The Duck Controversy: A Cautionary Tale for Web Marketers

 

Grab a pen and jail tattoo this information on your elbow. I have a new email address for this blog. My new email address is thespineblog@gmail.com. I encourage you to use it immediately. I don’t get enough emails from readers and I’m only about a third as evil as this blog would suggest.

My previous email apparently wasn't working, though I wouldn't know that because emails  have been going missing. So, if you’ve ever emailed me and it seemed strange that I didn’t reply when I reply to everybody, the chances are that I didn’t receive your email.



The only emails that have been regularly getting through are from the people at Web Windows who keep asking me for £525 to advertise my blog in the national press. I wouldn't advise you to click the link. Before you know what’s happening, you’ll have a web chat window open with one of their sales people. It happened to me yesterday and the poor woman looked so lonely that I felt obliged to ask something. I asked if she could name the biggest duck in the world. As you can see, she foolishly suggested it was the Aylesbury. Unfortunately, the conversation didn't proceed any further, which was a shame since the next thing I was going to ask was the price of six months advertising in ‘The Guardian’.

For me the duck issue was the deal breaker. As you know, I’m actually a financial genius with billions in the pot ready for the right advertising deal to come along. ‘Let’s run this up the flagpole,’ I was about to say as I stood at my desk with my hands-free on my head. I had already hitched up one leg, revealing my red cashmere socks as I gazed out over the London skyline. ‘Damn it! I want ballpark figures,’ would have been my next line followed by ‘Let’s close this sucker! I’m due in Paris tonight and want this deal put to bed.’

Instead, I wrote them an email to let them down gently. I didn’t want them to realise that they’d just let a reclusive and eccentric billionaire slip through their fingers. Naturally, there has been no reply.

To @ Web Windows

Dear Herbert Smalls

Okay, I keep getting your grovelling emails and I think it’s time we took this misunderstanding behind the kennel and put the poor bastard out of its misery.

£525 for an ad in national newspapers might be nose money to you high-flying marketing types but that’s the price of my left kidney on eBay. What kind of operation do you think I’m running? I’m not one of those bloggers doing the papers on Sky News and milking the Murdoch millions for some barely cogent ramble about the Duchess of Cambridge’s chin. If you said ‘£5.25’ then I might spit in my hand and offer to shake but even then I’d have to double check that I don’t need to eat next week.

Furthermore, do you realise how much of an insult it is when you suggest I might want an ad in the Daily Mail or Telegraph? I might have a small readership but it’s a mighty powerful one. We’re not talking about your C1 and C2 photocopier engineers and bathtub fitters. We’re talking upper echelon A’s with the occasional B to keep the gene pool fertile. These are CERN boffins, university types, lone wolves used to exploring the intellectual hinterland with nothing more than a compass and a splinter of rock. The Daily Mail and the Telegraph! We’re not the type to get excited at the thought of Katie Price in a bikini or Lord Tebbit in a thong. Come back to me when you can get me coverage in The Guardian or The Independent.

In summary, I write a small but excellent blog which is read by a very small but highly intelligent coterie, attracted to witty social commentary and drawings of hairy bottoms. If you could remove me from your list of easy marks, I would appreciate it enormously.

Bless you,

Pelinor Le Grew
Editor and Proprietor
The Spine