Wow. Talk about an overreaction.
Email Experience Council founder Jeanniey Mullen last week sent out a call to action for people on her e-mail list to smack ClickZ columnist Al DiGuido around, claiming he disparaged the EEC in a column.
“I need to ask something of you: please take 2 minutes to help educate Al DiGuido on the mission and value the EEC provides our industry,” Mullen’s e-mail said. “Today, he wrote a very inaccurate ClickZ article regarding our mission.”
After touting the organization with a bunch of buzzwords, she then included an excerpt from an e-mail she said she sent to DiGuido.
“There are clearly a number of EEC efforts that you are significantly mis-informed about,” she wrote. “There is specifically one area of the EEC that would be very close to your heart, based on your philanthropic interests. Maybe in your next column you could cover the good that is being done in our industry.”
Omygod! I thought. What the heck could he have said? This is gonna be great!
So, I clicked through to DiGuido’s column and began reading it ... and read … read some more … drifted for a few minutes … thought about how I have this itch that just doesn’t seem to want to go away … realized I was scratching my ass at work … stopped scratching … read some more … finished.
That’s it? I thought. This is what she got so &%$#ing worked up about?
Essentially, DiGuido said he believes the EEC is focusing on issues that should have been solved a long time ago and, as a result, he’s starting a new group called the EROI Council.
“No press releases, committee meetings, chairs or co-chairs,” he wrote. “Most of the ‘direct marketers’ I encounter are more concerned about driving incremental sales and profits for their companies.”
He continued: “While issues surrounding e-mail list growth and deliverability may be the fodder of committee meetings, I believe most DMA members are struggling to figure out how to craft strategies that provide them with a competitive edge in acquiring new customers, retaining existing customers, and building profitable lifetime customer relationships.”
DiGuido then touted his new organization with more of his own buzzwords and invited anyone who’s interested to contact him about it.
So? The guy believes the EEC isn’t meeting a need in the marketplace and that he can fill it. He has every right to publish that opinion and start his own effort. And whether he’s on to something or not, only the marketplace’s reaction will tell.
So much for a good schoolyard brawl.
