I’m just back from Iron Lester, a one-day retreat in upstate New York which, for $3500, provided direct marketers and vendors a chance to get in touch with their feelings regarding consumers’ seeming rejection of the industry.
We started the day by throwing cast-iron replicas of telephones into Lake Wannannahaffpercentreturn, symbolizing our surrender of the outbound telemarketing channel. A few participants, caught up in the moment, also tossed their cell phones into the lake. (There was a frenzy of diving as some realized that the loss of the phone also meant the loss of the digital golf game built into the units.)
After a hearty lunch, we proceeded to a poetry “spam.” Poetry spams differ from traditional poetry “slams” in that the poems at a spam are at once useless and seemingly endless. Most of the poems were the usual doggerel, such as “To a Prospect Lost,” “O Customer, My Customer” and “The 19-Month Recency Blues.”
One standout, however, was industrial commercial director Antoine Stepf’s “Ode to the Long-Form Infomercial,” which would have been met with thunderous applause had he managed to clip around 15 minutes from its hour-long reading time.
The evening was capped by a bonfire cookout-and-rally. At one point, a few overly zealous list brokers appeared to be trying to toss each other into the flames, although that was probably an optical illusion caused by the smoke.
As we rode back to civilization, poorer of pocket yet richer in spirit, we agreed that we all owed empowerment movement founder Robert Bly a great debt, and that we would be happy to chip in and send him a nice gift basket, if we could figure out a way of obtaining his contact information from the public records that are still available.
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California Gubernatorial Campaign Update
Last week, I announced my write-in candidacy for governor of California, and offered a 10-point platform in support of my bid [Loose Cannon: If Elected, I Solemnly Swear, Direct Newsline, August 18, 2003]. For those keeping score, that’s an average of seven more points than most of the other candidates have offered.
Since then, Taco Bell has launched a promotion in which California customers ordering certain entrees will be counted as supporting specific candidates (http://www.tacobell.com/2003recall/). Consumers purchasing a Beef Crunchy Taco will be seen as standing behind Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, those buying a Soft Chicken Taco will be listed as backing incumbent Democrat Gray Davis, and those ordering a Grilled Stuft [sic] Burrito will be counted as supporting all of the other candidates on the ballot.
Taco Bell seems to have overlooked write-in candidates, but this is no excuse for true democracy to be thwarted. Effective immediately, any consumer who walks into a California Taco Bell and orders a Big Mac, a Whopper with Cheese, or the Colonel’s Extra Crispy Chicken will be counted as casting a vote for my candidacy.
Please note that this offer is only good in participating Taco Bells. My campaign will provide a list of these outlets when available.
To respond to the opinions in this column, please contact rlevey@primediabusiness.com.
