Consumers have selected junk mail over spam as the lesser of two evils, suggests a study that examined which marketing tool proved more irritating.
The study, published in the fall edition of the Journal of Interactive Advertising, found that consumers said it was more difficult to get rid of spam — unsolicitied commercial email — over flyers and coupons that are delivered in traditional mail.
According to the Canadian federal government's Task Force on Spam, unsolicited e-mails accounted for about 80 per cent of global e-mail traffic in 2004.
"Overall, spam definitely is regarded as more annoying, irritating and intrusive than postal direct mail," said Mariko Morimoto, a professor of advertising at the University of Georgia and the study's lead author.
"That was pretty much our hypothesis. And while it's easy to figure out that spam is more annoying, I also wanted to know why," Morimoto said in a release.
Morimoto surveyed college students asking them to rate their feelings of irritation and intrusion in relation to direct mail and spam.
On a scale from one to seven, where one is intrusive and seven is not intrusive, respondents rated spam at 1.93, compared to 4.24 for direct mail. Rating irritation, spam received an average score of 2.46 versus 3.87 for direct mail.
Researchers found that people particularly disliked spam because it clogged their e-mail accounts, making it difficult to filter through and find legitimate messages. Respondents said that direct mail, usually from more reputable companies, sometimes contained useful sales promotions and coupons.
Morimoto noted that participants in her study said they didn't object to receiving e-mails from companies with which they had established a relationship, such as an online bookseller sending reading recommendations.
"If you cultivate your relationship with consumers in some other venue and then extend that effort to e-mails, then spam can work," she said.
The Task Force on Spam said consumers can take an active role in protecting their e-mail accounts and personal information by installing and updating antivirus programs.
The task force also recommended using one e-mail account for personal and business correspondence, and another address for other online activity. People should also not respond to spam but rather delete it from their inboxes.
Related
Internal Links
External Links
(Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites - links will open in new window)
More Consumer Headlines »
- Wal-Mart revives Christmas emphasis in holiday marketing
- This holiday season, Wal-Mart is bringing "Christmas" back into its marketing, after several years of playing down the term.
- Easy-Bake Oven, Lionel train earn place in Toy Hall of Fame
- The Easy-Bake Oven and Lionel model trains have joined Mr. Potato Head, the Frisbee and 32 other classic, but watt-free toys, in the Strong-National Museum of Play's eight-year-old hall of fame.
- Bill collectors reined in under proposed Quebec legislation
- The Quebec government has announced plans to revise its consumer protection legislation, introducing strict new rules for online retailers and bill collectors.
- Sobeys apologizes after black widow bite
- Sobeys has apologized to a Stratford, P.E.I., woman for the way it dealt with her call after she was bitten by a black widow spider she found in grapes she bought from one of its stores.
- Air bubbles save water used in showers
- An Australian government research agency has come up with a way to drastically reduce the amount of water used in a shower.
