Coke Zero's Marketing "Ishtar"

Okay, so maybe "Ishtar" is a bit strong, since the jury's still out, but all signs are pointing to barfs-ville.

The concept, in this facebook-frenzy social media world that we live in, was, for lack of a better word, "cool."  Go to the Coke Zero website, upload your photo into the "facial profiler" database, and they'll use special "next gen facial recognition technology" (wtf?) to match you with your doppelganger from somewhere around the globe.  You can find your secret "twin."  The concept is, at the very least, "intriguing."  Is it really useful for anything, other than a few minutes of empty-calorie, time-wasting webtertainment?  Maybe not.  But that's pretty much the case with all interactive gadgetry of Marketing WEbsites.

But here's the RUB (and it's a big one).

There's no PAYOFF!  I mean, literally, you don't get ANYTHING.  WHY?  Excellent question.  When you upload your picture, you get a thanks and they tell you this:

"we haven't collected enough faces to begin the matching process.  When we do, we'll notify you directly.  In the meantime, invite your friends, family and co-workers to join this one-of-a-kind social experiment."

What?  They show a fancy status bar that tells me their database is 22% full, (two weeks ago) and is now up to 29% full.  Do they tell you how many that is?  No.  Do they tell you how full they need to get before they can start matching people?  No.  Does it need to be 100% full?  Who knows?  Are we ever going to get any results?  Maybe not.  If we do, will we have forgotten about it or will anyone care anymore?  again, No idea.

Maybe it's all just hype and there isn't actually any "facial profiling tool."  Perhaps this "one-of-a-kind social experiment" is actually just an experiment to see how many people will blindly fall for the empty gimmick that ends up being absolutely nothing?  Now that is a question that I can confidently answer, without a shadow of a doubt, "probably."