Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The silent sufferings of Web Marketing!

Have you ever noticed the advertisement links that appear while you read and write emails on Gmail? Do your eyes ever stray to the pictures and commercials on the right side while viewing photos on FaceBook? Did you trash the matrimonial and dating messages on your Rediff and Hotmail Inbox today?

You are lucky if you haven't! You have been spared from a few embarrassing moments. You don't believe me? Read on ....

The other day, I uploaded few pictures on FB, the popular social networking website. The album was titled "Moo/Shoo .... Missing you guys!" in fond remembrance of India visit of my Brother/Sister-in-Law. Lo and Behold! A beautiful girl appeared flaunting her smooth limbs selling permanent Hair Removal Solutions along with hot Lingerie displays and finally a link to Gurgaon Singles Club .... all appearing on the right side of the page. Good Heavens!

Then, I remember exchanging a series of mails over Gmail with a plain acquaintance updating him with latest news from my end like my mother's sad demise 5 years back and me quitting work and likewise. Amidst the strictly formal sentences of the mails, I could read hilarious Ad link prompts on the right such as "Love Aaj Kal songs", "An answer to your lonely heart?", "Love poems and Romantic lines free download". I became jittery feeling a hot flush over my forehead and it compelled me to re-read the string of mails just to make sure my language was not too mushy hinting at an unintended intimacy between the lines. Jeez!

And this last one walks away with the cake ....

My father was visiting me a few days back and asked me to check his mailbox after misplacing his spectacles. I logged in to witness at least 4-5 mails with ridiculous subject lines .... "Hi shivendra98, waiting for your dream date?" .... "Dear shivendra98, find your soulmate today!" and the last one had me hit the roof with my trademarked hysterical laughter ...."Hi shivendra98! Want to make it LONG and STRONG?" and I teased Baba relentlessly about it! Imagine an elderly senior citizen like him who has always been respectfully addressed as Dasgupta ji, aged 72 years, a widower for the last 5 years having lost his wife in a tragic road accident getting such trash mails with a completely bizarre identity shivendra98.

I am really curious about the functioning of Web Marketing Services. The success criteria of any Advert or Promotion lies in reaching to the correct Market Segment at the most appropriate time. I mean, why is it so difficult to avoid sending a Matrimonial Ad to a 72 year old person when he fills up his birthday as mandatory info while registering on the website? Why have the Google crawlers been blindly programmed to prompt senseless Ad Links just on the basis of a few words getting repeated during a conversation? Needless to mention the discomfort one faces when irrelevant mails clog his Inbox. Does anyone monitor the effectiveness of such Marketing methods?

Anyway, the brighter side to the story is that such instances do tickle the funny bone of jobless and bored individuals like me while providing enough gas to continue writing my blog .....

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