NiallOK’s Blog

Hi there! First time here? Feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed. If you like what you read, you can vote for me on IrishBlogs.info. Thanks for visiting!

Am I the only one to have gotten spam from the web site of “Living magazine”?

It reads like this:

Dear NIALL,

With Christmas almost upon us what better time to unwrap our brand new website [URL Removed]?

In case you hadn’t heard [URL Removed] is your chance to enjoy everything that Living Magazine has to offer - plus a lot more besides - on your computer.

At the site you’ll find the very latest Christmas edition of Living Magazine available to download. Plus, you’ll also to able to access recipes, tips and lots more.

And if you like what you see online why not register to become a Living Online member. That means you’ll receive Living Magazine in its online format from now on and will also be able to download coupons, enter fantastic competitions and take advantage of other exclusive member benefits.

Why not check out [URL Removed] and from all of us at Living we hope that you enjoy it and have a great Christmas too!

The Living Online Team

(I’m removing the URL ‘cos I’ve no intention of linking to them).

Why doth I protest so? - Well, I didn’t sign up for anything - this is pure unsolicited commercial email of the lowest tackiest order.

The site itself is pretty poor by any design standards. It’s particularly unattractive to look at, has an unfriendly navigation system and it forces PDF pages on you where it could have easily have used - *shock!* - HTML!

Also, it offers nothing to me - I’m clearly not their target market. By the looks of it, they haven’t done any market research, just send out a bulk spam. Oh, and it’s run by that massive and sneaky Unilever organisation (the one that puts loads of similar products on the market that ‘compete’ with each other) but the “contact us” link on their web site goes to carelines@fexco.com - Fexco being an Irish based financial services company (… what???).

As Michele has said before, companies do themselves a lot of damage by using e-mail spam as a marketing methodology, and as I said in an e-mail to Fexco, I will be recommending to people NOT to use the web site.