The Slow Elf Returns: More Bad Holiday Greetings

Boxing Day at last. A day to get stuff done, clear up some of the clutter, go through all those e-cards at work and see who loves us.

Last year, we looked at the generally dismal offering of Multi-Denominational Winter Holiday (MDWH) e-cards and broadly categorized them as:

Self-indulgent, creepy, time-wasting, salesy, stalkerish, and, very rarely, meaningful.  I think we did marketers everywhere a big service, and I have high expectations that this year, we’ll see a crop of witty, creative, meaningful greetings that make us feel warm all over.

Maybe I was wrong.

Happy Hanukkah, here’s a Sears Catalogue

In the paper world, would you send a 368-page greeting card? Of course you wouldn’t. That would be rude. So why would this gentleman think it’s okay to send a 5MB slide show as part of his greeting? Notice the date. Yup, the 23^rd: a day when many of us have ducked out of the office for the rest of the year. I don’t know about Mr. B., but I live in a corporate world where Productivity Prevention Departments limit the sizes of mailboxes. A 5MB file landing at the beginning of the Christmas break will more or less guarantee increasingly hysterical auto-notifications that my mailbox is full and I will  need to go in and clean things out if I ever want to send an outgoing message again.

Merry Christmas, here’s a case of vertigo

I don’t know where this photo was taken, but it’s a slightly strange choice for the holidays. Stranger still, the decision to slap white italic text on top it. It’s a nice enough message but the production values are a bit lacking. In the paper world, it’s like pulling a postcard from your aunt’s trip to Vegas off your wall, scribbling Merry Christmas on the front and dropping it in the mail.

Season’s Greetings, here’s a new noun

I want to like this card. It’s pretty and it rises to the charitable aspect of the holiday with a unique perspective that encourages year-round giving. Okey dokey. I can even live with the canned greeting at the top from a dude I’ve never met, and the strange, multiple post-scripts at the bottom from people I have actually met. But what the heck’s the deal with “every give counts”?  What’s a give?  Is it a gift? As well-meant as this is, it’s rude to noun the verb, especially at Christmas.

Happy Diwali, here’s a committee

In case you were wondering, this is what happens when you let a committee design your holiday greeting. I’m guessing the agency sent over three concepts and there was a raging argument among the fans of disco trees, fond memories of Christmas past and adorable snowmen. In the end, everyone got their way.  Plus the guy in the corner, who was insisting there be a call to action, got his wish to have the newsletter footer put on the bottom.

Merry Solstice, please click here

I can honestly say that I have never, ever received a Christmas card that on opening, revealed an inside envelope that said: Open This to See Our Christmas Card. It just hasn’t happened. Possibly because it’s inconvenient, rude and suggests that the card inside is of such unprecedented beauty, quality and sincerity that it needs a special wrapper. No such greeting exists. So why did about half the cards I received this year require me to click to actually see the greeting? And why were the greetings so uniformly disappointing? The greeting delivered in this click-through is nice enough, but why force the click? Why not just paste it into the email. You can track opens as well as click-throughs. One click per greeting is my new rule

Have a Great Kwanzaa, please recycle

How many times do you receive a paper MDWH card that is so gob-smackingly lovely that you run up the street and push it through your neighbour’s mail slot? I thought as much. So why would this institute of higher learning suggest I forward their holiday greeting? To whom? And why? Plus they’re making me click to see their greeting.

Happy New Year, here’s a 404 Error

Isn’t this a lovely greeting? Who doesn’t like a fireplace? I like it so much I’m willing to violate my own one-click-per–card rule and see what’s going on. A blank screen? I’ll reload it. No dice. I’ll try later. Still no luck. People, if you’re going to make your friends and clients work to see your greeting (which you should not) at least test the link.

Ho Ho Ho, here’s a game

There are three problems with this greeting. The first is that I’m in Canada. No, Canada isn’t the problem, but the charity in question is an American charity and, as valuable as it is, I’m not so inclined to support it. This comes from a mailing list company, so you’d think they could segment the Canucks out and support the Canadian Red Cross. The second problem I have is this idea that if we just click, they’ll give more money (up to $5K!). Why are you playing games? It’s Christmas for goodness sake. Write the damn cheque for $5K and tell us you did that and encourage us to do likewise. The third problem is the sales pitch right in the middle. Not cool at Christmas.

Next time, we’ll look at some greetings that did work and we’ll set down some rules to make Christmas 2014 the best year ever for MDWH e-cards.

Related Posts:

Yes Virginia, You Can Give a Holiday Gift to Your Customers
Want the Ideal Customer Gift?

BizMarketer is Elizabeth Williams
You can reach me at escwilliams@gmail.com
or follow me on Twitter @bizmkter