The White House just sent me spam.
As a guy in the email industry, I don’t toss the S-word around lightly. However, that was my immediate reaction when an email from “David Axelrod, The White House” landed in my inbox last week.
Now, let me be clear. From a CAN-SPAM perspective, this was not spam. It was unsolicited, but not illegal. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 does not require mailers to prove opt-in; instead they must provide the ability to opt-out. Also, political emails are exempt (<–This may be debatable).
That being said, CAN-SPAM is the legal framework. It does not comment on “best practices” or even more basic, “doing what is right.” Some people who received this email from “David Axelrod, The White House” clearly were not happy. I don’t know the background on Major Garrett, but he seemed less then happy (or maybe he was just stirring the political pot). As Fox News says, “…you decide.”
Besides the fact that this clip is entertaining – no matter what side of the aisle you are on – it brings up some interesting questions:
- Did the White House rent a list or used forwarded email addresses?
- **How – if at all – will they address this issue? Send an apology email? Issue a formal press release? Will Obama talk about it?
- Are the email rules different for the government?
- Does anyone care that they are not following sound email marketing best practices (see comments below)?
**Since this report/video was released last week, the White House has responded: “White House will change e-mail rules”
A quick critique of why this email failed from a design perspective:
1. From Name:. I don’t know who “David Axelrod, The White House” is. I had to google him. Okay, now I “remember” – he’s the Senior Advisor to President Obama. Who would take the time to look that up? Also, all I can see in my gmail inbox is “David Axelrod, The…” Verdict? Delete/Spam.
2. Subject Line: “Something worth forwarding” looks, smells, and tastes of spam. It might as well have said, “Send $1,000,000 to the Central Bank of Nigeria.” Verdict? Delete/Spam.
3. Length/Copy: Lots of text, lots of scrolling. No call to action above the fold. Nothing to entice me to read beyond my initial scan. Verdict? Delete/Spam.
4. “Please don’t reply”: I wrote about this back in my Bronto days: http://blog.bronto.com/2008/11/21/donotreadthispost/. Blasting out an email to me and then telling me I can’t reply is not engagement. Verdict? Delete/Spam.
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Did you receive the same email in your inbox last week? Did you have similar thoughts? Did you read it or delete it? Did you mark it as spam or junk? Did you have the same reaction to the content as I did? How about the video clip?
DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
Nice recap DJ.
Hey DJ, great post. I didn’t receive this in my inbox, being that I am in the great white north. Did you opt-in through the white house website? This definitely does look like spam – I would have deleted it right away.
I wonder how effective this email will be when all is said and done. Maybe they should have done some split testing 😉
Thanks for a great post DJ. I received the email too. Since it was unsolicited and unwanted, I forwarded it to spam@uce.gov (per the instructions on the FTC’s website), but I’m not holding my breath on that making any difference.
As an email marketer, I am bothered that they are not following sound email marketing best practices. The email rules should not be different for the government. If anything, the government should have a more stringent permission policy than other mailers.
This is just the most recent email in a long line of emails that I have received from the White House. I’m pretty sure I signed up to receive updates from the White House or from the Obama campaign (which would be terrible for the White House to assume use of that list). I think there have been 3-4 different “someone” from the White House as the sender.
I think another problem should stem from the “expectations” that were set up from the beginning. I just wanted updates on happenings in the White House, maybe just stupid “here are some photos of the White House dog” or latest Presidential appearance. I really did not expect a mostly one sided email, encouraging us to endorse policy. It just didn’t sit right.
But anyhoo, it was a “delete” for me because it was information that I was already getting from the rest of the media. In the end, a message from Mr. Axelrod wasn’t something I wanted to receive from the White House.
DJ,
I got this email in my inbox. For full disclosure, I’m on the DNC’s mailing list (which is probably how the White House got my email address). The DNC isn’t perfect either, with the overkill factor and trying to get around it with different “voices.”
I am perfectly in agreement with you on both the spamminess and the design issues with this email. It’s a shame that the designers felt the need to abandon the look of Obama’s campaign website and go with something so sterile.
All in all, nice post. It will be interesting to see if anyone from the WH responds with anything besides the “Oh, we’ll change the ‘rules.'”
DJ:
You know it pains me to agree with you – just as it did you last week with me. But this is all a mess. Everyone needs to be held to the same laws and rules no matter if they are a politician (hell I think those people need to be held to stricter laws and rules), non profit or marketer.
I got this email as well as 4 others in a 1 month period from the Obama list opt in from 4 different people advancing an agenda. Posted a little something on it this AM.
Nice work on this and “we’ll change the rules” is like a 3 year old taking thier toys and going home to play by themselves. They need to man up and take the high road. After all they are the top of the food chain.
http://theemailwars.com/2009/08/17/should-the-white-house-be-exempt/
Great post. It would be interesting to know the deliverability rates for the White House. One would assume in the layers and layers of filtering that spam traps might zero in on ‘White House’ in the subject line and block the messages. The White House uses an ESP right? Are their IPs whitelisted?
I use otherinbox.com to manage any email lists I sign up for. How I use it is: the name of the site@myotherinbox.com. So for example, If I go to domain.com and sign up for a list or if they require an email address, I set my email address to domain@myotherinbox.com. What this does is organize all of my list emails into their own mailbox on the otherinbox site (cool site, which I am not affiliated with). The reason I am explaining this is that I got one of these emails sent to whitehouse@myotherinbox.com. Though I do not remember ever signing up for any white house correspondence I am going to assume that I must have, otherwise if they were buying some list from “spammer.com” the email would have been sent to spammer@myotherinbox.com.
Not sure if this makes sense to those not familiar
with how otherinbox.com works, but it leads me to believe that sometime, somewhere, in the last year or two (how long I have been a member of otherinbox) I gave that address to them.
I dont recall doing it, I am not even Democrat so I am not sure why they are sending me agenda emails in the first place. I treated it as spam – because that is what it was.
Wow. Some great comments here. Thanks everyone. Juicy topic, huh?
@Simms: Thanks!
@AngeBarber: Not sure if/when I opted-in. I probably did, but many many did not!
@frances: I’d love to hear if you get a reply from the FTC. Doubt it, but would be cool, huh? Classic that you followed instructions and sent them an email alerting them of their own spam…ha ha.
@Keith: Unwanted = Spam/Delete – almost always. Too bad they never really set expectations. Also, the changing from name really bothers me too. Thanks for your comments.
@Scott: I *may* be on the DNC list too. Can’t remember!
@Dylan: Yeah. Us agreeing is pretty odd. Nice link love.
@Cari: Not sure if/who the WH uses as their ESP. I know they use Goodmail for “authentication” but…
@Andrew: No Gravatar?
Thanks again everyone. Wonderful comments.
DJ Waldow
@djwaldow
[…] DJ: The Email Zoo: “The White House Sent Me Spam” Chris: Bronto Blog: “White House Email Acquisition Controversy” […]
Great conversation going on here, and if you’re looking for even more WH spam debate, see the Bronto blog@
http://blog.bronto.com/2009/08/14/white-house-email-acquisition-controversy/
BUT, only after you’ve read through this blog posting and the comments. 🙂
-Chris
[…] White House Spam Ãâë The Email Zoo […]
Like a tree falling in the forest… if you unsubscribe, does the White House have to honor it?
Unfortunately, all signs point to no. But they run the risk of another PR crises if they don’t on a mass scale.
[…] DJ wrote on the Email Zoo Blog, the White House clearly forgot about respecting the subscriber. The message sent was pages long […]
I have to disagree with your post here DJ, but not for the detailed points you made, all of which were entirely valid.
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I don’t think the email from The White House was spam, simply because it came from The White House. For me this isn’t about politics as much as it’s about communicating with the masses.
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OK, this email discusses important legislation that’s going to impact everyone’s life and pocketbook if passed. And (full disclosure) I happen to agree with the administration’s position.
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The point, for my part, is that since this is from The White House, from the President’s office, it’s a communication we don’t get to opt-out of. The White House has a right to contact us in any way it likes for any reason it likes, regardless of the administration serving.
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In fact, I extend that point to cover any representative in our direct line of representation. I don’t think former Governor Palin of Alaska should send me a note about panels of insurance eating dead people or whatever, but as a tax payer in N.C. I’m OK if Governor Perdue decides to drop a few lines to keep me informed about her reasons for raising my taxes while cutting back services. She’s my Governor. She gets to.
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Again, I agree on the fine points. I just don’t think they apply in this case.
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As always IMHO,
Sid.
[…] many of you email marketers may remember, and as DJ Waldow wrote about on the Email Zoo Blog, the White House clearly forgot about respecting the subscriber. The message sent was pages long […]
Nice article found your site searching in yahoo I think you could have taken a more neutral view.