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So back in June 2010, when Mantic Games was just a new miniature company, they gave away free small ghoul sprues through Wayland Games.

All you had to do was sign up for their newsletters and give your address!


As no miniwargamer in his right-mind would turn down free minis I signed up; it took me 10 minutes but after it was done: nothing...

No confirmation message, no e-mail, nothing... At the time I though I was a bit cheated, even thinking there were no free miniatures until I saw a few threads about said miniatures.
I simply gave up on them, not thinking it was worth spending too much of my time for.

But the story doesn't end here...




... they have actually just arrived this week!

So, a 7 month delay, is it a record?



Who else has such stories?

I bet they weren't expecting so many people to sign up!

There is a whole thread on this here.

However, mine did take about that long to arrive. Actually, they took that long to come through the mail, I "ordered" them earlier still.

I got mine a few days ago, I'd say hang on a wee bit longer.

Mine took several months too, by the time I got them I had completely forgotten. Free minis and a surprise!

I gave up on mine a while ago... They still have not arrived.

Guys,

first things first, if you signed up and didnt confirm your details on the link on the confirmation email your details won't have been on the list to receive the items. We did state this clearly as possible. We cannot use your details until you opted in.

Secondly the batch you are now receiving are items we have actually had returned to us for all sorts of reasons, over 400 (actually about 6). I had a member of staff correcting addresses and repackaging them to be resent, so in fact these are items that we have already sent out but are sending again. This took a week of somesones time to correct items we had already sent which was lots of fun for the lucky chap.

If we failed to confirm the info, would we still receive the Wayland Games newsletter? I have been receiving it since I signed up.

Nope, our newsletter software wont let us email you unless you had double opted in. (Sign up and then confirm) for these offers.

So, if we are getting your newsletter emails, our details (address etc) have been entered into the Mantic supercomputer?

Is there any way for us to update those details or check what they are? (I'm at work and so can't check for myself as your site as well as my email are both blocked at work).

I think this is an excellent example of how to not run a promotion. Here were your options:

1.) You do nothing other then other then announce you exist and new releases. People like you by default as your prices are good, and this being a niche market, we're predisposed to liking startups offering something new. Cost: zero. Goodwill: excellent

or

2.) You announce the promotion you did, whereby many people signed up for a "free" sprue (it not actually being free, as you were required to sign up for a newsletter). Some people get it, many people do not, both of which get much attention as your announcement was high-profile. I'm not sure if the goodwill you generated countered the negative goodwill you incurred by not honoring the deal. It's doubtless that some will be left with the perception that if you don't feel the need to honor this deal (or do so in a timely manner) what reason do we have to think a normal order we pay for will be sent in a different fashion? Cost: presumably considerable. Goodwill: questionable

Now, let me be clear here, since I get your intent was (probably) not to irritate people. My employers is always doing things like this: announcing goodwill gestures (like, we're ordering pizza tonight because we hit some stat or whatever!) and then botching the execution somehow (like, 2 small pizzas for 15 people*) so they actually spent money to piss people off. I hope you guys learn from this and handle future promotions differently. Here's a suggestion: If you do something like this again, put up a disclaimer along the lines of "while supplies last, limited quantity available". When people don't get their sprues, but do start getting lots of newsletters, they'll be OK with it since they'd just presume supplies had been consumed (goodwill loss, nil). Then when you have the situation you describe, with all the returns, you can send out more as a surprise (goodwill ++) - people will think "hey, i missed a promotion, and then I got something anyway!" instead of "i signed up for a newsletter and it took 7 months for the product to arrive".

Please don't take this as a flame. Good luck on your future endeavors. You make good stuff.

*this actually happened. Twice.

Methinks you should replace "Mantic" with "Wayland Games" seeing as Mantic just produces the sprues and Wayland handles the rest.

BrookM wrote:Methinks you should replace "Mantic" with "Wayland Games" seeing as Mantic just produces the sprues and Wayland handles the rest.

Right; will edit.

Hi Ouze, We sent out nearly 10,000 sprues as part of this promotion. All of them were sent quickly in batches. (its not fun to stick sprues in envelopes)

The items people are receiving now are of the hundreds we had returned to us from various postal services around the world that were unable to deliver for whatever reason. I have then assigned a member of staff to spend a week googling or looking up matching customers on our database to look for address and name matches to correct addresses and then resend the items after repackaging them.

We stated on the conditions that people submitting multiple requests would be removed form the lists. And we had one individual sign of for about 35 houses in his street. Another for every member of their family etc.

And all we asked was for someone to sign up to a newsletter and click on a confirmation link. Many of those that have contacted us that have not had their Ghouls had not in fact clicked on the confirmtion links in the emails that would allow us to use the data.

Ouze wrote:I think this is an excellent example of how to not run a promotion. Here were your options:

1.) You do nothing other then other then announce you exist and new releases. People like you by default as your prices are good, and this being a niche market, we're predisposed to liking startups offering something new. Cost: zero. Goodwill: excellent

or

2.) You announce the promotion you did, whereby many people signed up for a "free" sprue (it not actually being free, as you were required to sign up for a newsletter). Some people get it, many people do not, both of which get much attention as your announcement was high-profile. I'm not sure if the goodwill you generated countered the negative goodwill you incurred by not honoring the deal. It's doubtless that some will be left with the perception that if you don't feel the need to honor this deal (or do so in a timely manner) what reason do we have to think a normal order we pay for will be sent in a different fashion? Cost: presumably considerable. Goodwill: questionable

Now, let me be clear here. I like you Mantic, I'mma let you finish, etc. My employers is always doing things like this: announcing goodwill gestures (like, we're ordering pizza tonight because we hit some stat or whatever!) and then botching the execution somehow (like, 2 small pizzas for 15 people*) so they actually spent money to piss people off. I hope you guys learn from this and handle future promotions differently. Here's a suggestion: If you do something like this again, put up a disclaimer along the lines of "while supplies last, limited quantity available". When people don't get their sprues, but do start getting lots of newsletters, they'll be OK with it since they'd just presume supplies had been consumed (goodwill loss, nil). Then when you have the situation you describe, with all the returns, you can send out more as a surprise (goodwill ++) - people will think "hey, i missed a promotion, and then I got something anyway!" instead of "i signed up for a newsletter and it took 7 months for the product to arrive".

Please don't take this as a flame. Good luck on your future endeavors. You make good stuff.

*this actually happened. Twice.

While I don't disagree with what you are saying Rich and I am sure that there were plenty of people that entered their address details incorrectly, I can absolutely guarantee you that I did not and yet I still only received my ghoul months and months after I signed up. Now that may be due to Royal Mail screw up but still. I have ordered stuff from your website before and sent to the exact same address without any issue (and in fact never had any issue with anything being sent to my home before).

Now it matters not to me since I had already bought a bunch of Mantic stuff and only signed up for the free ghoul just out of curiosity but I can't help thinking there might have been some disappointed people out there.

Hi Filbert,


We dont have control over postal services obviously, and many of the items returned to us had sat in post offices for months and then seemed to spend months on their return journey. Many had the correct addresses on, and still didnt get delivered for whatever reason. We still checked them and resent. The items are very light and its likely that many hae sat in the bottom of postal bags all around the world until shaken loose.

What would the oprion have been to verify addresses and ensure delivery? AVS on a credit card and tracked delivery?
A huge overwhelming number got their free sprues prompty during each bacth. That is over 9000 people getting free stuff from all over the world.

We are still getting 10 a week returned, even those that were sent out 6 months ago. I am not sure what more could have been done. Apart from me on my steed delivering them in person, though I enjoy travelling I'd rather not have to do.

Don't get me wrong Rich, I agree and I have seen enough examples of Royal Mail idiocy to know that these things do happen.

Just annoying that it happened in this case for no apparent reason (as far as I can see anyway)

I got my Ghouls today, which was a lovely surprise. I suspect they might have gone round the postal roulette for a few spins before arriving in my mailbox, but that's all right.

I got them today! I had totally forgotten I'd signed up for this.
In fact, I was reading this very thread a few days ago and thinking: "man, I should've signed up for that newsletter".
Well apparently I did

I like it this way actually, surprise gifts! (except with stuff I payed for, then I don't like it so much)