Marketing

Ok, so there’s something to be said for suggesting your products as an unexpected holiday gift option, but this e-mail I received is ridiculous:

It’s December and the holiday shopping season is upon us. When you’re thinking about gifts to buy, consider an Equifax Gift Certificate. While it might not be making wish lists, empowering someone to understand and manage their credit health could be the gift that keeps on giving.

Yeah, because people really want to be reminded of their credit history — and all of the debt they’re racking up buying Christmas gifts — during the holiday season.

Pete Blackhaw beat me to blogging about the really interesting e-mail I — and tons of others — received from TypePad recently. His thoughts (which he actually managed to write down besides his having 1 more newborn than I) pretty much echo mine.

UPDATE: Fixed the link, which wasn’t working due to a missing “a” in the code.

Searching on

Filed Under: Marketing

My buddy at JupiterResearch, Gary Stein, is collecting data about word-of-mouth marketing, consumer content, blogs, and the like. He’s a good guy and has a lot of very interesting and insightful things to say. Help fuel his insight. Take his survey. Gary’s plan is to share results at the upcoming WOMMA conference in New York, so if you’re there you can benefit, as well.

Jeremy Zawodny makes an interesting post (quoting from a guest poster on Om Malik’s site) about the concept of community online, and how it may conflict with corporate aims. It’s a fascinating discussion, because it’s obvious that some of the most thriving online entities are doing so because of a community spirit. How does a corporation foster this, and still make money, rather than kill it?

Zawodny also mentions how his views on community sometimes differ from that of his employer, Yahoo!. Interesting insight into how a blogger reconciles disagreeing with his employer in public.

An excerpt:

I’ve got one foot inside the company and the other firmly planted in the community. The two are often at odds and, more often than not, I side with the community.

This makes some people at Yahoo very unhappy, but I really believe that it’s in the best interest of Yahoo. I’m not doing it just to be a pain in the ass. Some people are really good at running a business. I like to think that I do a decent job of representing community interests when I try to do so. And making sure the community is heard loud and clear inside the company walls helps keep us honest. That’s why I say many of the things you read here.

The Bay Area Interactive Group (BIG) — our local interactive marketing trade/networking organization — today launched a podcasting series called the BIG Sessions. Hosted by Visa’s Jon Raj, the podcasts feature interviews with interactive marketers. So far, there’s one with OMD’s Mark Stewart and another with AKQA’s P.J. Pereira. Haven’t listened to them yet, but they look promising.