Comments on: Spam is not Marketing

By: What I’m Reading :: ProductMarketing.com

What I’m Reading :: ProductMarketing.com — Tue, 03 May 2011 13:32:02 +0000

[...] Spam is not Marketing by April Dunford [...]

By: Connie Crosby

Connie Crosby — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:38:47 +0000

Hi April (and Jason):
I thoroughly enjoyed Jason’s talk and, as a non-marketer, also wondered why it was included in the day other than to be amusing. Now I know more, so quite appreciate this discussion.
April, while we might hope those people we know would know better, I’m afraid to say this is not always the case. Sometimes what we think is obvious needs to be pointed out. And it was not just marketers in the audience, so hopefully this will help them (us) distinguish the good from the bad when seeking to hire a professional.
Cheers!
Connie

By: PR - Product Mgmt.

PR - Product Mgmt. — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:33:17 +0000

Spam is not Marketing http://bit.ly/trZgE #postrank #prod_mgmt

By: Paolo Bolpet

Paolo Bolpet — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:24:53 +0000

FromTheNet: Spam is not Marketing http://bit.ly/L24yK

By: Kevin Richard

Kevin Richard — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:44:53 +0000

Interesting comment from @textfiles on @Aprildunford’s blog regarding his talk at #casecamp.When is marketing ‘evil’ : http://bit.ly/vGH9m

By: Kevin Richard

Kevin Richard — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:43:38 +0000

Interesting comment from @textiles on @Aprildunford’s blog regarding his talk at #casecamp.When is marketing ‘evil’ : http://bit.ly/vGH9m

By: April Dunford

April Dunford — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:46:13 +0000

Hi Jason,
Thanks for your comment. I’m glad the folks here will get to read your take on it. I want to be perfectly clear that I thought your talk was great – I just disagree with your characterization of marketing and wondered why more people in the audience didn’t.
Maybe you’re right – maybe I’m being too easy on marketers and perhaps we need to be reminded more to not be “evil”. But again, in my marketing career I’ve never been involved in a project where we deliberately planned to harm people.
Your point on people asking you to promote products is an interesting example though. I wouldn’t see it as “evil” to ask you if you were interested in being involved with a company. I wouldn’t see you as “vulnerable”. I would assume you would just say no if you didn’t think it fit with what stand for or what you want to do. Trying to force you to do something would be evil but I don’t think it’s obvious to companies out there (if they haven’t heard you speak) that you would be offended if asked. I might assume for example that you’re interested in animal rights and ask you if you would want to work with a company doing that. If you aren’t you say no. As the celebrity you get to decide what’s evil and what isn’t and vote with your decisions. If Bono can sell ipods then sockington might want to sell cat food. Celebrity endorsements are common so I guess I don’t know until I ask.
I work in technology marketing so I don’t have much experience working with celebrities. Are all celebrity endorsements evil and manipulative? Is there a difference between Bono selling ipods and Angelina Jolie doing charity work and a famous cat selling cat food? I honestly haven’t given it much thought but perhaps you’re right.
Now you are making me think so thanks for that!
April

By: Geo Perdis

Geo Perdis — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:01:32 +0000

@aprildunford: " Spam is what happens when there is an absence of marketing." http://j.mp/1JIfyr #torbiz #tortech (via @robtyrie)

By: Jason Scott

Jason Scott — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:47:07 +0000

Well, hello. I figured there’d be more of you, as well.
Here’s the thing. First of all, I deal with a bunch of marketers and have done so for quite a few years – Sockington is the big thing I’m known for now but I’ve had my scary hands in a lot of variant pies. In fact, one might feel liberal and consider me a marketer as well – I have promoted films I make as a documentary filmmaker, and in doing so have had to deal with people as promoter, salesman, customer service, and all the other roles.
Eli let us know about a week before the event that our talks would be limited to 15 minutes (with 10 minutes for talk). We also had our talk topics assigned to us. I rebelled on both counts, so my talk was a little longer than that, but not much. This meant I could cover some portion of what I wanted to say, but I would totally understand if subtleties were lost. So let’s focus on one that might have helped.
“Spammer” is just your word for “person who uses techniques I don’t like or think are obviously harmful”, but in point of fact the assault on Sockington’s audience has ranged to a much greater amount than just simple linkspam. As I mentioned in the talk, people have contacted me in full human non-bot language asking Socks to mention things in return for potential cash. I’ve had places try to get him to endorse things, not necessarily because it would make sense for a virtual cat to spontaneously “endorse” half this stuff, but because his audience represents easy mindshare. I had one awesome human vermin talk “about” Socks in his twitter feed, alleging that he shouldn’t be on twitter because Sockington violates terms of service of Twitter. Then, he started writing that I was trying to have him silenced and removed from twitter. When I finally called the guy at his house to tell him to knock it off, he was all sweetness and smiles, and then started twittering that I was calling him at his house.
The thing is, people who do awful things, like some marketers, very rarely think they’re doing awful things. They do awful things because they’ve convinced themselves they’re doing good things. It’s great to follow and follow and make up fake friendships, because that’s building your audience. It’s good to send girls into bars with buckets of free drinks to smile and charm lonely men into thinking someone is paying attention to them. It’s good to refer to coagulate language into meaningless phrases because of a lowest common denominator approach to communication in the name of selling.
The mind, you see, is quite capable of convincing itself of a lot of things. This is what I was addressing – the slow descent of realizing that you can get a slightly nicer car if you don’t go out of your way to point out that a product can make people sick, or to hound vulnerable people temporarily in a world spotlight into allowing your client’s product to sit on a table near them. What does it hurt? Who does it hurt? The shift is slow, methodical, and can take a long time. This is what I wanted to get across. In 20 minutes. While being funny.
I did my best. I stand by it. Don’t act like marketing is just “the good stuff”, and I promise I won’t act like marketing is just “the bad stuff”.

By: Mark Harai

Mark Harai — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:21:29 +0000

"Spam is not Marketing" http://bit.ly/vGH9m