On 21 Aug, James Morris wrote:
> It seems strange that consumers are so suddenly shocked by the idea that
> they pay to be advertised to, as if this was not an everyday phenomenon
> occurring on a vast scale.
>
> Puzzled,
I understand completely that in my standard Telstra charges I am paying
for the advertising and marketing activities that Telstra carries out.
However, I find it shocking that you feel puzzled at my (and others)
reaction to Telstra's actions.
What so seriously annoyed me about this activity by Telstra was
a) The message was 'in my face' in a way I could not tune out (I had to
listen to it at least in part to get to my other messages). It
therefore stole my time (a commodity I value highly)
b) I had to pay for this advertising directly - as well as paying in the
usual way noted above.
I can protect myself from time wasted by spam email using procmail to
filter the incoming crap - I have no such capability on my voicemail. If
I am to be subjected to spam in my voicemail with no capability of
funnelling the messages automatically to /dev/null without having to
retrieve them, I see no utility in Telstra's service.
Finally, the sheer arrogance of the statements made by the interviewed
Telstra marketing person on ABC news this morning left me truly amazed.
I work closely with marketing people and I know the great care we take
in our marketing activities (albeit, our market is not the general
consumer). Is it normal for consumer oriented organisations to view
consumers with the contempt exhibited by Telstra this morning?
-- Robert Hart hartr@redhat.com Red Hat Asia-Pacific, Unit 15, 23 James St, Brisbane, Qld 4006, Australia Tel +61 (0)7 3872 4808 Fax +61 (0)7 3257 4800
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.1 : Fri Aug 31 2001 - 03:10:04 EST