I shouldn’t boast too much about this, I know, since you’re all going to get horribly jealous, but I just received a very exciting email, courtesy of the nice folks over at eBay, congratulating me on an impressive year (or is it 10?) of dedicated custom:
Now my friend Jim says this is the lamest bit of spam he’s seen in a long while, and points out that since I haven’t actually sold anything on eBay the sentiments expressed therein are as genuine as the Microsoft Office on his computer, but I think he’s just green with envy. Not least because the email contained a picture of the eBay Green-Pants Wearing Party Dude (pictured below for your convenience):
I think it’s a great idea to send congratulatory emails to your customers on the anniversaries of their signing up. Everyone could do it – ‘This is Microsoft here, congratulating you on the anniversary of buying Windows 98! Oh, and buy the way we don’t support it anymore, so you’ll have to buy Vista real soon! Have a good one!’ or ‘Hi! It’s your friendly cellphone company here. Congratulations on the 3rd anniversary of using our service! You’ll be pleased to know that with all the hidden fees and ridiculous per-kilobyte charges we tag onto your bill we’ve been able to send all our kids to finishing school in Switzerland! Keep talking and downloading and not looking too closely at your phone bill!’ It might clog our inboxes but it’ll be worth it to feel wanted.
And I think I’m going to make the Green Pants Dude my Dud of the Week emblem. After all he’s already wearing a dunce’s hat.