (lack thereof), these finalists entries stand to benefit
from this contest, and should not be blamed for our disqualification.

The URL ..... http://www.sponsafier.com

Also, if you wish, you can still place a vote for the
NASCARITAVILLE Parties That Matter Spirit of Vicki Racing Team
as one of the *FAVORITES*, keeping it prominently in the public
eye during the round 2 voting.
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by srkmrd »

surfpirate wrote:FRIDAY, 22 APRIL 2011
"And the TOP TEN finalists are ....."
Image

NOPE. The BN CRITTERS only gave you the TOP TEN vote getters from ROUND 1 (we were 5th).
Here are the actual Toyota selected finalists and their round 1 popular vote standings:


LYME DISEASE AWARENESS (1st, 14234 votes)
CHELSEA's HOPE (3rd, 6749 votes)
LOVE YOU DAD (4th, 5906 votes)
ZAC ATTACK (DIPG AWARENESS) (6th, 5381 votes)
911 DISPATCHERS (11th 2291 votes)
THE ALL-AMERICAN (15th, 1784 votes)
MOLEAT (28th, 723 votes)
BALD WOMEN ROCK! (30th, 666 votes)
SAVE SHELTER ANIMALS (37th, 553 votes)
ACIDIC EIGHTEEN (66th, 362 votes)

Guess getting votes has very little do do with it...... :roll:
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by surfpirate »

srkmrd wrote:Guess getting votes has very little do do with it...... :roll:
Wasn't always the case.
From Toyota Racing's own writeup about the original Sponsafier contest one year ago ......

"Nine of 10 crowd favorites chosen by popular vote qualified to compete for the grand prize"

Details ...


http://www.toyotaracing.com/motorsports ... 10-77.html


This year they notified one entry that was a finalists last year
that they were accepted, then notified them that they made a
mistake in selecting them and that they were now disqualified (NICK & FRIENDS 4).

Curiously, the exact same design from NICK & FRIENDS was selected as
one of the ten finalists in Sponsafier 2.

And just like our requests for clarification and explanation,
NICK & FRIENDS 4 is receiving no responses from the sponsors.
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by srkmrd »

I just went the the site and 'liked' Spirit of Vicki.
Then I was going to vote for Chelseas Hope.......when I went through the top 10 it did not show up the lyme disease car showed on the first and second page!
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by surfpirate »

srkmrd wrote:I just went the the site and 'liked' Spirit of Vicki.
Then I was going to vote for Chelseas Hope.......when I went through the top 10 it did not show up the lyme disease car showed on the first and second page!
Choose *FINALISTS* and the click *GRID VIEW*.
Depending on the size of your screen resolution you will see 4,5 or all 10 finalists.
They are supposed to be sorted randomly each time you
refresh the screen. Could be when you went to page 2
they resorted and thus LYME reappeared and no CHELSEA'S HOPE
(which would make no sense, but nothing at this point surprises me).
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by alphabits »

surfpirate wrote:
srkmrd wrote:I just went the the site and 'liked' Spirit of Vicki.
Then I was going to vote for Chelseas Hope.......when I went through the top 10 it did not show up the lyme disease car showed on the first and second page!
Choose *FINALISTS* and the click *GRID VIEW*.
Depending on the size of your screen resolution you will see 4,5 or all 10 finalists.
They are supposed to be sorted randomly each time you
refresh the screen. Could be when you went to page 2
they resorted and thus LYME reappeared and no CHELSEA'S HOPE
(which would make no sense, but nothing at this point surprises me).
I think Toyota's website design is as fouled up as their judging/communication process.
When I went to view the finalists, it showed Acidic Eighteen (or whatever it's called) on both pages .... no matter how many times I switched back and forth --- showroom view and grid view.
On the plus side, Chelsea's Hope was there so I voted for it. :D
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by surfpirate »

MOST LIKES .... Sponsafier 3
(why not?)


1. 59 CURE LATE STAGE LYME DISEASE
2. 35 NICK & FRIENDS 4
3. 28 NASCARITAVILLE
4. 10 DRIVE FOR THE DEAF
5. 9 FREESTATEPROJECT
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by nutmeg »

I frankly wanted nothing to do with this whole contest after the debacle, but I did go to vote for chelsea's hope.

I notice that the page with the finalists has an * and pending verification or some such thing. You mean they still aren't sure????

It would be interesting to know the vote totals. (and whether they plan to choose the one with the most votes as the winner)

This whole thing has been quite a crock. If they wanted to pick the winner themselves, they could have saved all of us a lot of time and disappointment by doing just that.
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by surfpirate »

MOST LIKES .... Sponsafier 3
(why not?)


1. 128 CURE LATE STAGE LYME DISEASE
2. 45 NICK & FRIENDS 4
3. 35 NASCARITAVILLE
4. 33 RIP MY BABY GIRL
5. 25 GLAM MACHINE


http://www.sponsafier.com/#/gallery/pag ... geSize:12/
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by surfpirate »

I voted today for CHELSEA'S HOPE again today.
Yes I did.
From two different computers no less.

I also gave NASCARITAVILLE another *like*, just because.
8)

http://www.sponsafier.com/#/gallery/fea ... geSize:12/
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by surfpirate »

FEB 21 Our design entry was submitted for Sponsafier 3.
FEB 22 I received this email
Image
FEB 22 - MAR 6 we voted our little hearts out
MAR 3 we made the TOP FIVE in popular votes, and stayed there.
MAR 6 - APR 6 we watched and waited and saw our entry finish #5 in popular votes.


email received April 15
Dear Bob Haslett,

We reviewed your potential win in the Toyota Racing's Sponsafy Your Ride Contest Round III and found that you are not eligible to receive the Finalist Prize.

According to section [5.7] in the Official Rules that govern the Game, you may not use a submission that " contains copyrighted materials owned by others (including without limitation, photographs, sculptures, paintings, and other works of art or images published on or in websites, television, movies or other media); contains trademarks or trade dress (such as distinctive packaging or building exteriors/interiors) owned by others, unless you have obtained their written consent".

We reviewed your win and found that your submission contained copyrighted materials owned by others. Section [5] of the Official Rules states that “Sponsor, in its sole discretion, may refuse to post your Design, may remove your Design, or may suspend your Account and disqualify you from the Promotion if it believes, in its sole discretion, that your Design fails to conform to the Restrictions or is not in compliance with these Official Rules."

Please refer to the Official Rules of the Promotion attached to this message if you have any questions.

Thank You,

Prize Fulfillment Services
(email address removed)
My email reply, same day, April 15
Hello,

I am ..... stunned. Please review again. I have hundreds of people lined up and ready to move on with phase 2 voting of the Toyota Sponsafier 3 contest. I do not understand, as the design was originally approved and there are no violations of rules section 5.7 regarding copyright materials.

All images used are my own. The lime image is drawn.As are the bird silhouettes honoring Vicki and the shark fins.

The NASCARITAVILLE logo I created using 4 color diagonal blocks angled with a clear white font for the letters NA and CAR.
I drew a curved "S" and inserted checkered flag blocks to invoke racing.

I was prepared with alternate designs using the names FASTCARITAVILLE or RACECARITAVILLE had not this design been originally approved, but when it was, we assumed the works were acceptable by the rules.

Please, please take another look at our entry. We have enlisted the support of hundreds of persons to move into the second round of voting. We have support of Radio Margaritaville and others.

The charity organization PartiesThatMatter.org is ready to participate.

Our car has been in the top 5 of voting for over 4 weeks. If there had been ANY questions in our minds that it had not been reviewed and approved for design and content we would have immediately petitioned for a review and/or submitted an alternate entry.

Thank you in advance for your re-review.

--
Bob
---------
Bob Haslett
xxx-xxx-xxxx (HOME)
xxx-xxx-xxxx (CELL)
(my email address)
email reply received April 18
Hi Bob,

We appreciate your efforts and enthusiasm for this promotion. However,
the Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any entries not in
full-accordance with the rules.

Sincerely,

ePrize Customer Service
My reply, same day, April 18
Hello,

I understand and respect that decision. I do not understand nor respect the process.

"The Sponsor" could have notified us this weeks ago, when we would still have had a chance to submit an alternate design. We had STOCKCARITAVILLE ready and waiting in the wings as a backup car. From my experiences with the original Sponsafier contest in the spring of 2010, I had nearly a dozen designs rejected for unspecified reasons until finally one was approved. I operated under the assumption that once approved, we were good to go last year and again this year.

Our design and entry was not *under your radar* buried deep amongst 40,000+ entries. We have been in the top 5 of popular votes since March 3rd. The Sponsor could have easily notified us weeks ago that they considered our design in violation of the rules. We would have had time to submit our backup racecar entry and still garnered the votes to promote a very worthy charity and honor Vicki with the name the "Spirit of Vicki".

The process and lack of personal communication is abysmal and disrespectful. You have had my contact information for over 2 months. Our entry was clearly one of the most honest, popular and best run campaigns of this contest, and was monitored by hundreds of excited supporters. It was, until now, one of your best campaigns promoting Toyota and NASCAR.

You still have not provided me with a clear explanation of what is in violation. Is it my colored blocks design with the S-curved checkered flag road that *invokes* the image of racing and NASCAR? Please clarify.

--
Bob
---------
Bob Haslett
xxx-xxx-xxxx (HOME)
xxx-xxx-xxxx (CELL)
(my email address)
No response, so my followup email April 22
Hello,

I respectfully still await a reply as to of what is in violation. Is it my colored blocks design with the S-curved checkered flag road that *invokes* the image of racing and NASCAR? Please clarify. Is it the name NASCARITAVILLE?

Your process of approving an entry, allowing 15 days of voting and waiting 6 weeks to notify that the design is in violation is troublesome to say the least. The lack of communication and failure to respond to our inquiries deepens the feelings of disrespect. Your process has obviously robbed us of a chance to correct our entry in Sponsafier 3, and your lack of replies to our inquiries robs us a chance to understand and make changes for any future submissions.

Bob
---------
Bob Haslett
xxx-xxx-xxxx (HOME)
xxx-xxx-xxxx (CELL)
(my email address)
I have pretty much resigned myself that Toyota Racing and the anonymous faceless
"the Sponsor" have no intention of clarifying what they considered to be in violation
of the rules and a copyright violation.

I have been operating on the assumption that the design
we did using the S-curve road with a checkered flag mixed
in with the letters and angled blocks to *invoke* the image
of racing and NASCAR was deemed too close for comfort
and thus a potential copyright violation of the actual
NASCAR logo ....

.... at least until I noticed that one of the selected ten finalist entries
uses the actual NASCAR logo on their racecar.


So why were we disqualified? Why won't they show accountability and respond?

See the images in my next post.
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by surfpirate »

I have moved from "irked" to "perturbed". To paraphrase Bruce Banner

"Don't make me perturbed. You wouldn't like me when I'm perturbed."
:roll:

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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by C-Dawg »

Bottom line is Toyota rigged the entire thing with "legal-ese" that allowed them to pick and choose the cars they wanted, regardless of the top vote getters. There is no other explanation when the car with the 66th most votes gets picked. We got screwed.
Toyota decided regardless of our charity, they didn't want the cliche "drunken parrotheads" to be part of this, and disqualified us for some BS reason which we will probably never know.
As I see it we have 2 options....walk away or fight back. Either way we will not win, and there is no "next year". Walk away is easy...let this thread die. Second option is...we continue with our campaign for another week or until Toyota gets wind of it and takes our car down, but emphasize how Toyota screwed us and doesn't want to associate with Parrotheads, which will hurt them in their pocketbook.
Personally, I like option #2

As for voting anymore....I'm done, the whole thing is rigged, and they have probably already chosen the car they want to win
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by alphabits »

Perhaps it's not NASCAR that's the issue but rather fear of the Meglaritamart legal department?
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by surfpirate »

@alphabits and @C-Dawg

Perhaps, on all accounts and everything you said and so forth and whatnot.

I am not going to burn any bridges,
and will keep my comments and communication with Toyota Racing *polite*.

This campaign does not define me, and I will not let it nag me until I get answers or satisfaction.
I know that it may appear as if I won't let it go, but not really ..... I just wanted to
document my communication and the open questions I still have on the table.

The Sponsafier 3 contest can still be a wonderful opportunity for other causes,
e.g. CHELSEA'S HOPE ..... as I said before, I am impressed with their campaign,
their message and I personally will support them with votes.

There are other campaigns, e.g. NICK & FRIENDS 4 that are deserving as well,
and I wish them the best of luck.

I'll probably *bump* this thread once a day until the contest is over,
just to track the progress of the finalist voting,
and then I will let it fade away.

That is all. Maybe I'll go back to writing a dumb comic strip soon.
8)
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by CreolaInMySoul-a »

I don't think it is a dumb comic strip :D
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by Bicycle Bill »

C-Dawg wrote:Bottom line is Toyota rigged the entire thing with "legal-ese" that allowed them to pick and choose the cars they wanted, regardless of the top vote getters. There is no other explanation when the car with the 66th most votes gets picked. We got screwed.
Toyota decided regardless of our charity, they didn't want the cliche "drunken parrotheads" to be part of this, and disqualified us for some BS reason which we will probably never know.
As I see it we have 2 options....walk away or fight back. Either way we will not win, and there is no "next year". Walk away is easy...let this thread die. Second option is...we continue with our campaign for another week or until Toyota gets wind of it and takes our car down, but emphasize how Toyota screwed us and doesn't want to associate with Parrotheads, which will hurt them in their pocketbook.
Personally, I like option #2

As for voting anymore....I'm done, the whole thing is rigged, and they have probably already chosen the car they want to win
C-Dawg is probably closer to correct than he knows. It seems obvious to me that for whatever reason, they didn't want us involved as a finalist and came up with whatever bullspit reason they could think of to give us the heave-ho.

As far as copyrighted imagery goes, not only does the one car use the genuine NASCAR logo, but check out the Aaron's and NAPA logos right above it. In addition, the "Bald Women" entry uses the familiar FedEx logo, the "Acidic Eighteen" splashed the Interstate Battery logo across the hood and rear quarterpanels, and the "All-American" has almost as many different logos (ranging from Best Western to Tums) as a real Cup car. Given these examples, SP's stylized version of the NASCAR logo is most certainly *NOT* the smoking gun here.

I might also mention at this time that this same outfit — ePrize — that "responded" (HA!) to SP was involved in administering a contest/sweepstakes involving the Versus cable TV network during the Tour de France last summer. They had some problems there as well, and when questioned they were just about as accessible and communicative as they seem to be with this latest fiasco.

I would say, continue our modest show of disappointment and disagreement and then walk away holding our heads high, "bloodied but unbowed", as they say. And you can rest assured that so long as there is another car company to select from out there — even if it were only something like Yugo — it will be an extremely cold day in Key West before I voluntarily put myself in the driver's seat of a Toyota.
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by surfpirate »

M&M's, Aaron's, Coca Cola, Best Western, FedEx
Home Depot, Interstate Battery, NAPA and Tums
logos were permissible and included
in the online design software.

NASCAR was not and was mentioned in the rules thusly:


"Sponsor: Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., 19001 South Western Avenue, Torrance, CA 90501.
Administrator: ePrize, LLC, One ePrize Drive, Pleasant Ridge, MI 48069.
NASCAR® and the NASCAR logo are registered trademarks of the
National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc.
NASCAR, Inc. is not a Sponsor of the Promotion."
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by springparrot »

This just gets more weird by the post. :-? :-? :-?
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Re: 5th Place! NASCARITAVILLE/Spirit of Vicki/PartiesThat Matter

Post by surfpirate »

Toyota Racing is taking some accountability and attempting to make amends.

While absolutely nothing can make up for the fact that Toyota Racing made an absolute mess of the process
and robbed our entry of a legitimate chance to compete as one of the ten finalists, they are finally taking
some accountability and have reached out to me with actually personal contact and not anonymous emails.

I have been in contact over the past two weeks with a representative of Toyota Racing. He called me and we
have had several discussions about how this whole thing fell apart. He took the time to address every single one
of my issues. Everything was on the table.

Privately he acknowledged that our entry was one that they were "very excited about" and that they had
been "looking forward to seeing the NASCARitaville entry in the final ten". However he placed the decision to
disqualify our entry on NASCAR and not on Toyota Racing because of our use of an image which invoked the
official NASCAR logo.

When I pointed out that one of the selected finalists used *the actual NASCAR logo*, he waggled a bit and finally
stated that "use of the actual NASCAR logo would have been okay, but that NASCAR did not like our entry's
interpretation of the NASCAR logo"
. Hmmmm .... okay .... not sure I am buying that but .....

As an attempt to make amends, Toyota Racing is doing the following for us:

1. We will receive the equivalent prize package that all of the ten finalists receive:

"A customized helmet featuring the Finalist's "Sponsafied" car graphics. Size of helmet and design/layout of
graphics selected by Sponsor in its sole discretion. ARV: $1,250."


This will include the NASCARITAVILLE logo; the Parties That Matter and "Spirit of Vicki" images, etc.
Unfortunately we will not receive it for another 2 - 3 months. When I do, I will donate it to Parties That Matter
for a very cool, unique, one-of-kind auction item for NEXT YEAR's Frisco Feeding Frenzy charity auction
.
I will even start the bidding myself at, oh say $500 (I want it, but if I am outbid ... all the better for Parties That Matter). 8)

2. For any future Sponsafier entry we may submit (Fall of 2011 or Spring of 2012), I have a point of contact
that will review our entry and make sure that this type of screw-up does not happen again.

As I stated earlier, nothing makes up for the fact that we we robbed of a legitimate chance to move on in this contest,
but I am willing to accept the that they are now taking some accountability and move on.

I will be attending the race this weekend as a guest of Toyota Racing and may have more information down the road.
I am taking my 11 year old son with me (a huge NASCAR and Joe Gibbs Racing fan). He is very excited.
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