NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> My "Grudge" Banner Ad Campaign (Boycott Barnes & Noble)
ONLINE-ADS>> My "Grudge" Banner Ad Campaign (Boycott Barnes & Noble)
Mark J. Welch, Esq. (markwelch_at_ca-probate.com)
Tue, 05 Aug 1997 18:28:54 -0700
Okay, I'm going off the deep end on this one.
(1) I have a web page with links to pages about mystery books, at
http://www.markwelch.com/mystery.htm
(2) On that page is an email address that appears nowhere else in the
universe.
(3) I got an unsolicited commercial email from BARNES AND NOBLE
ONLINE, sent to that email address. The email is about a promotion
regarding Dean Koontz books (arguably that's "mystery" although even
B&N categorizes it as "horror" or "suspense"). It is NOT a personalized
email, it does not request a link, it is just a generic promotional
announcement.
It is clear that my email address was "culled" from my page and added to a
list to receive unsolicited email advertisements.
(4) I spent approximately 2 hours on the telephone today (Tuesday) with
people at B&N, and ultimately they promised that they would remove my
email address, but they said that they would continue to send announcements
to people they thought might be interested -- in order words, they will keep
"culling" email addresses and sending unsolicited advertisements to those
email addresses.
(5) I make every effort to speak to everyone relevant in the company,
including the head of the New Media division and the president of the
company. No one will take my calls.
(6) In frustration, I decide that I'm mad as hell and not going to take it
any more. I post a web page at http://www.markwelch.com/bnspam.htm
and I submit it to the search engines and some directories. I post a
boycott notice in some newsgroups.
(7) I spend five minutes designing an advertising banner ("Boycott
BARNES AND NOBLE! Boycott Junk Email Spammers! Don't
Tolerate Unsolicited Commercial Email!") and I placed an insertion
order for 40,000 impressions with an ad network (making use of
some credit I had already accrued, but this really is MONEY I am
spending, because they would send me a check for the credit amount
if I didn't use it). Within four hours, the first 5,200 impressions have
run, so that 5,200 people have seen the ad banner and 69 of them
have clicked on the banner and viewed my page (another 50 people
viewed my page from other sources). I am starting to get positive
email feedback.
(8) Barnes and Noble appears to be clueless about what they are
doing. They are opening themselves to email harassment lawsuits
(remember, other spammers have no "deep pockets"), and certainly
some of the worst publicity imaginable.
(9) When the ad campaign expires, I will renew it with another 40,000
to 60,000 impressions. My goal is to ask the internet community to
take a look at the situation, and each person can decide if they agree
with what Barnes & Noble is doing. We'll see in a few weeks what
the result is.
(10) I admit some astonishment that the ad network I am using has
not called by now to ask me to suspend or cancel the ad campaign.
Of course, my money is probably just as good as Barnes & Nobles'
money, but I expect that they are spending a LOT more money on
internet banner advertising (measured in the tens of millions, not
tens of thousands, of impressions) and I'm not sure any ad network
should be altogether comfortable with the notion of bringing the kind
of "negative campaigns" that plague election-year political advertising
into the banner ad zone -- and the whole notion of "grudge advertising"
is one that really has not come up before.
Like I said, I'm mad as hell and not going to take it any more. Maybe
I've just gone nuts, but I'm certainly drawing a line in the sand today.
I won't tolerate spam, and I won't do business with any company that
sends unsolicited commercial email. And when I get pushed hard enough,
I won't just take my waller somewhere else: I will spend my money to
make sure that others will also spend their money elsewhere.
-- Mark J. Welch (510) 462-8483 http://www.ca-probate.com/
-- Web Site Banner Ads (Networks, Brokers, Exchanges, Software, PSAs):
-- http://www.markwelch.com/bannerad.htm
-- Web Counters: http://www.markwelch.com/counter.htm
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