Someone sent me a document today. It was a piece of marketing collateral designed to show the benefits of a news feed service that companies could put on their website and generate (they hope) more organic search traffic on Google. Interspersed with the list of benefits were short quotes from customers saying how much the service had helped.
While I’m a little dubious about the cost-effectiveness of the service and the untransparent way in which these stories are generated, there’s nothing wrong with this approach to marketing. In fact, I write this kind of piece regularly.
The example of poor, poor taste came about halfway through. One customer, an ecommerce site that sells products for babies, is quoted as saying:
“Jordan’s miscarriage story generated £896 of revenue on its own” – [Customer name deleted]
Is it just me, or is this appalling bad taste? Am I alone in thinking that these people have no shame?
I am proud of the work I do and proud to be part of the marketing profession, albeit in a semi-detached way, but I felt a bit grubby when I read this.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
No, it’s not just you.
I’m tempted to ask you to name and shame, but I suspect the company responsible are from the “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” camp.
That’s absolutely disgusting.
I wonder where they’d draw the line?
db
That’s what gives marketers a bad name. There is no excuse for citing this type of statistic in a brochure. There is a line that marketers, salespeople, businesspeople and people in general have to draw between effective research and statistics and poor taste. Clearly, this company left its sensitivity at home the day this brochure was created.