An anachronistic communication

Maybe I’m getting soft. I don’t know. But I’m starting to notice – more than ever – communications from companies that are at best goofy and at worst mildly offensive. And when I say “offensive,” I don’t mean that they offend me in any typical way. Actually, I might enjoy a little provocation. Something to get the blood flowing. No. They are offensive because they take a bit of my time and offer nothing in return. They have nothing to offer me, not even a tiny morsel of entertainment.

So here’s the latest. An email from OTX, a leading customer research firm (well, they said they were a “leading…” so they must be). The subject line of the email: “Walt Disney World Resort needs your opinion!” I’m going to analyze this email after I paste it below, but I just cannot wait to tell you how motivated and inspired I was by the exclamation point they added to the end of the subject line! No. Really! “Walt Disney World Resort needs your opinion” – eh. Maybe yay, maybe nay. But “Walt Disney World Resort needs your opinion!” Well that’s got all the gravitas I need to click on over and offer my opinion. Heck, I’m so fired up that I might want to bail on the survey and grab a flight to share my valuable opinion with Disney in person!!!!!!!!! (I suppose if one exclamation can have that effect on me, then many of them will convince you what a good blog post this is.)

And now the body of the email (I’m only pasting the beginning):

Dear Adam Schorr,
“OTX, a leading customer research firm, is conducting this online survey on behalf of Walt Disney World® Resort in Florida.
Your opinions are very important to the Walt Disney World® Resort and all information you provide will be kept STRICTLY confidential and be combined with those of others. Again, this survey is for research purposes only, and is not intended to sell or market any products.
Depending upon your responses, this survey could take as much as 15 minutes to complete. We ask that you complete the survey as soon as possible. To take our online survey, please click on the link below, or copy the complete address into your browser…”

Now here is the analysis (which, BTW, probably applies to many of these online surveys, not just OTX):

• First of all, I think “dear” should not be used where you’re going to use someone’s last name. If you’re not on familiar enough terms to call someone by their first name then how dear are they to you really?
• And back to the subject line, why am I supposed to care that Disney “needs” my opinion? And isn’t this just a tad melodramatic?
• Is the survey genuinely not intended to sell or market any products?? I don’t know how that got past the Legal Department. I haven’t taken the survey so it’s possible this is some not for profit venture that Disney is starting at its resorts. But in all likelihood, this survey is entirely intended to market a product – Disney World. This is market research. Now what they could have said is that there will be no sales pitch in their email or in the survey. But what they said in their email is what’s known in advertising law as “literally false” and in common parlance as a “lie.”
• Why not just say: “The purpose of this survey is to make Disney World an even more magical place. Your answers and the answers of all the other people that will graciously take their time to help Disney, will help create even more wonderful and joyous experiences for the families that visit Disney World next year.”
• Now they tell me that the survey will take 15 minutes. OK. If by now they had gotten me excited or even interested in taking the survey, then I would have perceived the time requirement as “only 15 minutes.” But since they haven’t sold me yet, all I see is that they’re taking 15 minutes of my time.
• And finally (for now), they ask me to take the survey as soon as possible. The nerve! (That’s not a good exclamation point. It means they sort of ticked me off with their presumptuousness.)

There are some bigger points here and they apply both to OTX and to Disney. But more to Disney because I will remember their name while OTX just blends in with “Acme” and every other boring corporate name I’ve ever heard.

This email is an example of the sort of communication that was designed for a world in which people trusted big companies and considered them authority figures of a sort. In this world, big companies spoke and we listened. They made products and we bought. We could have any color we wanted as long as it was black. That sort of thing.

We don’t live in that world any more. People today (below a certain age of course) no longer feel beholden to traditional sources of authority. They no longer have to pay heed to messages from large corporations. Your ad annoys me? Click. Or, better yet, I never see it because I use a DVR. When we read about big corporations, it’s usually not something that makes us like you more. We have control over our time in ways that you could not have imagined a few short years ago. Especially when we are online.

In the old world, you could have sent me an email basically demanding that I spend 15 minutes to help you out without a decent explanation of why I would do that. Today you should assume that I start off skeptical and disinterested. Sell me. Convince me that this is something important. Not to you. I get that part of it. But convince me that helping you is actually important to me.

Now here’s the part to which OTX and Disney really ought to pay attention.

When you send out a communication, you are telling people who and what you are. This was a brand touchpoint for both OTX and Disney. What did I learn about them? Did I learn how much they care about their customers? Did I learn how obsessive they are about insuring a magical resort experience for their guests? Did I learn how much they appreciate people taking time to share feedback? No. What I learned is that they do not respect me or my time.

Of course this will not forever trash my perceptions of Disney. But it doesn’t help. My friend Jeremy Epstein has written extensively on the need to insure that all customer touchpoints are serving up a positive message (and consistently so). Here’s one of his posts, but I encourage you to check out his blog for more.

I suspect that the research firm considered this email a mechanism of soliciting information (i.e., pulling something in) rather than also a means of sending something out. But all communications send a message out. When you ask someone to tell you the time, you are intending only to get information back to make your life better. You do not intend to tell the recipient of your request anything about you. But you are. “Hey man, what time is it?” “Excuse me, do you happen to know the time?” “Can you please tell me what time it is?” They are all different. They say something different about you.

So here is my message to you all:

• People: Delete these emails. Force the industry to do a better job.
• Disney: This is your brand. You spend a lot of money cultivating it. Don’t chip away at it by letting anyone send out anything on your behalf (not matter how small) that does not conform to your standards and does not sound like Disney.
• OTX: I don’t know about your other clients, but Disney knows a whole heck of a lot about creating experience. They are probably much better at creative copywriting than you. Don’t have some junior account person write these emails. Don’t use boilerplate copy. In fact, if you have a client like Disney, why not ask them to write these emails? I promise they will do a better job than you. And I’m pretty sure they didn’t hire you for creative copywriting.

Tagged as: Communication, culture, Disney, marketing