[logicallee]

Another way to read this is, "Never, ever have a free price point."

> When the Georgia Aquarium broke ground in 2005, UPS made a generous donation: at no cost, they offered their logistics and shipping services for whatever the facility needed.

Fair enough. I like it. So how did the aquarium reply:

>"we’d like to transport ... four whale sharks in Taipei and two beluga whales in Mexico to Atlanta".

There is no way UPS would have been shipping those whales at any reasonable (even discount) price point.

At least they got this article out of it!

[ceejayoz]

A charitable donation is not a "free price point", and I doubt a company like UPS didn't anticipate the possibility that the open-ended donation might be somewhat expensive.

[kijin]

UPS knew what they were getting into. You don't pledge transportation services to the world's largest aquarium without expecting to ship some fish.

The publicity was probably worth the cost. If I had to ship a terracotta army, I'd much rather go with a company that is known to have successfully shipped a couple of sharks and whales.

[acveilleux]

The cost was probably tabulated and tax deductible. That helps.

[StavrosK]

I don't understand this mentality. Costs are always tax-deductible, it's not as if this is some added perk. Same with donations, "ooh, donations are tax-deductible!" Yeah, so is an advertising campaign, you're not doing me a favor here.

[s_baby]

If you've already decided you're going to be charitable you can be much more generous because of the deduction.

With that said Georgia Aquarium keeps killing their beluga whales.

[StavrosK]

> If you've already decided you're going to be charitable you can be much more generous because of the deduction.

Can you explain that a bit? If I'm going to spend $1000 on ads, I can write them off as an expense, and save $X off taxes. If I decide to spend it on charity, will I save more than $X on taxes?

[matthewmcg]

More than the article--they have signs up in the aquarium talking about how UPS shipped the whales there.

[logicallee]

I didn't know this, and wish I could delete or edit my comment. It's quite clear that this was done in exchange for publicity for UPS, which genuinely seems like a fair trade to me.