Marvellously insincere marketing

A couple of days back, I received an email from a marketing representative of a job-site company, which was sufficiently different enough to make me smile. The writer (called Serge) tried his best to be flattering, sympathetic, honest, intimate and humble by turn - a pretty hard-fought attempt but not quite achieving that note of sincerity he was trying to go for. I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise because, after all, it's an advertising/marketing exercise - and advertising/marketing have nothing to do with sincerity or honesty.  

The text of the email is below; comments in italics are, of course, mine.

"Hi there

Nice that he addresses me by name...

I just want to thank you for your wonderful blog srefoodblog.blogspot.com.

I read the post "Spinach & green bean rice" and then I spent another hour on your blog by reading your posts with pleasure :) Every article is interesting and easy to read.

How oleaginously the sincerity oozes through…

I work for Jooble company, we aggregate job adverts around the world.

My job is to persuade bloggers to link to our site.

I really love my job! We have a friendly team and good management, but unfortunately I have no idea how to convince a blogger to link to us…

Which begs the question – what EXACTLY about his job does he love, if he doesn’t know how to do it in the first place? And just how good is the friendly team and good management, if none of the friendly team-members have helped him, and if the management haven’t even trained him in how to actually do his job, or told him how to go about it?

 I'm afraid I might lose my job because of it :(

Noooo….. the sheer pathos of it! *sniffing away a cataract of tears*

And that is why, instead of sending letters to thousands of different blogs, I am reading yours.

Er… hang on, he doesn’t know how to do his job (although perhaps he DOES have a clue) and he’s afraid he might lose his job – so what does he do? Does he try to get some information from the web or from his colleagues on how to do his job? Nope - he continues to read my blog... instead of sending out those letters to “thousands of different blogs” (and as opposed to what? Thousands of the same blog?).

Honestly, I am not really sure if the link to our website in United Kingdom - jooble-uk.com, will be appropriate for your blog,

What, after reading my food blog for an hour, he’s still not sure if a link on my blog to his job-aggregating company’s website would be appropriate?  

but if you believe it will and it is possible to add it, I would be really grateful to you! Our site is really cool, it can greatly help hundreds of people to find jobs.

Yes - because my food blog is really not about food, I only maintain it in the hope of someday helping hundreds of people to find jobs…

I wish you to have a good day and excellent mood! Thanks again for your nice blog. Write more! Thanks!

P.S. I am a Pisces by zodiac sign too :)

Serge"

And that is the final sealing touch from this marvel of sincerity – his admission that he’s a Pisces by zodiac sign, TOO. I feel such a connection with him, I'm so happy now…