Dunkin Donuts, Live Nation, and Rock Photography?
I am an avid consumer of Dunkin Donuts coffee. At least once maybe two times I am stopping at a mid-town Dunkin Donuts getting a latte or iced coffee with coconut. In the winter it is coffee with Hazelnut. Never do I want any sugar. Granted there is a Starbucks on every corner, I would rather search out the Dunkin. It is cheaper, it is faster, and in the end the coffee is just as good.
And a week or two back my receipt and perhaps cup, maybe a flyer in the store announced that Dunkin Donuts had partnered with Live Nation. In a nutshell. They were offering up some various concert tickets if you go online and register. I rarely go to big shows these days but I figured, why not? Give it a shot.
So I went online and gave them all the required details, my email of course, my address, my full name, etc. At least there was no request for dates of birth or Social Security numbers. No demands for credit cards or anything. So nothing too crazy and I left it at that. Five minutes wasted – no harm done. I finished thinking i am truly a sucker for Dunkin Donuts.
So a few days pass and and I am informed that something is happening and i am possibly a winner. I need to respond or do something in 48 hours. So I go to their site and acknowledge that I am Robert Schaffer. Easy enough – a few clicks done. I am curious if I will see anything from them after this.
Well another day or two pass and I am informed that I have not won any tickets or anything so nice.
Rather, it says, “Thank you for entering the Dunkin’ Rocks Summer Sweepstakes. Congratulations, you have just won one (1) Rock Paper Photo Digital Fine Art Print!”
That sounds ok. It is not tickets to a show at the Garden but something. But then you click onto the next page and you realize that it is a digital print. They are not going to mail you some actual glossy of a rock star past or present, no they will allow you to download on picture of such a star. Oh they had a fine selection: Beyonce and Shakira, the Rolling Stones, Kiss, the Who and the list goes on but the deal is they are offering me a JPEG.
Oh yes, so after selecting my Fine Art Print, I quickly look at the specs on it and it is a 9 inch by 13 inch JPEG. I have selected a lovely photo of the Who with Pete Townshend airborne center stage. Cool but I could easily find hundreds of photos of Pete and the Who online. Further, it is 72 pixels per inch. Which tells me this is aimed at the web, not a glossy photo display that you can hold in your hand. So it is not even ready for me to go to a rite aid and ask them to make a print of this.
Oh well, such is consolation prize I guess, but really why bother. A simple email saying,”Better luck next time.” would have been much simpler and less costly. It certainly does not makes sense to give folks reasons to not frequent your shop, especially when those reasons do not involve your actual goods. No you just annoyed your customer. . . Ughh!
Anyway, This did make me wonder how easy it would be to find jpegs from actual photographers and shops that might just sell them to you ready to print or imagine this actually printed!
See the links below:
The place that comes to mind is Wolfgang’s Vault (www.musicvault.com ) in case you are looking for those classic rock pictures. Wolfgang’s Vault is just a neat place in light if it’s history and affiliation with the late Bill Graham.
Others include:
http://www.rockarchive.com/
http://www.rockpaperphoto.com/ – who in fact partnered with Life Nation, and Dunkin Donuts, but they do got the legitimate pictures and prints.
http://www.newfineartprints.com/#/page/home/ which is the site of a rock photographer – Chester Simpson.
http://www.rockpaperphoto.com/the-who-by-paul-kasko is in fact the shot I selected and is listed for $500 but I am sure they are sending over something in a frame at least and so forth,
Two folks come to mind who while we are on the topic should have there link here too:
http://www.alanrandart.com/ – which surprisingly belongs to Alan Rand, an artist and photographer who has been snapping pictures of bands for years and focused primarily on those acts local to NYC,
Lastly. . .
http://www.jimfitzpatrick.com/thin-lizzy/ – which belongs to Jim Fitzpatrick, who does some rock photography but more importantly is the artist responsible for most of the Thin Lizzy album covers.
