As any large company or organization knows, wading through an inbox filled with requests, messages, and the odd complaint is a thorough and involving task. Every so often though, you stumble across an email that makes you smile.
That’s exactly what happened to Faye, a customer service representative here at Kars4Kids.
Faye arrived early Monday morning, and after getting a coffee and saying her good mornings, she sat down to get to work. This gem immediately caught her attention, and she knew she needed to share it:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I have a car I intend to donate to a worthy charity.
While supporting children’s programs interests me, I have a crucial question to ask before I commit to using your service.
Will you please edit (or discontinue) the “1-877-KarsForKids” commercial jingle? It offends me as a musician.
To be clear, my issue with the commercial is NOT that it’s annoying (though I suppose you’ve heard that complaint many many times). The commercial offends me because of its musical setting of the word “donate.”
In the commercial, the kids sing “donate” with the second syllable (“-nate”) placed on a strong beat– so that the phrase sounds like this: “do-NATE’ your car today.”
The word is “DO’-nate.” The first syllable should be sung on a metrically strong beat.
I simply cannot bring myself to support an organization that promotes such a horrendous musical text setting.
Will you please fix this problem before I donate my car to another charity?
Thank you for your consideration.
Gratefully yours,
David Williams
While we definitely get plenty of feedback about our jingle (some of it less than complimentary), we rarely receive such a detailed and technical musical critique. While we can’t promise David anything, we will most definitely be passing his feedback on to the jingle creators!
Never heard the Kars4Kids jingle? Listen here.
