A spelling mistake on a product label is bad enough. But on a back-to-school item? It’s hard to teach kids the importance of accuracy, when the maker of their hand sanitizer can’t even get their own label right. So Vi-Jon, the maker of Germ-X, is issuing a mea culpa in the form of a coupon.
Sharp-eyed parents and horrified teachers noticed that specially-designed back-to-school bottles of Germ-X contain an embarrassing typo. The front label invites you to personalize the bottle by writing your name, using “any color permenent marker.”
Unfortunately, once the labels were printed, the bottles shipped and the products set out in back-to-school displays all over the country, the spelling mistake was, well, “permenent.”
Rather than issue a recall, Vi-Jon decided to issue an apology and a coupon. “We may not know how to spell ‘permanent,’ but we do know how to spell I’M S-O-R-R-Y!,” said Vi-Jon senior brand manager Anne McNamee in a news release. “There’s no ‘A’ in Germ-X, but we are going to try our best to earn one.”
She went on to do a bit of damage control, saying pleadingly that “we view the misspelling as a unique opportunity to engage the very teachers we hope will stock their classrooms with Germ-X.”
Yeah, yeah. So how about that coupon?
As part of its efforts to make amends, Germ-X has launched a new Facebook page. If you “like” the page, you get to read the company’s apology: “We misspelled the word ‘permanent’ on our back-to-school labels. But you can cash in on our mistake when you print the coupon below.”
The coupon is 50 cents off two 8oz or larger Germ-X hand sanitizers. Not bad for a product that you may be able to find on sale for less than two bucks.
But wait. The coupon is in the form of a PDF file. Which means there’s no print limit, like most printable coupons. It just shows up on your screen and you can print to your heart’s delight.
Plus, it doesn’t expire until October 1st. That leaves plenty of time to find misspelled back-to-school bottles of Germ-X in the bargain bins. Already, there have been some reports from shoppers who have found Germ-X on clearance at Walmart for 50 cents. If you can find bottles for 50 cents at a store that doubles coupons, you can use the $.50/2 coupon to score a couple of bottles for free.
Or perhaps a couple of hundred bottles. The coupon has no print limit, remember.
When it comes to making mistakes – it seems that misspelling its label may have been the least of Germ-X’s woes.
Pingback: $.50/2 Germ-X Hand Sanitizer Coupon as low as $.99 @ ShopRite!