I got a piece of junk mail the other day that I just had to share in this space for the pure fun factor. Here’s the play-by-play from a user perspective:
1. The Envelope—This is the equivalent of the subject line in email spam terms. It’s got all of the latest bells and whistles that are aimed to keep you from dropping it directly into the wastebasket. You know, there’s the WARNING and “Penalty for Tampering” and an IRS-looking “FORM 2009 096-5B.” There’s the classic three-stage tear-strip opening procedure that only official documents bother to use, of course. On a side note, it is interesting that making it harder to open a piece of mail actually can result in higher open rates—but I digress…
2. The Invitation—Evidently I have been selected to receive two round-trip airfares to most major international airports of my choice! It appears that this is for a ride on a new company called US Airlines. You know, the guys from those commercials who say, “Fly the US Skies.” Note how the offer comes with a unique offer number and bonus grocery voucher for the first 100 callers.
3. BONUS—A boarding pass! Hey, I guess I can just take this to the airport right now and get on seat 07-C (which had better be First Class). But what about the boarding pass for my companion? I’m sure they’ll just take care of that at the Delta counter when I go to get on the flight to USA DESTINATIONS. Thankfully this is valid through 2009. But wait, at the bottom in small print this says, “Not valid for travel.” I’d better call for details…
4. The Phone Call—I had to do this post justice and call the number to see if I could get some more intelligence for you, dear readers. At the risk of getting on some super-duper short list of people who actually respond to these things, I did call in. An automated voice picked up right away and let me know that “because of the overwhelming response to this offer there is a 30- to 45-second wait time for my call to be answered.” In less time than that a friendly operator from “Reservations Services” got on the line and asked for my code to pull up my account. She said that not only would I receive the free air tickets but also two days and three nights of hotel accommodations. She then attempted to ask me some “qualifying questions.” (Hey, I thought this boarding pass meant I was prequalified?) Instead of continuing the charade I asked her to jump to the chase and tell me what the catch was. She said I’d have to attend a 90-minute presentation for a “travel agency” but was adamant that “this is NOT a time-share!” Unfortunately I don’t think I have an extra 90 minutes for this blog post, so I bailed at that point.
The Lesson: It’s wrong to fool your customers.
I don’t believe anyone reading this is foolish enough to fall for this nor jerk enough to think that this is an acceptable form of marketing. That said, these jerks are out there making it harder for the rest of us. Because of spam both in the mailbox and email inbox, our customers are more leery and have a more negative view of advertisers than ever before. There’s not much we can do except recognize the error of tricking people and ensure that we do the exact opposite of everything here.








