As some of my readers may know, I founded the American Wine Blog Awards. For three years I administered the awards program that attempted to identify the best blogs in a variety of categories and honor them for their contributions and efforts. After the third year, I gifted the Awards to the OpenWine Consortium.
Well, I'm starting a new awards program: THE MOST ANNOYING INTERNET WINE PROMOTION AWARDS. Or...the MAIWPA.
There can be no question as to what Internet Wine Promotion gets the inaugural award: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WINE CLUB PROMOTION!
I've counted. In the past two weeks alone, I've received 65 emails, all exactly the same, each asking me to buy "A Dozen Magnificent Reds For only $69.99—SAVE $120" and to join the WSJ wine club.
Sixty-Five Emails! Keep in mind that twice I've asked that my name be taken off their mailing list. And twice I've been told that I've been removed, but that more emails may arrive because they are already cued up.
In a word, this is extremely A N N O Y I N G !!!!
For some reason I expect the Wall Street Journal to not allow their marketing folks or surrogates to engage in spam email marketing. What was I thinking? Don't get me wrong, I think it's just great that the venerable WSJ, with its impressive demographics, would get into the wine club business. But for the Love of Conservatism Editorial Policy and al that is otherwise holy, can they please act respectably?
I have to believe that their repeated and numerous emails to me are some sort of a mistake. Could they really believe that somewhere around the 61st or 76th email, I'd finally bite? Maybe there is some marketing lore out there that says, "Get the message in front of the prospect 60some-odd-times and the chances of them biting goes up 40%. I don't know. All I know is that I'm a little annoyed at the Wall Street Journal.
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IMPORTANT UPDATE: The original post was uploaded at 5:07pm. The next email from the WSJ came at 5:10pm.
