[...] any lesson learned from that Irish Greeting card blogger spamming [...]

On another note or rather returning to one of your original comments – I have the same issues remembering birthdays etc so I use moonpig.com who are excellent and while I would prefer to support an Irish company there really is no comparison between IGC and MP! (and for the cynics I dont work for MP!)

v

I’m prepared to believe that IGC has been victimised by Inspired, who may or may not have been victimised by a cowboy consultant. The problem is that when the mail comes through the door, the people getting it think “What a bunch of shitebag muppets.” The only difference is that I said it out loud.

And for the record, I still think the cards are crappy. The idea has potential, but they’ve gone a long way down the wrong road and the products aren’t there.

Wow, I think you were a little harsh here, I’m not saying this was a wonderful marketing strategy and they were pounced on unfairly… but…

Pat communicated directly with the company and rooted out the full story which obviously elicited some sympathy from you as you’ve gone from warnign people off the card company to admitting you might use them.

There’s (almost) always a fuller story.

An ill advised email and a use of a blogging platform you don’t agree with is hardly cause to publicly warn people off a company, certainly without at least contacting them personally about it first.

It looks like the company are making efforts to improve their efforts now, which also indicates they are well intentioned.

Fair play to Pat for contacting them personally and advising of the full story.

Anyway, we should grab a coffee sometime soon and argue about it :P

Cheers,
Frank

“but I’m perfectly prepared to believe they are normally both excellent and ethical.” … yeah right… in a pigs eye.

I would not make such a supposition without base information. Since I have such base information allow me to rephrase your comment to something approaching reality.

“but I’m perfectly correct in believing they are normally both incompetent and totally bloody clueless”

In fact another developer friend of mine and myself actually referred to this organisation as ‘Incompetence marketing’ for sooooooo long! Too long in fact… the word ‘Muppets’ springs to mind!

[...] my Google Reader lit up with a post by Sabrina.  Hah!  She had been targeted by the same crowd.  She obviously isn’t such a [...]

I think my second comment to Pat has bearing here. Inspired may have hired in a consultant to do the SEO, but ultimately it’s their name on the tin, so having been associated with this now, it’s Inspired upon whom this reflects badly.

I’ve never had any dealings with them, but I’m perfectly prepared to believe they are normally both excellent and ethical. If that is the case, I would expect them to fire the consultant, refund a substantial part of Irish Greeting Card’s money paid for work the was clearly not fit for purpose, re-evlauate their sign-off procedures, and make some sort of statement about what’s gone on here.

If they’re assisting people with social media marketing, than I think it’s completely fair to expect them to communicate with those of us actually out here in social media who have been angered by what can best be described as a poorly formulated stunt.

Also, frankly, I want to know who the consultant is. Back tracking through this, I might use Irish Greeting Cards now I have a fuller story. If Inspired does right by Irish Greeting Cards, I might even send people to them at some point in the future if they display any native intelligence about this situation.

But people need to be warned off whomever this consultant is. Plenty of people deliver little value for money, but in this case, actual desctruction was delivered for considerable amounts of cash, and people need to avoid, avoid, avoid whoever did this.

While I have no axe to grind, I think it fair to avoid the mark anthony saying “the good that men do is oft interred in their bones, while the evil lives on ever after”

so you might even be tempted still to use them – it really is a brilliant idea that has actually come from Ireland – and I would hope that the GBS motto – its better to be talked about behind you back than not to be talked about at all will work for them

my tuppence worth, Peter