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21 AUG 2002 by Gordon Fecyk, Pan-Am Internet Services
IMAGINE A DAY WITHOUT SPAM. Not the lunch meat, I mean, because I like SPAM™ myself. I mean junk e-mail. "spam" in lower case. I know my girlfriend would love that, because she gets over two hundred messages a day and usually one hundred ninety-nine is spam. Don't believe me? Ask her yourself.
I can only wish. To me, a day without spam is a day away from my computer. And I do have those, from time to time, only to get two days' worth of spam the next day. Yet spammers might actually give us a day off. Imagine that.
Ken Magill is an editor for iMarketing News and dmnews.com. He writes:
E-mail marketers expect to limit their activity the week of September 11th. [...]
While direct marketers are reportedly proceeding with their postal mail plans in September, spam issues make e-mail a more sensitive marketing medium, even in the happiest of times. Add the emotions of the first anniversary of Sept. 11 and you get a recipe for potential marketing disaster.
Magill quoted several e-mail marketers with a good track record, including the likes of Kevin Johnson from Digital Impact:
"A promotional message advertising low fares to New York City would probably be a huge mistake on or about Sept. 11," he said. "Crafted carefully, it may be a fine message, but you have to know your relationship with your customers."
OK, given the knowledge of your relationship with your recipients, and many other factors marketers understand but most of us anti-spammers don't, what's the difference? Why would a postal mail message advertising low airline fares to New York City on the week of September 11th, carefully crafted or otherwise, be any more appropriate than an e-mail message with the same ad? They did opt-in, didn't they? Didn't they?
Sure, marketers are going to be wary of the anniversary of nine-one-one. I'm not going to try to sell gas masks on the anniversary of the Anthrax scares, and neither will anyone else... anyone else with a clue, that is.
| Rule of Acquisition #162: Even in the worst of times, someone makes a profit. |
| - Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe, from Legends of The Ferengi |
WITH THIS IN MIND, are we going to have a spam free day on September 11th, 2002? Probably not. Rule of Acquisition #162 says spammers are going to be out there in full force, as usual, barring a cyber-castrophe.
It's not like they're unaccustomed to such things, after all they were selling gas masks and anti-Anthrax drugs for some time before nine-one-one. Taste isn't usually an issue. I can hardly wait for the "Keep America Copulating" ad campaign, brought to you by the same folks who offer breast enhancements and penis enlargements and Viagra® over the web.
E-mail didn't stop on nine-one-one, and nether did spam. Even as Winnipeg International Airport was receiving grounded flights and Winnipeggers were receiving their passengers as guests, I was still getting spammed. I was also still working, and not even Margie Arbon can deny that.
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