Posted by James Cherkoff

A few weeks ago a client generously told me that they valued my contribution because I was trying to, ‘do good stuff’. ‘In fact’, his colleague added lightheartedly, ‘you are our outbound spam filter’. The remark was clearly intended as a compliment but initially I was confused. The client’s company was not to my knowledge a great user of low-down spamming techniques.

However, I soon realised that the comment didn’t refer to unwanted email but more generally to traditional ‘push’ marketing.  I really liked this fun description and it also set me thinking.  Traditional marketing isn’t really like spam – is it?  Clearly spam, the underground practice of harvesting emails from the web and launching bulk campaigns pushing largely illegal goods, is a long way from the activities of the mainstream marketing industry.  However, it’s fair to say that both involve dispatching commercial messages to large audiences in the hope that one or two individuals will be interested.

That aside, traditional marketing, in its defence, exists around a positive exchange where people accept some promotion in exchange for free or subsidised media and entertainment.  But there’s no doubt that this exchange has been abused to the point that people now use filtering technology beyond their email box.  Sky+ and Freeview allows viewers to ‘avoid’ television advertising.  Adblockers let people remove banners and pop-ups from their surfing.  Direct mail can be stopped through the Mailing Preference Service.  So, increasingly, traditional marketing and spam, while different entities, do share some characteristics.

Which, considering that spammers are thought of as semi-criminal pondlife, can hardly be positive.  But what’s the alternative?  If you can’t buy attention for your messages through paid media, what can you do?  A while back I suggested that that as media becomes increasingly networked and socially driven, brands will need to ‘earn the right’ to operate through positive participation.  Only this mindset will allow them to build the goodwill that is the lifeblood of the modern social web.

The web that the majority of their customers probably now use in some shape or form.  I noticed this week that Fred Wilson has picked up on a similar notion that he describes as Paid Media vs Earned Media and suggests it’s just good business.  The practicalities of this earn-it approach are creating something of value that people genuinely want, seek out and recommend.  And committing to that over the long-term.  Or as my client put it – ‘do good stuff’.  So there it is.  After years of trying to describe my job to my family, friends and professional associates, it turns out that I am an, ‘outbound spam filter’.  Not the most graceful job title in the world.  But at least there’s a future in it.

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About the Author: James Cherkoff is a Director of Collaborate Marketing, a consultancy in London which helps companies in Europe and the US operate in networked media environments. He is editor of the blog Modern Marketing and contributes articles to the FT, BBC, Independent, and the Guardian. James speaks at conferences and events around Europe and the US, including MIT MediaLab and Reboot in Denmark. You can here him here. When he isn't knee deep in the blog-world he is likely to be discussing Arsenal FC or playing peek-a-boo.