Are Threats Becoming a Part of Marketing?

I received an email the other day from a woman working for a marketing company and selling the company’s marketing app that would perform marketing miracles, or something or other. I stopped taking her seriously because of a line she wrote to end the letter. 

She said something along the lines of: “If you don’t want to hear from me again, you’ll reply to my offer.” This was from a representative of a registered marketing company. I looked them up, and they’re genuine. 

The more I thought about it, the more I started wondering if this attitude was becoming acceptable in marketing, or even just a tongue-in-cheek “we’re just kidding” level of acceptable. 

Yelp – the Billion Dollar Bully

After all, the world has learned to live with the bullying and extortionate tactics of Yelp. Hundreds of thousands of restaurants, hotels, bars and professional services in 35 countries suffer a revenue drop in their businesses due to the extortion practiced by Yelp, but they’re still in business. Even after a documentary named Billion Dollar Bully was released outlining Yelp’s practices. 

I would hate to see Yelp’s practices being adopted by other companies as acceptable in a new and twisted version of applying marketing pressure on targeted consumers. But I’ve noticed that some people are looked up to in the business world for their ‘take no prisoners’ hard-charging attitude. Although bullying behaviour is publicly looked down upon, it still seems to have its place in the business world. 

Maybe ending your communications on a threatening note is the hip new way to show you’re working for an edgy, modern company. But I’ll probably never know. I blocked her from my email. That’s the problem with assuming a new edgy attitude in marketing. It tends to irritate some people.