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August 22, 2005
Permission spamming
The Wall Street Journal tells us (subscription req'd) that during a recent two-week test in London, 87,000 people with Bluetooth-enabled cell phones were spammed with messages at Heathrow Airport, asking recipients if they wanted to download a video commercial. Of that group, 13,000 agreed to download (a 15% conversion rate).
"I think it's done very well because it enables the customers [to choose]. It doesn't force it on them," says Charles Vine, manager of Virgin Atlantic's airport lounges, which have been testing the system for the past two months.
The "choice" argument is spurious because an unanticipated marketing inquiry on your cellphone is still an intrusion, akin to an opt-out pig gussied up in pretty lipstick.
Although the groups behind the effort -- Maiden Group and Filter UK -- say a "no" response will prevent further intrusions, it will only be for a particular campaign.
Let's extend this rather unfortunate idea into a nightmare scenario:
A dozen different transmitters at airports, coffee houses, train platforms, movie theaters... each of them beaming millions yes/no inquiries to unwitting recipients, asking them if they would like to download a commercial. Rushing through an airport, your Treo 650 is now a magnet for digital panhandlers, except the panhandlers are wealthy corporations. Other transmitters skirt unwritten rules by sending videos anyway because a "no" response was not received within 15 seconds.
Granted, some people want to receive cellphone marketing from their favorite companies, bands or god forbid, authors, so the answer seems straightforward: Cellphones are not free, so all marketing directed toward them -- including initial yes/no inquires -- must be initiated by the cellphone user, not a marketing conglomerate.
Anything else is simply spam.
Other blogs that reference Permission spamming:
Spam is spam. Give this time and as cell phones become as glutted as inboxes on PCs, people will be as sick of it as they are of the proverbial Viagra e-mail. As the novelty goes, so will the 15% response rate.
Challenge to marketers and sellers of consumer goods and services - provide information that propsective customers, or even existing customers actually want to recieve and see value in, and you won't have to spend millions figuring out ways to invade their space with irrelevant and annoying messaging. Your audience may just ask for it.
For me, and I think many other people, "Would you like to watch our advert?" is as redundant and obvious a question as "Would you like rat droppings in your meal?". The answer is no. And asking me the question makes me angry.
I'm surprised they don't understand this as spam.
Bluetooth marketing could be very risky also because most of the people don't know (yet) how bluetooth works. When they get a new phone the bluetooth option "open to contact" could be set on "on" by default.
Not everybody could be experienced enough to understand what to do (i.e. prevent the bluetooth contact from unknown sources) without being very surprised/annoyed by the advertising message received.
