CorpComms Magazine

Is there no limit to the depths some companies will plumb in order to associate themselves with social media? American Standard, a toilet manufacturer that prides itself on its 130 year heritage and serves three out of every five US households, has launched a competition on Facebook.

Entrants have to tell their best toilet story in 'a paragraph or two'.  'Tell people you work for a plumbing company, and you hear them all,' says American Standard's e-business manager Jeanette Long, which makes you wonder what deposits she's expecting to flush out.

'We figured the best story deserved the best toilet,' she adds. I'm not quite sure how Long works that one out. Just because your poor old granny drops her false teeth down the bowl, suddenly you're entitled to a throne?

Anyway, it's all a social media ploy to publicise American Standard's Champion 4 model, which apparently has the 'widest waterways available to prevent clogging'. Now, if I had a partner who wanted to enter a competition to win such a contraption, I'd either change him or his diet!

As for The Champion 4's 'unheard-of limited lifetime warranty on all parts'...I don't mean to be awkward, but I sort of assumed that, like puppies, toilets were not just for Christmas but rather a lifelong investment.

This is not American Standard's first foray into social media. Its corporate Facebook page includes a video with a summary that I doubt any entrant will better: 'the Cadet 3 toilet by American Standard flushes three cell phones, five large hot dogs, 56 chicken nuggets, 3 Sliders, 20 golf balls and more...' I fear the other entrants are down the pan after that one.

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