COMING THIS MONDAY – THE FINAL INSULT
MONDAY AT 8AM CST- DESPAIR WILL UNVEIL A PRIVATE HOLIDAY SALES EVENT SO EXCLUSIVE WE CAN’T EVEN TELL YOU ABOUT IT UNTIL SUNDAY NIGHT.
This is it. Coming Monday morning, Despair will invite you- the Wailing List subscribers- to partake in perhaps the most radical promotional event Despair has ever undertaken.
How radical is it? It’s Smash-Your-Computer-And-Tear-Your-Larynx-Screaming-Obscenities-At-Despair Radical. It is the first marketing promotion in Despair history that I- your humble Marketing Peon- have been able to completely define myself- without interference from marketing Higher-Ups (and only slight interference from the one Marketing Lower-Up, Heidi the Intern).
The only constraint I was given- imposed by Dr. Kersten himself- was that I couldn’t announce it until 12 hours before the event starts- because, in his words, “If this gets out too early, you’ll have a ton of outsiders trying to game it. And that can not be allowed to happen.”
So- Sunday night at 8PM CST- I will mail out the complete parameters of this promotion to Wailing List subscribers. The promotion will begin 12 hours later- Monday at 8AM CST.
About it- I can say only the following as hints. Yes, it will include new Demotivators (including the one that I wrote above!). Yes, it will break many rules of Conventional Marketing. Yes, items ordered during the promotion window will arrive before Christmas. (Oh, and Heidi wants me to add that if it fails, it will probably result in me being fired, or at least demoted to something actually lower than an Intern. Thanks, Heidi!)
But- if it succeeds? Well, I’m going to look like the Marketing Genius I have long asserted myself to be (on those occasions when I wasn’t complete disavowing my profession entirely and pretending that I was a promising Screenwriter.). I might even get a bonus or– dare I dream– a Promotion? Not to burden you with my problems, of course. I don’t want to try to Guilt Trip you into buying something, just to validate me as an employee and maybe get me the chance I’ve been dreaming about- to actually get promoted to the Writing Staff. Nor do I want to try to frighten you into buying something during MY FIRST COMPLETELY ORIGINAL MARKETING PROMOTION by invoking the horrors of what the Wailing List might turn into if I was fired and its authorship was turned over to a 20-something year-old SMU Marketing Graduate who worships at the altar of the Neiman Marcus catalog and might turn it into something like this.
“Wait- wait a minute!”, you blurt, shaking the cobwebs off, “is this some sort of total psyche-out? Is this part of the promotion? Trying to shame me into making you look good in front of your superiors by spending money to validate your first promotion? What kind of cheap, emotionally manipulative marketing mind games are you trying to pull?”
Hey. I said it was radical. I meant it.
Find out how Radical by checking your email Sunday Night. Around 8PM CST. And prepare to be infuriated!
As long as I’m emotionally manipulating you, why not join my My Twitter Followership? Some Austinite named Lance Armstrong started started Twittering the same day I did and he’s already got 5x as many followers! What’s up with that? So he rides a bike- I can do that, too! But can he turnaround an Inline Click-Thru Report on a mailing of 125,000 emails while chewing gum and singing along in a pitch perfect imitation of Vanilla Ice’s now definitive version of Bob Marley’s Buffalo Soldier. I think not!
Heidi, reading over my shoulder, wants to know, “Who is Vanilla Ice again?” That reggae guy you keep playing?”
And you call yourself a Dallasite.