When Wasting The Time Of 85% Of People You Spam Is Considered A Success

from the flip-those-numbers-please... dept

Thu, Aug 4th 2005 2:14pm — Mike Masnick

There was a lot of hype recently about the various mobile phone promotions used by the extremely popular band Coldplay. It started with a plan to release their new songs as ringtones before the music was released elsewhere. That made very little sense, as the reason people buy ringtones is because they like the song -- not to hear the song for the first time in short segments whenever someone calls you. Then, they moved on to try something they called "Bluecasting." The way it works is they set up a Bluetooth enabled machine somewhere public, and when people walk by with Bluetooth-enabled phones that associate with the server, a message is sent, asking the recipient if they'd like to download content from the band. You're probably a bit ahead of the marketers on this one, because you, like most people, are probably realizing that this whole thing sounds a lot more like Bluespamming than Bluecasting. Anyway, now that the promotion is done, the folks behind it are absolutely thrilled that they got such a positive response. How positive? 15% of those spammed responded, which means that they pissed off 85% of the people they spammed with a promotion on their mobile phone they didn't want. That's success?

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Tim, 5 Aug 2005 @ 2:39am

No Subject Given
Does this mean it's a good thing I keep my moobile in `hidden' bluetooth mode, lest I be had-up for public order offence of kicking the living daylights out of a bit of hardware for spamming me? :P
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thecaptain, 5 Aug 2005 @ 4:53am

No Subject Given
In marketting speak its a HUGE success.

One more symptom of what's grossly wrong with the industry.
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- Anonymous Coward, 5 Aug 2005 @ 7:27am
  
  Re: No Subject Given
  Come on, guys. If they didn't harass everyone walking by, Coldplay would only sell 3 bagillion records. Those poor guys need to eat, too.
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