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Happy Holidays. No. Really. We mean it.

By on December 20, 2007 in message responsible, responsible or not?

Waste Management holiday message

“From everyday collection to environmental protection, Think Green. Think Waste Management.” That’s the tagline in the footer of a Happy Holidays email I received from Waste Management.

The rest of the message:

Dear Valued Customer,

We hope you have a safe and happy holiday.

Cordially,

Waste Management

Apparently, they didn’t want to waste any time with pithy sentiments, creating something visually interesting or personalizing the message.

Really tugs at the heartstrings, doesn’t it?

Is it the thought that counts, or would WM been better off not sending anything at all? What do you think?

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  • http://creditunionwarrior.blogspot.com Credit Union Warrior

    If WM had not sent out an email, I would imagine 99.99998% of their customers would not have noticed. They sent out a crappy one…no one will argue with that.

    However poorly constructed as this letter is, it certainly had to have SOME positive effect. First, we’re talking about it. Second, they got their logo and tagline in front of their customors. And third, they wished their customers a happy holiday. Those are all good things that would not have happened without sending out the email.

    Will their customers now love them because of the email? Absolutely not.

    Will their customers hate them for clogging up their inboxes with this email? Maybe, maybe not. I would hate them a lot less than most such emailers because the message is so short and wastes less cyber space.

    Was it worth the investment? Who knows. A wise person once said, “anything worth doing is worth doing well.” This email certainly fails that test. I would argue, though, that in marketing something is often better than nothing. The thing that WM has going for it in this case is that it’s not all that hard to justify an expenditure of, say, $0.00.

  • http://www.BallardAgency.com Chris Ballard

    While certainly not warm and fuzzy, think about how many: 1. Trees they Saved, 2. Work they saved for themselves by not having to pick up the recycling they mailed out. I’m sure the idea was to reduce the amount of paper used and recycled…but maybe they could have stated that in their Holiday wish.

    CB