Long ago I signed up for the Winston-Salem Journal’s email alert service.  I don’t know if I also signed up for their advertisers’ messages or if it’s part of the package when you sign up for the alerts, but a few months ago I also started receiving those alerts.  Well, a couple of minutes ago I received one of their advertising messages for Harris Teeter and there’s a slight problem.  They apparently forgot to change the "From" field of the message because instead of saying something like "JournalNow.com Special Harris Teeter Prize Offer" it says "JournalNow.com Breaking News: WFU coach Skip Prosser dies".  (Click on the image to the left to see a screen shot of the email).

The death of Skip Prosser was a big and tragic story here last week and it’s unfortunate for the folks at Harris Teeter that their ad message is being associated with a mistake that I think everyone will find tacky at best.  More likely Journal readers will find it highly insensitive and the kind of mistake that just shouldn’t happen.

Update: I just received another email from JournalNow apologizing for the first.  Here’s the text:

Moments ago, you received a very unfortunate e-mail from JournalNow.com.

The e-mail was supposed to contain an advertising message sent by JournalNow for Harris Teeter.

While the message did contain the Harris Teeter information, it also came to you using a “From” line that had been used last week on a Breaking News message: the death of Wake Forest coach Skip Prosser.

This juxtaposition was completely inappropriate and inexcusable, and I’d like to personally apologize for the mistake. No disrespect was meant to Skip Prosser or his family.

JournalNow, not Harris Teeter, takes full responsibility for the error. I will assure you that every effort will be made not to have anything like it happen again.

Mark C. Anderson
General Manager
JournalNow.com

I received the first email at 12:39 and the apology at 1:08.  That’s some good response time, which leads me to believe that they probably caught their mistake even before the first complaint hit their email server.

Oh, and Esbee points out in the comments that the contest ends December 26, 2006.  That means that either the Journal ran the wrong ad art or the ad rep for Harris Teeter is in seriously deep doo-doo.