Re: Euro TV

Terje Norderhaug (Norderhaug.CHI@Xerox.com)
Tue, 19 Sep 1995 11:17:19 -0700

At 3:34 PM 9/18/95, Manny Vellon wrote:
>>> Actually, I hate to disappoint here, but at least one law firm has
>>> successfully advertized in "inappropriate" newsgroups to its
>>> advantage. They got thousands of mail bombs, but the 1% of people who
>>> responded positively was still worth about $400,000 worth of business.
>>>
>>> Funny, I don't recall hearing of any other stories since then. Maybe
>>> the public perception tactic actually worked?
>
>Unfortunately, the last I heard, the firm was now advising others (for
>a fee) on how to do internet advertising. I don't think they're
>recommending the spam approach, however.

They are even proud of their own creativity when it comes to marketing
strategy. Now, I don't exactly call doing the same mass marketing as usual
for "creativity". Rather, it displays lack of competence of the affordances
of a medium.

As a number of marketers seems to have no ethical consideration in wasting
the time of individuals, the only way to limit their activities on an
almost zero cost medium is to change the equation. For example, if you get
spammed, send bogus replies so they will have to waste time filtering
incoming messages, call their 800 number, and harass them in other ways. If
enough people does this, spamming will not pay off.

-- Terje <Norderhaug.CHI@Xerox.com>
<URL:http://www.ifi.uio.no/~terjen/>