Spouting Shite

Viral marketing tactics

When is email spam or ham?

We all send silly emails to our friends and colluges…but last December one young London woman got the fright of her life when she found that her email had suddenly gone viral!

Holly Leam-Taylor, a trainee at the London office of Deloitte planned an awards ceremony to name the most attractive men in her office. Thinking this would be a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun, she emailed a small number of her colleagues at the City accountancy firm asking them to vote. With nine categories such as “Fittest body” and “Boy most likely to sleep his way to the top”, her message certainly grabbed attention. To Holly’s amazement the email was forwarded around the world, spreading like wildfire over the internet. Soon millions of people had read it. But it wasn’t such a laughing matter for her managers and less than 24 hours after sending the email, Ms Leam-Taylor felt obliged to resign.

Speaking from the Surrey home where she lives with her parents, the 22-year-old said, “It was just a lighthearted joke to celebrate Christmas. It’s a complete shock that one email could spread like this and who would think it could get so far out of hand? In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to do but there wasn’t anything controversial or sexist in there. But if I could take it back I would and I will be so, so careful about sending any emails in future.” She hit the send button on her Christmas Awards email on Tuesday, December 8, and when she arrived at her office the next day found her inbox full.

While her email was certainly not work related, I wonder was it spam or ham? Arguments could be made for both sides, regardless, spam filters should have stopped it and prevented its spread around the world!