Where is Mr Clarke when you need him?

I got out the DVD, "Shall We Dance?" starring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez on the weekend and it was so sweet. It is the story about a man, who is bored with his life, so decides to take dance lessons in a ballroom dance studio because he sees a lovely young lady out the window of the train every night and is drawn to her.

Over the period of weeks he really enjoys the dancing and starts to spend more and more time with his ballroom buddies. His wife suspects him of having an affair and hires a private investigator to find out for her. They discover his secret dance life and she eventually catches him out, at a ballroom dancing competition, which turns into a fiasco.

What follows is a period where he downs his dancing shoes and totally turns away from the new passion and the new love interest. To cut a long movie short, he ends up choosing his wife over the young dance instructor and you can't help but sighing with relief as a marriage is saved.

A gorgeous movie, that left me with a full heart. But where is my Mr Clarke? My husband, who incidentally does not have a romantic bone in his body (I think!), thought it romantic to give me a rose bush, with the card saying, "Now you can't complain that I never give you roses." I guess he thought it a fool proof plan...shame we moved house and left the rose bush behind!

Where are the Mr Clarke's in this world, that sacrifice self to make their women happy and provide them with the security they are longing for?

I thought that one day I would meet my knight. Then we met and I realised his armour was not as shiny as I'd hoped and that trusty steed, you know, the one that was supposed to gallop us off into our happy ever after, died of malnourishment! I guess that's why knights wear armour...so their wives can't assault them when they realise how faulted the man is underneath the metal.

When will the ruse end?

Any thoughts?

A Case of Spamming the Wrong Sex!

We've all received emails advertising products that we are genuinely not interested in and I usually right click and send these to my blocked senders list. But today I was so amused by one spammers attempt to sell me a product I just had to share it with you. There are valuable marketing lessons we can learn from their attempt to get my attention and sell me a product.

Firstly, the basic rule of marketing is to know your target market and to pitch your campaign to their buying motives, needs and wants. This spammer obviously had no idea of his target market because I could not, would not and never would want the product that Greg was trying to sell me.

Secondly, another basic rule of marketing and customer service is to under promise and over deliver. I'm afraid that Greg could never deliver on the promises that he was making. It was absolutely impossible.

By now I guess you are dying to know what promises Greg made to me...go on, you know you're curious.

But before I reveal all, I have to tell you that i just wanted to laugh myself silly when I read his email, where he went into detail about how the product had helped him, how much his girlfriend appreciated it and how it could help me.

I even tried to contact Greg to let him know the error of his ways but the email bounced back, another faux paus in marketing! You should always be available to your potential customers to answer their questions!

So, I'll keep you in suspense no longer. This is the subject line of Greg's very "effective" marketing email to me...

"It will make your penis bigger and erection more intensive!"

Well, Greg, I don't think that is possible, given that I don't have a penis and have never experienced or intend to experience an erection.

You just have to laugh!

So I ask you...is spam an effective marketing tool? Probably not! And the really bad thing about Greg is that he is on blogspot, so he is one of us! It makes you wonder...

Oh, I forgot to mention. Greg also has a friend John who he thanks in the email for allowing him to show John's before and after photos on his website. Now there is a tantalising proposition!