Stupid Politics Watch: Dumbest Email Acquisition Idea Ever

12/20/11

By Ken Magill

Boy, for a group that ran one of the most spectacular presidential campaigns in living memory, team Obama is sure a bunch of drool-bucket dumbasses when it comes to email marketing.

Note to conservatives: Team Obama did run one of the most spectacular presidential campaigns in living memory.

Note to liberals: Team Obama is a bunch of drool-bucket dumbasses when it comes to email marketing.

Note to independents: Whatever.

Is everybody pissed off now? Good.

Evidence that team Obama is clueless when it comes to email was delivered last week in the form of a request for Democrats to furnish their Republican friends’ email addresses. To what end is not clear.

“This holiday season, we’re giving you a chance to have a little fun at the expense of a Republican in your life by letting them know they inspired you to make a donation to the Obama campaign,” says copy on the Obama site.

“Simply enter their name and email address below. Then, we’ll send them a message letting them know they inspired you to donate.”

First, only an asshole would respond to this. I, for example, have a very strong set of political beliefs. The vast majority of my friends and family—literally, I realized one day recently, almost every single one—has an opposing set of beliefs.

None of us would dare treat one another the way team Obama suggests Democrats treat their Republican friends.

But let’s get beyond the adolescent rudeness of the idea and consider it solely from an email-marketing perspective.

This should be a very short discussion.

Team Obama is offering to spam Republicans on behalf of their soon-to-be former Democrat friends. Republican recipients will report the unsolicited email from the Obama camp as spam.

If the effort is even close to successful, email inbox providers will see a spike in spam complaints and begin treating all email from team Obama accordingly by delivering it to people’s spam folders.

Moreover, though Republicans haven’t shown themselves to be any smarter about email than Democrats, they could easily mount a counter campaign telling the folks on their lists to report any email from the Obama camp as spam.

Let’s think about this another way: A year before what many believe will be the most important presidential election in our lifetimes, the team behind the president decides that somehow there is a benefit in collecting—without their consent—email addresses of people who want him out of office and mocking them.

And with this juvenile initiative, they’re risking the ability to communicate by email to everyone on Obama’s list—even his most fervent supporters—over … well, over what, exactly?

What can a database of email addresses of people hostile to a cause—who have no doubt, just been made more hostile—possibly accomplish?

Only team Obama can answer that question.

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Terms: Feel free to be as big a jerk as you want, but don't attack anyone other than me personally. And don't criticize people or companies other than me anonymously. Got something crappy to say? Say it under your real name. Anonymous potshots and personal attacks aimed at me, however, are fine.

Posted by: James O'Brien
Date: 2011-12-20 20:19:12
Subject: Campaigns and Technology

Campaigns are generally a couple years behind corporate marketers. And the staff, even in the best places transitions so much it's difficult to retain institutional memory on things like the login for the Constant Contact account- let alone how to manage a mail program correctly. But I will let you in on the stupidest thing that happens between party, orgs and campaigns: in the old days you would lend out your list as political capital- some orgs did and still do rent out lists or get paid to mail. Forget volunteers, even political pros usually have no idea about privacy policies and the restrictions placed on not so much the collection, but the transfer of data. Deliverability issues you say!? These people are lucky they don't end up getting their bosses named by the FTC when data slides from one campaign to another, or is collected by one org and used by a related org. Even though these suckers exempt themselves from my beloved CAN-SPAM ACT they dare not violate a voter's privacy. (In fact in most other countries political data receives an even higher level of protection b/c in can obviously be used against someone.) There are a few hardcore email people in politics who get it. I can count them on one hand. The rest still have "emailblast" under jobs skills on their resumes.

Posted by: Ruth P. Stevens
Date: 2011-12-20 18:42:14
Subject: embarassing...!

Ken, this is so ham-handed, I can't believe it's coming from the Obama team. My sense is that a group of people got in a room said "How can we gain leverage from email's interactivity, and also do something fun and edgy?" And came up with this crazy idea. Embarassing.

Posted by: Ken Magill
Date: 2011-12-20 16:11:05
Subject: To be fair...

Fair enough, but it is still one of the dumbest things I've seen in 15 years of reporting on email marketing.

Also, I didn't say it in the article, but I'll add it now. The whole tone of this adolescent scheme is beneath the office of the presidency.

Obama is not just Democrats' president. He is every American's president. His team should act like it.

Posted by: Mickey Chandler
Date: 2011-12-20 15:56:23
Subject: To be fair...

To be fair, Ken, they do say that they're not going to hold on to the information.

I just can't imagine that this will end well. I know that I certainly wouldn't want to be the next to send email on an IP that will surely garner a huge number of complaints and other things that will make for a less than stellar reputation.