Desperation marketing
June 10th, 2004 by Bill
Blogs are wonderful for pointing us to things we probably wouldn’t see otherwise. One of my favourites blogs is Seth’s blog. Today, I came upon two recent posts which struck a chord. Both of them illustrate what I’ve decided to call Desperation Marketing (also known as Blockhead Marketing).
(Everybody else gets to come up with marketing terms, why can’t I?)
The worst of the two Seth found is in the L.A. Times. It’s negative opt-in in sheep’s clothing. The other is a boneheaded Amazon survey. (I’m really surprised it’s Amazon. I wonder if they’ve had a recent reorg in their marketing department?)
Anyway … In both cases it’s clear no one thought about the customer or the ultimate end result. It smacks of desperation - doing something then crossing your fingers to hope it works (though deep down you know it won’t). In the first case, it seems the end result can only be really annoyed people. In the second, the survey, as Seth indicates - who in the world will fill it out and, of those who do, what kind of a sampling to you have?
It’s bewildering. And desperate. Kind of like putting a gun to your head to stop a bad migraine.
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