KLM Surprise? or KLM Stalker?

Ok so Blog post number 6. It's been a while!

In the past few weeks a certain campaign has kept popping up and like most people I'm not sure what to make of it. Here you go;



Part of me thinks ah that's a nice little idea at least they're trying to appear nice to their consumers. What some may not have realised is that the passengers targeted with "random" surprises were those with many facebook friends or twitter followers. Now this is to be expected really .. no successful marketer creates any campaign for a warm and fuzzy feeling it's to make money and the sole aim was to get them to retweet or mention how nice KLM are in an online platform. Smart guys, smart.

Now I can't go through an entire EMarketing blog lately without being a little creeped out by some of the methods companies have used in the online domain. This week it's the fact that KLM openly admitted to stalking the online profiles of their consumers. Just a little bit creepy guys.

It seems like not even a person getting a gift could get over the fact that they knew so much.
It begs the question, what companies are doing this sort of stuff behind closed doors?
How much information are we giving to large corporations without them even having to try overly hard to find it?

Funny how many Australian's were against the identity card a few years back and yet there are so many exceedingly public rofiles on social media sites.

What do you think? Will it only be a matter of time before companies won't need to buy your information, they will just need to do a google search?

And a note to KLM, we may have our information readily available, but finding it and telling us so publicly that you know so much is a little weird.

Conspiracy theorists becomming eMarketers?

So it seems I have a blogging pattern. Something happens that gets me thinking..
This week (naturally) has me thinking about 9/11 and the many many conspiracy theories that surrounds it.
Now I'm not trying to make this a blog about what really happened today because really I don't know what to think about it and like many I cannot commit to one belief.

So, relating to eMarketing made me think about the power of Web 2.0 on the humble conspiracy theory.
The conspiracy theory has outrun the internet by decades if not hundreds of years (lets not forget the old moon landing situation) but has it made it more accessible, has the internet and in particular social media allowed for conspiracy theories to run rampant?

There are literally hundreds of conspiracy theories in relation to 9/11 and I'm sure all of us can name at least 1. Would there have been less if these conspiracy theory websites did not eMarket?

Now their eMarketing strategy is a simple one. The nature of the conspiracy theory is one giant viral campaign and the power of word of mouth is simple enough to allow millions of hits on websites. This begs the question. Does a conspiracy theory even need to use marketing?

In my opinion they do but to a lesser extent when compared to a company because the right conspiracy theory can be so powerful in society that there is no need to prompt a consumer to investigate it. Their natural curiosity compels them. Or is that just me?

What do you think? Even if you do believe the moon landing is real, roswell was a misunderstanding and Kennedy was in the wrong place at the wrong time its still pretty interesting to hear a person's arguments over the net and how they try to voice them.

So my gift to you is the Wikipedia page for the many many 9/11 conspiracy theories. Check out the one on insider trading, not the most popular of the lot but one that makes you think quite a bit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories

Looks like the accountant's stole the e marketers

So, sitting down the other night doing some research for an assignment which had me searching for the charted accountants website on Google.

Like normal I hit the first one on the list of results. Charted Accountants website, tick, but that's when I noticed. I wasn't on the homepage. I was on the student homepage.

Well played Mr Accountant ... well played.

Me being the innadequate digital native just thought targeted e marketing and advertising was restricted to Google and Facebook however, it seems that even the accountants have caught on.

Initially I thought it was kinda cool that they thought that a student searching charted accountants was looking at graduate jobs and stuff (even though I wasn't looking for any of that and have no intention of becoming an accountant), but then I thought a little more.

What on the internet knows I'm a student; Facebook, blogger, google and monash to name a few but I'm pretty sure I've never investigated becoming a charted accountant which means they had to have bought the information from someone.

Facebook tailoring their advertising to me is one thing (its on the same website and keeps it free) but this in my opinion has crossed the line.

Now I'm not about to start putting foil hats on my head and declaring that the accountants are watching me from outer space but maybe businesses should be a little more wary of the e marketing techniques they are using. Consumers aren't stupid and even though they have broadcast certain pieces of information on the internet that does NOT make it fair game.

What do you think? Shouldn't stuff like this be illegal?