A Little Frickin' Transparency, Please?

People get wiggy when they think they're being targeted with advertising. Even if they're not. This paranoia wouldn't be a factor if the companies doing the actual ad targeting would level with folks every once in a while. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Going out of your way to tell people how you're delivering messages that are more relevant to them is critical. Otherwise, people are going to assume the worst about you and think you're tracking their every movement across the Internet.

Yes, I know there are bigger problems here. But as long as companies insist on firing messages AT people instead of conversing WITH them, the least we can do is take steps to ensure people aren't freaked out by it.

Iraq Bound

I received word yesterday that a friend of mine was just called up from IRR (Individual Ready Reserve) for 4-6 months of training, followed by a yearlong tour, most likely in Iraq. The friend in question is 38 years old, a valued executive at an online research company, and hasn't worn a uniform in a dozen years. My thoughts and prayers are with this friend as he is confronted with something he never thought could happen and now gets ready to ship out. God protect him.

I find it almost unbelievable that this has happened. Given all the buzz about setting a deadline and getting our troops out of Iraq, you'd think that activating someone after 12 years would be, at worst, highly unlikely. But here we see it in action. Yes, it has gotten that bad.

Resistance is Futile

I was trying to write my Spin column after a long week of moving the office and an abbreviated weekend. Sometimes, something will just stick in your mind when you're trying to think about column topics. And it won't get unstuck until you write about it. This week, my brain got stuck on this meeting I had before starting Underscore. It was with a marketing person from a company that will remain nameless. She told me that she wanted to actively avoid ongoing retention-based online programs. And it was because she would rather have customers forget about them once they signed up for a program that involved a recurring fee. Those customers who actually made use of the services offered - who actually remembered they were signed up for this thing - ended up costing the company money. Thus, they would prefer to attract the kind of customer who would rather fork over the monthly fee without uttering a sound or trying to interact with the company.

Yeah, they're out of business today. But that thinking still persists in our industry today. And that sucks.

I mean, how fucked up do you have to be to view engaged customers as something other than A Good Thing? How twisted does your thinking have to be to view conversation as a thing to be stifled instead of encouraged?

Anybody Know These People?

I've been getting calls from a company called The World Trade Group about something they're calling the Global Marketing Executive Summit. It's another one of those shows where you pay a shitload of money to have power meetings with marketing executives. I'm not kidding when I tell you they've called me no less than six times. The first few times, I politely declined. At call #4, I asked them to take me off their list. This morning, when I got call #6, I went ballistic.

They always ask why I'm not interested and I tell them that there's no way I'll pay thousands of dollars for meetings when I can get them for free during Ad Tech, OMMA, the iMedia Summits and the other conferences we participate in. They offer to work with me on the price. I tell them that unless it's free, I'm not interested.

But the calls keep coming. If I get call #7, I think it will be time for another grass-roots SEO effort, if you catch my drift.

BTW, in call #1, these people explained to me that they haven't put on a marketing show before, but feel qualified to do so because of the dozens of other shows they've put on in other industries. Can you say "Johnny-Come-Lately?" I knew you could.