Magilla Marketing

A comment left by privacy advocate Jeff Chester on a piece that appeared here criticizing the direction the Federal Trade Commission is taking under President Barack Obama perfectly illustrates how utterly bereft of substance the online privacy movement’s arguments are.

In the piece with which Chester took issue, I pointed out that with the appointment of Jon Leibowitz to head the FTC along with two other rumored appointments, it looks as if the privacy movement is about to gain serious traction at the agency: very bad news for online marketers and advertisers.

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The blogosphere and much of the mainstream media is roiling over news that Bank of America—fresh from receiving $45 billion in bailout funds—sponsored the National Football League’s pre-Super Bowl NFL Experience for $10 million, a five-day event featuring 850,000 square feet of games and interactive entertainment.

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And the winner for worst-targeted creative in 2008 goes to an e-mail campaign that arrived in my wife’s inbox just before Christmas.

The subject line: “The perfect gift for the foodie on your list.”

What did opening the message reveal? A newfangled lemon zester? The perfect garlic peeler?

Nope.

Opening the message revealed … drum roll, please … click here to find out.

I hate it when companies try and bullsh!t me. Rite Aid recently sent an e-mail pitching Medicare Part D supplemental drug coverage into an account I set up in my son’s name on Yahoo.

Never mind that I’m not yet 65. It’s how Rite Aid got the address and why it claimed I received the e-mail that makes the nationwide drug chain the newest inductee into the Magilla Stupid Marketer Hall of Fame.

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I occasionally respond to Nigerian 419 scam e-mails in an effort to waste their time. I do it mainly because I figure the time spent corresponding with me is time they’re not spending scamming someone else.

Last week, I had a series of exchanges with “Dr. Paul Neville” who appeared in my inbox offering me a loan. The ruse illustrated that some of these people will respond to anything. And, yes, I set up a fake Yahoo account for this.

Warning: Bathroom humor of the vilest form ahead. If graphic, bodily function jokes of questionable humor bother you, read no further. I don’t want any letters saying I’m a disgusting, pathetic juvenile loser. We all know that already.

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Whenever the mainstream media embarrasses itself and I am ashamed of my profession—practically every day lately—I always comfort myself with the fact that at least I didn’t become a lawyer.

My latest source of comfort comes in the form of one John Ferron, an Ohio attorney who seems to spend a lot of his time signing up for permission-based commercial e-mails and then suing the senders for picayune, hyper-technical alleged infractions of the state’s consumer protection laws.

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