Blackberry inserts promotional offers into customer emails.

Posted on November 21st, 2008 by Paula Skaper

Had the darndest thing happen the other day. We emailed our ad rep a piece of copy on behalf of a client. She received the copy on her Blackberry and forwarded (also from her Blackberry) to the art department, who were waiting the new text as part of a special editorial page on the shopping district. They received the copy, dropped it into the page and we made the press deadline. Sounds pretty blah right?

Until I picked up the paper and read the page – which now included a call to action to enter at www.messengerbuddies.ca for my chance to win a trip for me and three of my best buddies to visit the Mayan Riviera smack in the middle of our client’s coverage. Um – huh?

Turns out that when the ad rep forwarded the email from her Blackberry to her art department, her carrier took the liberty of inserting the offer at the end of her message. And it appeared on the other end as though it was part of the original email. Ouch!

The practice of inserting advertising messages into private emails – especially when you’re paying the carrier for the service of delivery – makes me edgy. On the other hand, what a great new revenue stream for Canada Post. Think of all that wasted space on the envelopes of all those private letters – they could stamp advertiser messages on the mail as it goes through the processing machines (based on destination perhaps?) and charge a handsome fee for the eyeballs…

Lessons learned – careful what you send from your mobile device. Clearly the expectation that the personal messages we email from our mobile devices will arrive as we sent them is a false one.

Tagged with: Email Design • html email • mobile email • Mobile Marketing • SMS

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