Spam Bashing By: Jim Gustafson
 
I have done my penance in the advertising industry. You might even call me an “ad-man.� I have engaged advertising’s rude and unwanted impressions. I have penetrated the unaware with my client’s messages. Oh, yes, I have been apart of the creation and distribution of junk mail and newspaper inserts. I have sold obnoxiously intrusive radio spots to car dealers. I have seen the glory of toll free numbers on television infomercials. However, never in my most effective advertising moments have I subjected human beings to the equivalent of the unbridled invasion of SPAM!

It was 1937, in the sleepy town of Austin, Minnesota, when the Hormel Company introduced a new product. Two years prior, beer began to be distributed in cans. The Hormel family looked around and said, “If beer can, ham can� (Or something to that effect). And the concept of canned spiced ham was born. They ran a contest in search of a name for their new product. The winner combined the “sp� from “spiced� and the “am� from “ham� and the rest, as they say, is history.

Nearly forty years later, Monty Python did sketch wherein a bunch of Vikings sang “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Wonderful Spam,� endlessly. The annoyance of their constant singing of “Spam� became a reoccurring theme. In 1994 a national law firm began soliciting business with unsolicited advertising emails. Their highly annoying efforts were dubbed “spamming,� in reference to the Vikings. The word “spam� caught on as did advertising with unsolicited emails. It has been all down hill from there.

Hormel has consistently fought the use of their trademarked name. Recently, they received a set back by a court ruling that reads in part, "the most evident meaning of the term SPAM for the consumers ... will certainly be unsolicited, usually commercial e-mail, rather than a designation for canned spicy ham." Ouch, 70 years of branding, marketing, and advertising over thrown by the evil doers of email, the satans of cyberspace, the devils of the digital.

We can only hope the future will slay the spammer beast. Until then, software companies will continue sophisticated filtering. Spammers will work their way around the barriers. Monty Python’s “Spam A Lot� will be sold out on Broadway. We will continue to hit “delete� and “block sender.� And I will continue to hope this is not …

SPAM

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