Pepsi Wants to Help You Score

New app offers "bros" help talking to 24 different kinds of "ladies"

As a promotion for their Amp energy drink, Pepsi released an iPhone application called "AmpUp Before You Score" which offers men tips on how to chat up "24 different kinds of ladies." Then it invites them to announce their latest conquests to all of their bros.

But then, on Monday, it apologized to the entire Twitter community for creating the offensive thing in the first place.

Here's how this disastrous app is supposed to work: You're standing at the bar on a Friday night, a bottle of tasteless beer in your hand and a longing in your heart to take home a woman who fits into one of a finite number of feminine stereotypes. And then you see her: A woman who you think must be a foreign exchange student.

You load up your new AMP app, thumb your way to the appropriate page, and you get the apparently perfect pickup line: "I wish American women would stop shaving." Just to be sure you've won her fancy, you casually mention that the pickled herring in Helsinki is great.

Now, pretend that those gems worked and you (ugh) "scored." Next step: Fill her name, the date and any comments you may have on her assets into your iPhone, and share it all you with your bros via FacebookTwitter and email.

The angriest response to this desperately-trolling-for-angry-response application we've read comes from Gawker's sassy women's blog Jezebel, which accuses Pepsi of encouraging "men to look at women as objects to be won, used, and tossed away after a 'victory' is obtained."

Mashable, assuming its usual role of impartial observer, claims the app "seems on its way to creating a lot of buzz – but whether or not that buzz turns into something very negative and becomes a 'what were you thinking?' social media fiasco is something to watch for."

Or not. The folks behind the campaign are clearly veering into Glenn Beck territory, rattling off craziness in hope of some free press. (Really, Pepsi? You're going to make the one identifiable African American in the 'Athlete' category? Really?) But, contra Mashable, there's a difference between getting attention and getting buzz.

And to top it all off, the share tools are spotty at best. You can't actually share any of the information you input, it just sends your friends some Amp spam. Reasonable people may not approve of the content, but there's never an excuse for shoddy design. 

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