This discusses the authors experience when he received an email marketing message from a sister company of a brand that he was subscribed to. He had not opted in to the sister companies email. Is this spamming? You be the judge.
One afternoon, I was minding my own business when an e-mail landed in my inbox and prompted me to do a double take. Not in a "wow that is something uniquely cool" kind of way. But in a "legitimate brand just spammed me" kind of way.
Some may shrug their head and say "duh." Still, I was surprised, frustrated, and wanted to try to make sense of this.
Here's what happened: I received two e-mails from two different brands within two minutes - RedEnvelope and ProFlowers. I sensed something was wrong.
I had previously opted in to receive e-mail messages from RedEnvelope. While I rarely buy from RedEnvelope, its e-mails are generally well done. On the other hand, I haven't had any contact with or purchased anything from ProFlowers in years. I unsubscribed from e-mail marketing lists for ProFlowers and other florists because they were sending out too many e-mail messages.
As an e-mail marketing purist and true believer in permission-based e-mail marketing, I replied to RedEnvelope, asking why it transferred my e-mail address to ProFlowers. I also replied to ProFlowers asking exactly how, when, and where I opted in to this list.
The good news? Each quickly replied to my queries, which is often a surprise. The bad news? Representatives at both companies didn't fully understand the concept of permission marketing.
RedEnvelope responded:
"I apologize for the confusion, however Proflowers is our sister company which is why you have received an email from them."I hope you, dear reader, find this as unsettling as I did. After about 10 exchanges with customer service, one rep from RedEnvelope, Stephen S., provided the following explanation about how and why I was added to ProFlowers' database.
"Basically Proflowers owns RedEnvelope. We are one in the same company operating in the same offices. No information was sold/given to any third party affiliate.Indeed, San Diego-based Provide Commerce owns RedEnvelope and ProFlowers. However, none of that matters to me. Nor does it automatically transfer my permission from one company to the other. I didn't sign up with Provide Commerce (the parent) or ProFlowers (the sister), so the background family noise is irrelevant to me. I would assume 99 percent of their customers feel the same way.
...RedEnvelope and Proflowers are the same company. We operate in the same database with the same customer base. Our customers know that RedEnvelope and Proflowers are the same company because of the logo's that are displayed on each website. If you go to www.redenvelope.com, you can clearly see proflowers at the bottom where it reads, "Our Family of Brands". We even offer proflowers and Shari's berries items on the redenvelope site. Because we operate in the same building under the same management, no information has been given to any third party affiliate."
The official response from Grace Lee in its PR department is:
"Through our emails we offer a wide range of gifting options, and great savings and deals that consumers might not otherwise receive. In our privacy policy we state that we may offer free electronic newsletters and promotional e-mails for products and/or services offered on any one or more of our sites, such as the email you received from a sister company of RedEnvelope. If anyone wishes to unsubscribe to our emails, there is an unsubscribe link at the top of the page, or they can call our Customer Service Department at anytime."When I asked Lee if she thought this practice of non-permission was generally acceptable and in the customers' best interest, she replied:
"Consumers give permission to receive emails from our family of brands through our privacy policy."