We have now got a Marketing Week subscription though and the DM section is normally pretty good.

Just came across this and although the original article was written two years ago I think it’s fair to say the situation is still no better. I think that users are now so jaded to email spam that most (myself included) are weary about signing up to even a trusted source.

If a re-set was effective it could possibly be turned around, but with the growth of twitter, and recommendations when you login to any account you have set up such as Amazon, its hard to see email marketing making a come back.

It’s amusing to think that everything the “music industry” does is wrong, but in reality, here it’s your lack of understanding of: a) what they do, and b) what this image represents which is at fault here…

I agree that the deployment of any mass scale opt out would a) be complex, and b) have to be accompanied by some parallel work on enhanced opt-in. But i’m not so sure that i’d architect any deployment for the those not willing/ able to engage with it – they are covered by the existing modus operandi and if we wait for an entire population to be in position to move then we’d be waiting forever. Also, I think the best research around would say that the split in terms of proportions worried about privacy comes down as 25% privacy activist, 40% privacy pragmatist and 35% privacy unaware – so that would be 65% able to engage?

As for the 50 door to door sales, I think its actually worse that that. If you include things like behavioural tracking and targeting within direct marketing (which I do) then just as the advertisers grab a piece of the individuals property (data) when they come calling, we’d have door to door salesmen walking off with a piece of the lawn!!!!. So the sooner we get on with the radical rethink the better….

Cheers

Iain

Interesting: “the principle that unless an individual has ‘Opted Out’ then they are fair game to be targeted with marketing messages.”

This is of course the very principle that underlies spamming – which highlights something very deep-rooted in our culture. We all hate spam, but its very bedrock also underlies the good old door-to-door encyclopaedia salesman.

A lot of people are barely web-literate and only just managing to sign up to things (“Where do I click? Oh no I deleted it!”), and these people would be flummoxed by a blanket opt-out (“From what??” I can hear them say – “No, this online stuff is not for me”), or persona-based multiple privacy profiles.

Then there was the opt-out from cold calling in the USA, in which there were found to be so many loop-holes that it made little difference.

Still, you’re right – with the equivalent of fifty door-to-door guys hitting on us every day, we need a radical rethink.