Dear Mr. Hartling of Rogers Consumer Marketing:
I recently received a letter from Rogers, signed by you. In it, you promised me my choice of one of three options to receive television transmissions from Rogers instead of from Bell.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear right off the top: I'm aware that this is a form letter, that my name isn't "Resident", that the letter certainly wasn't personal. It's 2010 already. You have to give me some benefit of the doubt.
You said you missed me, and wanted me to come back. You said I used to be your customer.
There's marketing, sir, and then there's laziness.
Instead, I got a mass mailer that said you missed me. Yet you, or more precisely, your database, had never known me. Which I guess is how I wound up being called "Resident". So how can you miss me?
This is about the point where you might be thinking, "It's only an ad. Don't be so goddamned serious about it."
Yes, it's only an ad. But it's an ad that was a failure right from the pitch line.
Isn't the whole point of ads to make us feel like these mass-produced products and services, this remarkably narrow set of choices, are tailored just for the individual being pitched at?
I recently received a letter from Rogers, signed by you. In it, you promised me my choice of one of three options to receive television transmissions from Rogers instead of from Bell.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear right off the top: I'm aware that this is a form letter, that my name isn't "Resident", that the letter certainly wasn't personal. It's 2010 already. You have to give me some benefit of the doubt.
You said you missed me, and wanted me to come back. You said I used to be your customer.
There's marketing, sir, and then there's laziness.
Instead, I got a mass mailer that said you missed me. Yet you, or more precisely, your database, had never known me. Which I guess is how I wound up being called "Resident". So how can you miss me?
This is about the point where you might be thinking, "It's only an ad. Don't be so goddamned serious about it."
Yes, it's only an ad. But it's an ad that was a failure right from the pitch line.
Isn't the whole point of ads to make us feel like these mass-produced products and services, this remarkably narrow set of choices, are tailored just for the individual being pitched at?