Not Bowled Over
Editor’s Note: Two posts in a week referencing bowling? The cosmos at work.
I love taking my two young kids bowling. It’s one of the few sports where I’m guaranteed the ego boost of coming in at least third place.
The only downside is the almost daily deluge of spam from the bowling alley. So, I was surprised and amused when this one landed in my inbox ahead of Father’s Day in the UK. 
Firstly, I love the combination of sensitivity with a blatant admission they plan to bombard me with yet more schmaltzy spam.
But what really makes me laugh and cry is how, in trying to show me they know me, they show they know anything but.
I have two kids, but they don’t know that, this was a one-size-fits-all email. My youngest brother, who has no kids got the exact same email. The data they captured at time of booking told them my contact details and my gender.
And why the assumption Father’s Day is one I’ll find triggering? I live with and love my kids and my dad’s alive and kicking. I lost my mum years ago, but the bowling alley didn’t extend me the same opt-out for Mother’s Day.
Like so much of our own sector’s comms this is an example of (presumably) good intentions being undermined by a one-size-fits-all mindset and some bizarre assumptions – Father’s Day triggering to a male, Mother’s Day not. And no plan to capture the data that might really matter to my bowling experience and preferences.
Random, broadly descriptive data points have been misread as predictive and the rest is irrelevance and irritation. No one’s going to be bowled over by that : )
Charlie
3 responses to “Not Bowled Over”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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Alternatively, they had some pushback on their Mother’s Day series & had the idea to try to be more sensitive with Father’s Day, so the idea struck them in between preparing the two sets of emails. Or someone saw another organization do it for Mother’s Day and thought, “Wow, why haven’t we been doing that?” and jumped on it for Father’s Day.
The question is, did any women you know get that email? If you know women who get emails from your bowling alley and they did not get that email then yes, a simple gender select is a little boneheaded – because women can find Father’s Day upsetting as well. I wasn’t super stoked about Father’s Day the year after we lost my dad, for example.
Not sure where the data field is in the CRM to indicate “has a troubled relationship with father/children” so you could narrow the field. Perhaps the select for “recently widowed” or “recently divorced,” but that leaves out a lot of people who lost their dad recently, or are estranged from him (or him from his kids) for the first time this year due to politics (which is happening an awful lot just now), or…
This is one of those situations where casting a wide net is a courtesy. It says, “We know life is complicated and we don’t know where you hurt, so we’re doing our best.”
In general, I’m a cynic. But this is one of the places where I prefer to think it’s nice that at least they’re trying.
The point demonstrated here is translating best-practice theory to reality can be really difficult and complex.
I got an email yesterday with the same sentiment, but for a fundraising conference. The email said “If already know that you do not want to receive any emails about the (name of conference) for nonprofit leaders and fundraisers – you can quickly opt-out here. This means that you won’t get any emails related to the summit, but will still get a weekly dose of fundraising info and inspo to your inbox…” There could be a lot of reasons one might want to opt out of conference-related email (will be on vacation, won’t go, went last year, not this year). It struck me as a thoughtful option – and it was the first time I’d seen something like that.