I received an amusing e-mail this morning from a company that wishes for me to promote their product. I would like to comment on it, as it relates to a topic I discussed recently concerning the need for trust to conduct word of mouth advertising [1]:

Hi

My colleague, Shubhajit, reached out to you last week and I wanted to follow up on the email he sent to you as he is currently on holiday. I want to make sure you have received the offer for the free promo codes for you and the readers of Edge Induced Cohesion to try out [Company name here], the newest, most affordable, online international calling service. I’m hoping you will be willing to review [Company name here] and post about it on your site – we’re trying to generate some online buzz. All of the info about [Company name here] and the promo codes are posted here, so please feel free to use any or all of it in your review:

[Website here]

[Company name here] will also be making major changes over the next few months including some amazing giveaways. If you are able to post a review or tweet about [Company name here], please let me know – I’d love to share it with my team.

Thank you so much,

Nina
—
Nina Martin,
[Company address here]
[Facebook page here]

Response:

I do not remember getting the unsolicited advertisement to pump this international cellular service plan from Nina’s colleague. If I did get it, it was probably promptly deleted in my spam folder without a second thought or even first thought in the matter. I get a lot of unsolicited spam and I don’t appreciate it. That said, getting a second one while I was in the mood to think about endorsements is at least worthy of a little thinking.

First of all, upon doing a little bit of research, it would appear that this company (which shall remain anonymous) offers PC to phone calling for reasonably cheaply. Unfortunately, that’s not cheap enough for me. I’m looking for absolutely free, like Skype. Cheap is not cheap enough to compete for my interest, though I have to wonder what kind of business model would allow a company that offered such a program to make profit. It probably would require annoying advertisements. I suppose I could live with that, but at any rate the company in question slightly miscalculated in assuming I was willing or able to pay for any kind of service of its kind. It’s a common mistake.

I have to give the company credit for cheekiness, though. To ask for an endorsement of a product when one has not bothered to get to know the person you are looking to do free advertising for you and how he thinks about such marketing ploys is a very risky move. First of all, I don’t like getting asked to do marketing for other people. I’m the kind of person who is somewhat ambivalent about doing marketing for myself–and I am that way knowing the sort of quality is present in my own writing and other talents. To think that I will gladly endorse a product for free that I do not know simply because it has sent out unsolicited e-mails looking for me to help them profit is not acceptable business practice.

Nonetheless, the subject has got me thinking about a slightly larger issue. Right now it happens to be endorsement season for the primary election campaign. Given the fact that I am both passionately interested in politics of all kinds (as this blog is testament to), and living internationally, I will have to vote by absentee ballot this campaign (and am currently waiting for the ballot). The question of endorsements is important for political candidates seeking to improve their brand name, and not only for companies looking for profits.

The same principle applies, though. For me, an endorsement without any effort of personal appeal means nothing. This has been the case throughout my life. I demand personal attention before providing enthusiastic support. As a high school student I did not apply to the “best” school within my state, the University of Florida, largely because it did not make any effort to woo me. I had universities from other places send me videos, booklets, personal letters, even a few personal phone calls. I got nothing from the University of Florida, not when I lived an hour and a half away from them. I felt a bit piqued that they took me support for granted, and therefore was entirely disinclined to apply to them and have remained disinclined to support them or their second-rate athletics programs in any fashion. If someone has no personal interest in me, they can expect me to return to the lack of support for them.

The same is true for politics as well. I do not care who is supported by [insert name of pundit or politician here]. I care about who they are, their record and proposals and what interest they have in me as a person, in my hopes and ambitions. If they take my support for granted, they will not get it. I am someone who has to be wooed. As someone who tends to try very hard in life, I expect others to mirror my response and approach. Those who do not consider me worth the time to work with or appeal to, especially when I see those people pandering to others, will not only not receive my support, but the chances of them receiving outright scorn are fairly high. I take such matters very personally. If you are looking for my endorsement and are not interested in taking the time to earn it, consider yourself warned.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/word-of-mouth/