Early this fall, I downloaded a white paper from a website.  Frankly I don’t even remember the topic, it was just part of my continuing education.  As is typical, I had to give up some info–my contact info–in order to get the paper.  That, I’m used to.  Sometimes you get put on email lists, rarely anything more than that.

What followed was out of the norm and I’m wondering what you think, both of their tactics, and of my reaction.

Right before Thanksgiving I got a big cardboard box, delivered by Federal Express.  Inside a ton of paper and packaging were six little cookies, each on a fake “rose” stem.  About $2 worth of cookies, $15 worth of packaging and $20 or so for shipping.

I was offended.  As a longtime media buyer, I’ve gotten my share of holiday gifts, most of them small/trivial like this one, not the kind of gift that could be seen as a “bribe”.  But most of them weren’t as environmentally wasteful as this one.

Then came the hardcore prospecting.  Two emails in three days, followed by a phone call.  Not overly aggressive by any standard, yet it was bothersome, primarily because they kept referencing the cookies.    They didn’t say it like this, but the message was clear:  “Hey we sent you some cookies.  Now you owe us.  We want to give you a 30 minute demo.”

They did get my attention, I’ll give them that.  So I went to the website to get my own look at their product.  Frustratingly, there was no pricing provided whatsoever, just lots of verbiage about how wonderful the product is and plenty of opportunities to sign up for a demo.  I had to use Google search to find a forum where users of this type of software were debating the price-value relationship of this product.

Generally speaking, the reviews were positive.  But I learned that the product isn’t cheap, at least $2,000 per year, potentially much more, and probably not something I need.  It’s my opinion that sellers of packaged products like this one would save everyone time and trouble by publishing their pricing, or at least something like “starting at $xxx” so that prospects can decide for themselves if the price is in their ballpark.  Seems to me to be a good way to qualify prospects and not waste time with those who can’t or won’t pay the price.

Back to all those holiday gifts of Christmases past.  Not once can I recall a company using said gift as a transparent method of getting an audience with me.  Those gifts were just part of the holiday routine, and I considered them thank-you’s for whatever relationship had been built or hopefully would be built.

So i ask you:  is this just a new lean-and-mean business strategy?  Is it reasonable that I’m offended by a “guilting” strategy as practiced by this vendor?  Am I wrong to be offended by the  huge waste of paper/packing/shipping energy in relation to the paltry value of the gift?

Oh, by the way.  This company sells a public relations tool, and is not from Indy.  Perhaps you got cookies from them, too.

Global media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp is considering blocking Google from being able to search its news articles as a part of a plan to monetize online news content.

Further, Newscorp is reportedly in talks with Microsoft to receive payments so that Bing has access to Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and its other properties.  Today there are reports that other newspaper companies are looking to follow suit.

What could this mean?

Experts are divided on the short term impact. Some think that Rupert is shooting himself in the foot by aligning with Bing and its 10% search share.  Or, is this the beginning of the resurrection of the newspaper industry?

Google still gets more than 60% of search traffic.  Will news junkies switch to Bing just to get more news content?  Or is there so much content that Google will still dominate?

The longer term is where it gets more interesting.  What if news providers end up in a massive exodus to Microsoft/Bing?  Would there be enough revenue in this equation to bring newspapers back to profitability?  Would there be enough content to change search habits?

I think this could be a game-changer for both Bing and newspapers.  But we won’t know for a while.  Perhaps years.