(basically how easy opt-in advertising can be and how difficult it can be to finally opt-out)
I use coupons – got the habit from my Mom and the fact that she paid me 1 penny for each coupon I cut out of the circular and 1 penny for circling the expiration date.
I rarely buy a Sunday paper these days, so I find coupons online. I look for sites of products I use. I got to www.countrycrock.com and I click on the image to get a 40 cent coupon and signup for their newsletter.
Typical sign up form with demographic qualifiers to use as a cross tab for the marketing department to segment their email list. Everything normal.
So I don’t really use the spread that often, yet I get regular emails. Naturally I selected the unsubscribe button. While some unsubscribe screens simply state “You’ve been successfully removed from our list” or “Sorry to see you go, you have been removed” Instead I got this quagmire from Unilever, the parent conglomerate.
I love the phrase on the page: “Dont want to be contacted? It’s easy…” The ellipses are the tell tale of a lie.
Step #1 Figure out if you are * or **
Step #2 Figure out what brand you want want to stop. Wouldn’t they already know since that can easily be included in the unsubscribe link of the email? Could have easily been done to eliminate this step.
Step #3 Figure out what is the difference between a Subscription and a Brand. It just wanted to unsubscribe from an email – I don’t want anything else. The form is too confusing.
Step#4 Finally, you can select email. But wait, wasn’t that ** in step #1?
Step #5 Tell them why?
By this time, you don’t even know if you selected the right option so you might still be getting the buttery spread email every month.
Just keep it simple is not a corporate motto that is easily prescribed.
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