Personalization Gone Bad

Kate, our HR Specialist, brought me in a piece of mail last week. Funny thing is, she was laughing. It was an envelope, seemed a bit bulky. Ah yes, a gift from one of those personalized business gift companies whose name I won't mention.

I looked at the address, surprisingly my name is spelled right. That's another story, but ouch...Verticakresponse Incorporated. Bummer.

It gets better... I reach into the envelope and pull out what is looking like a pretty nice pen. Bonus! I can always use one of those. It's slick, it's small and ...ouch again...why should I have thought that if our company name was spelled wrong on the letter it may have been spelled right on the pen! Hoping I guess...silly me. At least they allow you to change it on the order form. Ok, kudos there since we know no one is perfect.

Now I've got a slick looking pen with Verticakresponse Incorporated on it. Basura.

The moral of the story? If you are going to personalize, make sure you've got good data and make sure you test it out not only in your email campaigns but everywhere you personalize.

Got any good personalization stories? Let's hear 'em!

Comments

[Ann Ray]

I received an imprinted calendar and follow-up call recently. I told the caller that I had disregarded their package because they sent it to a business that didn't exist. Someone out there is mining Whois for domain names and passing them off as companies--in this case one of my domains that has never had a live site. I agree, if you're going to run a high-cost campaign, a bargain basement list is a foolish place to start.

[Marshall Brown]

Historically, mistakes have introduced a variety of new ideas. I enjoy ocassional lapses into imperfection, it serves as a reminder of the fact that we're only human after all. In spite of its obvious shortcoming, this mispelling is cute in its own deformed way. I would have laughed too!

[pchas]

I got one of those pens too! I work for the Department of Financial Institutions and my pen said "Department of Financial Instituti" which sounds vaguely Italian and definately wrong.

Marketing ploys gone wrong like this are what I call "disvertisements" because they dissuade potential customers from doing business with you. If a company sends me cheap, shoddy work even as a freebie, I won't give them a second look.

[Steve Rucinski]

Great story, they missed by one letter renaming your business, if you add an "e" after the k you would have verticakeresponse which might be a good name for a baking blog.

Great blog, keep up the great work.