Thursday, January 24, 2008

Faux One-to-one marketing gone horribly wrong


The only time we ever receive handwritten letters is around Christmas or birthdays. When I checked the family mail yesterday, I found a handwritten letter addressed to my wife. No return address, the handwriting from an older person. Intrigued, I exclaimed: "You have a personal letter." Even more intrigued, my wife opened the letter immediately to find above abomination:
A fake cutout from a newspaper (stock quotes in the back to communicate the business-savvy part of the offer) talking about a lame offer from a Ford Dealership in Glendale, California. A Post-It Note was attached: "This deal is awesome. G."

Pathetic is not the right word to describe this idea from an unknown marketing virtuoso. I leave the right word to your curse vocabulary. I guess some companies think people are really stupid. I mean, really, really stupid. Really, really, really stupid. I would like to meet the person that fell for this stunt and bought a Ford. I will make sure he'll win the Darwin Awards. And I buy him a drink.

Or, shall I worry? I mean the Post-It Note was signed with 'G'. What does 'G' stand for? Genius Marketer? Gangster? Maybe it was a threat by G-Man that there's more to come.

G-Man, I'll be ready. I fight your pathetic marketing strategy with all the might of my 1,000+ spam emails daily. G-Man, I'm waiting for you!

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