Sunday, July 16, 2006

In Support of Spam

My gmail shows 399 spam mails. And i don't hate spam...i go through the text and they tell me so much. People try to block spam by algorithms that looks for certain words and a lot other things, but still the spams do reach me. Speaks a lot about human mind doesn't it?

If i am not wrong then spam filtering was started by a chap called Paul Graham and in his landmark essay(http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html) he outlined the first way to encounter spam. Incidently the first spam was by some law firm if i am not mistaken.

Well as i was saying...if you are a marketing student, then you should read spam mails. because a spammer is basically a person who is trying to sell you something when some body is trying to stop him from doing so. The mails in my spam box are all losers. they couldn't beat the system or the filter. But still there are a few who slip though the system when so many couldn't. this will tell you a lot about marketing. How is the mail targetted at you? the spammer isn't just relying on statistics that if suppose my mail reaches to 500 people then i get a sales of 3 bottles. he is also trying to put in some lucrative offer, and working with the words. Just look at how hard they try to imitate ur normal mail. all their objective is that you will be baffled and end up opening the mail. Then they also have to take care that once you have opened the mail, you don't just discard it coz its spam....so look at the magnitude.
The only respite being that the advertising(yeah i consider Spam as a form of unwanted advertising mailer) is dirt cheap and virtually free.
Being in love with advertising, i am a student of the written word and its effect. And believe it or not, i read even the worse ads that why was it wrong and why was it right. why did i open he mail even if it was spam. And thats a great lesson for aspiring copy writers and admen.

I don't see any indian companies trying to spam me. may be they are letting go of a medium. I guess every indian must have seen some or the other form of advertising in public toilets.Some cheap posters of some"dr shah" is seen... and read as the audience is captive. so even if every one hates it, they do read it once. The job is done. So all you Indian companies out there, start spamming

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What do u mean? It was most recently updated. Oh, and I'm not a lady I'm a girl.