Shady, street-level marketers spent so much time corroding our ability to trust with their scams and their deceipt and their lies that they accidentally overdosed us and left us for dead. Plus they gave us hepatitus. Makes you pretty angry, huh. Did you know the guy who pioneered TV thought he built something that would allow cultures around the world to learn about each other, and this would lead to an age of reason and understanding. The renaissance emancipator turned into a shameless marketing tool and he lived the rest of his days cloaked in guilt at "the monster [he'd] created".
Sounds like some other invention I've heard of. Oh right, it was "every other communication device ever invented." I'm not alone in saying that this disease has infected my phone and email. As a result, in my private life, I'm not terribly easy to get a hold of. Actually, it's quite easy, but I might answer my phone with foreign gibberish to weed out telemarketers. I am officially voice mail phobic. I'll check it, but typing in all those numbers to access to system then waiting to scan one-by-one and debating the motives of each caller - you could say it's not the favourite part of my day.
Marketers have made diseased corpses out of trust and prematurely killed voicemail too.
There are days I want to flying dropkick my phone through a plate of glass. Friends tell me they have dozens of partially heard messages saved on their work and cellphones waiting for that one ambitious afternoon where they'll buckle down and give them the attention they deserve. I ask them what calendar year? They prefer it when people send them a text or email. Are they unique? Nope. U.S. phone carrier studies show that 30% of calls sit for at least three days before being checked.
So on the one hand, all this fear of marketers has heralded a new age of brand engagement, product interaction, experiential marketing and social media ties to get around the diseased corpses of old school marketing messages, but what about us everyday people who got an air bubble shot into our arms? What about our more day-to-day concerns? Fear not. Hope is on the way. Wireless providers are figuring out how to convert voice mail into text and email so save you from your own trust issues, and they're already starting to roll them out. If my phone hadn't been suplexed into some drywall, I'd love to have that technology today.
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A quick tip: the one good reason to answer telemarketer calls. No, not for material for your phony phone call album. In that brief two second pause after you answer before a human comes on the line to pitch you, a computer is logging that your number has been reached and you're removed from the call-back cycle that has your phone ringing at the same time every day. As air rushes into the telemarketer for those first words, my phone is already on it's way back to the cradle. It's an effective and beautiful dance.
As an aside, if you're looking to have fun with telemarketers, try this: next time you get a call from a 000 area code, take the call. When they tell you their records show your car/truck warranty is in danger of expiring and can be renewed for as little as $600, tell them you drive a model-T ford or Mad Max's old ride, and they will still be happy to help you. It's surreal.
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