The Cove Summer Captain Handbook

Hey — you made it. You applied, you got approved, and now one Target store in America is officially yours. That's not nothing.

Here's the whole program in one breath: once a week, you do a Cove run at your assigned Target, you post about it, and you send us the receipt. Do all three and we pay you back your receipt total for Cove products, up to $65, each week, for 8 weeks. That's it. That's the whole program. There's no script to follow, no quota of likes, no secret catch hiding in section 7 (we checked — section 7 is just the plain-English legal stuff, and it's short).

Why does this exist? Because the best thing that can happen to a soda brand is real people putting real cans in real carts, every week, in their own neighborhood. You're not an influencer on assignment. You're the person at your Target who actually knows where the Cove is.

A few things that make this program different, up front:

• One Captain per store. Your Target is yours alone for your 8 weeks. Nobody else can claim it while you're its Captain.
• Any flavors, always. Aim for 24 single-serve 12oz cans per run — mix and match however you want, change your mind every week. There is no required flavor list and never will be.
• You get your actual money back. Not a flat stipend, not points, not store credit. Your receipt total for Cove products back, up to $65 per week, for every compliant week, sent to the Venmo or PayPal you gave us at sign-up.
• Finishers go first. A new program is coming in the fall, and Captains who go all 8 weeks get the first invite — before anyone else hears about it.

This handbook is the single source of truth for how the program works. If an email, a post, or a friend-of-a-friend tells you something different, the handbook wins. And if the handbook doesn't answer it, a human will: brandambassador@covedrinks.com.

Cold soda, warm summer, money back. Let's go.

Every week of the program has the same three beats: the run, the post, the receipt. Here's each one, precisely, because the details matter.

The week itself

Beat 1: The run

Head to your assigned Target — the one named in your welcome email — and put Cove in the cart.

• Aim for 24 single-serve 12oz cans. Any flavors, mix and match, your call, every week. Grab the ones you love, grab the ones you're curious about, grab a spread for the crew.
• Key rule — singles only

  Singles only — skip the multipacks. Your 24 means twenty-four loose 12oz cans off the shelf, not boxed 12-packs or bundles. A 12-pack box isn't 12 singles for program purposes, so if it comes in a box, leave it — the singles shelf is your shelf.

• Drink a bunch, share the rest. Twenty-four cans is plenty for both — and honestly, sharing is the job at its best. Someone's first-ever Cove should come out of your fridge: friends, family, the neighbor who always asks what you're drinking. Life's best when it's shared.
• The low-stock rule: if the shelf is short, buy what you reasonably can — but be mindful of other Cove fans: don't clear the whole shelf, leave it looking pretty. You're reimbursed for what you actually bought, and a short shelf never counts against you. Honestly, a picked-over Cove shelf is a good sign, and "sold out" is content too (snap it!).
• It has to be your store. Receipts from any other Target — or any other retailer — can't be reimbursed. Your store is on the receipt; that's how we check.

Beat 2: The post

Every weekly run gets posted — a public post, on any platform where you can tag @covesoda and @target and send us a link to it. Your post must:

1. Tag @covesoda
2. Tag @target
3. Include #ad (or #paidpartnership — either one works)
4. And add #CoveCrew — the community tag. It's how the crew finds each other and how we find your post to reshare it.

Here's the why on the first three, because it matters: you're being paid (reimbursed) by a brand to post about that brand, and US law — specifically FTC disclosure rules — requires that your audience can tell. #ad — or the longer #paidpartnership, whichever you prefer — is how they tell. It's not a Cove preference or a branding thing; it's a legal requirement that protects you as much as it protects us. A post missing the disclosure isn't a compliant post, and we can't reimburse a week without a compliant post. So: the first three tags, every time, no exceptions. (#CoveCrew is the fun one — always add it, but forgetting it will never cost you a week. It also doesn't replace #ad; a branded hashtag isn't legal disclosure.) Beyond that? The post is yours. Your voice, your angle — a cart photo, a shelf shot, a fridge restock, cans at a picnic with your people. It doesn't have to be shot in the store (though shelf shots are the gold standard and we cheer every one); the real job is sharing the Cove love with your friends and family. We're not here to art-direct you.

Two guardrails on content, though: keep it honest — your real experience, no health claims or product claims we haven't made ourselves — and keep the disclosure easy to see (on the image itself for stories, not buried in a hashtag pile). We may ask you to fix or remove a post that breaks these rules, and a week's reimbursement requires a compliant post.

You'll submit the link to your post along with your receipt.

Beat 3: The receipt

• Key rule — the deadline

  Receipts are due Sunday at 11 PM PST, through the receipt link. It's the same link every week — it's in your welcome email, and if you ever lose it, brandambassador@covedrinks.com will re-send it. Bookmark it.

• One receipt per week. Do your haul in one run, submit it once. Multiple receipts can't be combined into one week's submission.
• Late receipts: the Sunday deadline is real; occasional grace is at our discretion. If your receipt shows an in-week purchase and it simply arrived late, we may accept it — but that's a maybe, not a promise, and it's not a habit. Don't build your week around the hope of grace.
• A missed week can't be made up later. Weeks don't stack, roll over, or double up. If Sunday passes without a submission, that week is a miss (see Section 5 for what happens next — it's kinder than you think, but it's real).

That's the rhythm. Run, post, receipt, repeat — 8 times.

Here's your on-ramp, start to finish:

Step 1 — You're approved. You get a welcome email naming your assigned Target store. That store is yours.

Step 2 — The warm-up haul (optional, and a genuinely good deal). Between your approval and your first Monday, you're invited to do one bonus run right away. Same rules as a regular week — your store, aim for 24 cans, post with the three tags, submit through the same receipt link — and you're reimbursed for it the same way: your receipt total for Cove products back, up to $65. But here's the part to understand clearly:

• The warm-up haul does not count toward your 8 weeks. It's a bonus on top.
• Skipping it can never count as a missed week. It's truly optional — a practice lap with real money back, zero downside.
• Your warm-up receipt is due by the Sunday before your Week 1 Monday, 11 PM PST, through the same receipt link you'll use every week. It's its own submission — it can never collide with or replace your Week 1 submission.

We recommend it. It gets your receipt-submitting muscle warmed up before anything is on the line.

Step 3 — Week 1 starts the Monday after your approval. Always the next Monday — even if you were approved on a Monday, your Week 1 starts the following Monday. Your welcome email tells you your exact Week 1 start date.

Step 4 — Your 8 weeks. Your program window is personal to you: it runs from your Week 1 Monday through your 8th Sunday. Eight Monday-to-Sunday weeks, eight runs, eight posts, eight receipts. Program changes can never shorten your window — see Section 7.

The part you scrolled here for. Fair. (One framing note that matters: this is a reimbursement — we pay you back for the Cove you bought. It's not a paycheck, a wage, or a salary; see Section 7 on being an independent participant.)

• What you get: your receipt total for Cove products back, up to $65 per week. If your Cove total is $58.41, you get $58.41. If the shelf was short and your Cove total is $24.90, you get $24.90. If you went big and it's $71, you get $65 — the cap is the cap. We reimburse the Cove items on your receipt, up to $65 — we read the line items, not just the total, so anything else in the cart is on you.
• How you get it: via Venmo or PayPal, to the handle or email you gave us at sign-up. If that handle changes, tell brandambassador@covedrinks.com before your next submission — money sent to the handle on file is money sent.
• When you get it: reimbursements go out weekly, after your submission is reviewed. Review is a human looking at your receipt and post, so we don't promise a specific day — but you won't be waiting around wondering. If something looks off, we'll email you rather than silently reject.
• What gets a submission declined: a submission has to be compliant to be reimbursed. Non-compliant means things like: a receipt from a store that isn't yours, a purchase dated outside the Monday–Sunday week you're submitting for, a missing post, or a post missing the required tags (@covesoda, @target, #ad or #paidpartnership). Non-compliant submissions may not be reimbursed — and approval of any receipt is at Cove's discretion. When in doubt, email us before you shop, not after.
• Taxes: reimbursements may be taxable income depending on your situation, and taxes are your responsibility. We're a soda company, not your accountant — if you're unsure, ask someone who is.

We built the miss policy to be kind, because life happens. But it's also precise, because one Captain per store means a quiet store is a store nobody's running. Here it is, exactly:

Misses aren't the only exit: fraud or serious rule violations can end a captaincy immediately — see Section 7.

Four things that are not misses, for the record:

• Skipping the optional warm-up haul. Never a miss.
• A short-shelf week where you bought what was there and submitted the receipt. That's a compliant week.
• A week where you submitted on time but something in the submission needs fixing — we'll email you to sort it out.
• A genuinely sold-out week — zero cans to buy — where you posted the empty shelf with your three tags and emailed us your post link before Sunday's deadline. Confirming it is at our discretion, and with nothing bought there's nothing to reimburse, but handled that way it doesn't count as a miss (see FAQ 1).

And one reminder from Section 2: missed weeks can't be made up. There's no doubling up next week to backfill. The streak only moves forward.

One Captain per store, one store per Captain. That's the founding rule of the whole program.

How you got your store: at sign-up, you gave us a 1st and 2nd choice. We work down the list — if your 1st choice was open, you got it; if it was taken and your 2nd was open, you got your 2nd. Your welcome email names the store you actually got, and that's your store for the program.

Standby: if both your choices were taken, you were placed on standby — a short first-come-first-served queue (a handful deep) for each store. When a store opens up, the next person in that store's queue gets the invite. If you're reading this as a full Captain, someone may be on standby for your store — which is a nice bit of motivation to keep the streak alive.

If something about your store needs to change — you're relocating, or your store's stock situation is chronically grim — email brandambassador@covedrinks.com and tell us what's going on. We'll figure out what's possible together. One thing that never changes in the meantime: your assigned store is your store, and receipts from a store that isn't your assigned store can't be reimbursed.

When a Captain is removed (second miss, removal for cause, or leaving the program), their store reopens and the next person on that store's standby queue is offered it. The machine keeps humming; nobody's store sits claimed-but-quiet for long.

This is the section our lawyers care about, written like a human. It's the plain-English version of the program's binding terms — short on purpose, but every sentence counts:

• Eligibility: the Summer Captain program is open to US residents, 18 or older, with an assigned Target store. One Captain per store; one store per Captain.
• You're independent. Captains are independent participants in a brand program — not employees, agents, or representatives of Cove. You can't make promises on Cove's behalf, and nothing here creates an employment relationship. (It also means no schedule, no boss, and no meetings.)
• Content license: by submitting a post as part of the program, you give Cove permission to reshare your program posts on Cove's own channels, with credit to you. You keep ownership of your content; we get to show it off.
• Reimbursement is discretionary on compliance: receipt approval is at Cove's discretion, and non-compliant submissions (wrong store, out-of-week purchase, missing or untagged post) may not be reimbursed. Reimbursement covers the Cove items on your receipt, up to $65. See Section 4.
• Play it straight. Separate from the missed-week policy, Cove may remove a Captain immediately for fraud or misrepresentation — including altered, reused, duplicate, or fake receipts, or returning product after reimbursement — or for serious or repeated rule violations. Removal for cause forfeits reimbursement of the non-compliant submissions and may disqualify future applications.
• Taxes are your responsibility. Also Section 4, but lawyers like it said twice.
• The program can change. Cove may update program terms prospectively, and may close the program to new applicants at any time. But — and this is a promise — once you're approved, your full 8-week window is always honored: we will never cut it short because the program changed, evolved, or closed to new applicants. Your window only ends early if you're removed under Section 5 (missed weeks) or this section (for cause).
• What's next: a new program is coming in the fall. Captains who finish all 8 weeks get the first invite.
• Support: for anything — questions, problems, switches, goodbyes — the address is brandambassador@covedrinks.com. There are humans there. Talk to us.