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View Full Version : Sometimes, spam just works



Dan Furman
05-08-2010, 12:35 AM
Sometime last year, I found myself at the beer advocate website. I like beer a lot, and signed up so I could post on the forum. I made a post or two, and kind of forgot about it. Never went back, and never heard from them.

Fast forward to ten minutes ago. I get an e-mail from them offering a subscription to their magazine for $19.99. Having enjoyed a fine ale or two on the deck earlier tonight, I was in the perfect mood. Went to their website, put in my cc info, and bang, they have a new subscriber. All because they spammed me.

Now I know Frederick will disagree, but to me, that's really not unwanted spam. And I kind of proved it by placing an order. I look at it this way: At some point, I said to this company "hey, I like beer", and hence, a nice beer-related offer eventually made it to my inbox.

Well done, Beer Advocate. And cheers.

Steve B
05-08-2010, 06:59 AM
You also probably gave them permission to contact you when you originally signed up for the website - so it probably won't meet most people's Spam definition. Assuming you gave them permission to contact you in the future, this is a great example of staying in touch with your customers and offering relevant products and services that potentially fit their interests.

Patrysha
05-08-2010, 10:19 AM
Yeah, that only fits Frederick's definition of spam...it's really not.

Cheers - enjoy the brews.

phanio
05-08-2010, 10:57 AM
If spam didn't work - good spam or bad spam - no one would be doing it.

cbscreative
05-08-2010, 02:06 PM
If spam didn't work - good spam or bad spam - no one would be doing it.

I wouldn't be so sure. There will be people willing to try it regardless. I think a lot of spam is from people who got taken in by a scheme and they're looking for more people as stupid as themselves.

Spider
05-08-2010, 04:39 PM
Yeah, that only fits Frederick's definition of spam...it's really not....None of this is "my" definition of spam.

Going back to the first definition of spam in, what? the 1970s? spam has been defined as Unsolicited Commercial e-mail – UCE.

As long as it is unsolicited - as in unasked for (giving permision is not the same as asking for) ...

...and as long as it is commercial in nature...

... and as long as it is e-mail...

....... it is spam. By the original definition of the internet.


Giving permission for the sender to send the message makes it legal but it doesn't make it not-spam.


There is good trash and there is bad trash -- there is trash that goes into landfills and and is a burden on the environment. There is trash that is sorted for recycling that goes to recycling centers and is re-used. But it's all still trash.

There are good savings and bad savings - the good savings are sums of money you earn but do not spend and accumilate to build your assets; there are savings that are reduced prices that serve to increase your spending and lower your assets. But they are all savings.

Unsolicited commercial e-mail is spam - whether you like it or not, whether you gave permission for it or not, whether you want it or not, whether it is legal or not, and whether you participate in it or not.

Business Attorney
05-08-2010, 05:04 PM
I wouldn't be so sure. There will be people willing to try it regardless. I think a lot of spam is from people who got taken in by a scheme and they're looking for more people as stupid as themselves.

That is probably true, but the repeat spammers, like the ones who sell various sex enhancement products and discount prescription medicines, undoubtedly get enough sales through their spam efforts to make it worth doing.

billbenson
05-09-2010, 02:40 AM
That is probably true, but the repeat spammers, like the ones who sell various sex enhancement products and discount prescription medicines, undoubtedly get enough sales through their spam efforts to make it worth doing.

Well, to a point, sales is a numbers game, and thats what the spammers are counting on; be it deception or a valid product.

In Dan's case, getting a sales email after 6 months or more... Dan opted in; email is not out of line; thats just plain good salesmanship on the part of the beer company IMO. This is like calling old prospects. Its not badgering old prospects.

Steve B
05-09-2010, 06:13 AM
Since the "cost" for spamming is practically zero - it almost has to "work" (assuming they make one sale before they die and aren't paying someone to do the spamming for them).

Frederick - where did that definition of Spam come from? I'm just curious what the source was. I think many people look to references from the Can/Spam law for a current definition. I think when most people want to know the definition of Spam, it's in the context of whether it's legal or not. I think the Can/Spam act was signed in 2003.

If they don't reference the Can/Spam Act I would think another popular source for a definition would be Wikipedia. Here is their definitiion specific to e-mail: E-mail spam, known as unsolicited bulk Email (UBE), junk mail, or unsolicited commercial email (UCE), is the practice of sending unwanted e-mail messages, frequently with commercial content, in large quantities to an indiscriminate set of recipients.

This e-mail that Dan got meets most of the definition, but it doesn't seem to have been sent to an indiscriminate set of recipients.

Spider
05-09-2010, 12:07 PM
...Frederick - where did that definition of Spam come from? I'm just curious what the source was...Source - memory.

Before the days of e-mail, "spam" was first used by newsgroups to denote irrelevant and inapproriate messages to many usegroups. The term was derived from a Monty Python sketch in the late 1960s. As e-mail became popular, it was adopted to mean unsolicited bulk e-mail and then unsolicted commercial e-mail.


Added: Incidentally, Spam is a registered trade mark for the luncheon meat. The company has, I believe, acknowledged that the word is being used in this e-mail context, has given up any hope of protecting themselves from trade mark infringement and ask that capitalized "Spam" be reserved for the meat and lower-case "spam" be used for the e-mail variety.

Harold Mansfield
05-09-2010, 03:47 PM
I wouldn't really call that spam, as much as just good ol'e email marketing.
I have been caught at the right time by the right people plenty of times and plopped my cc down for a magazine...actually that is probably the easiest thing to get me to purchase if it's something I'm interested in.