The day I met Charlie Chaplin

>> and wrote perhaps my most foolish copy ever.

Back in 1966 I wrote posters for a great film.

Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 was about a future in which the government sends out firemen to destroy all literature so as to prevent people thinking.

My copy was foolish, sensational rubbish.

But the film survived to win a Golden Lion at Venice and great acclaim.

You may wonder what the hell Charlie Chaplin had to do with this.

Well, when I was speaking to the director he asked if I'd like to meet Chaplin, so I did.

He was wrapped up in a cashmere navy overcoat and a large scarf and accompanied by his beautiful wife - and very pleasant he was to this jumped up young copywriter.

Chaplin was a great thinker, as his film Modern Times shows.

Today we have arrived at a dystopian future.

There are no firemen arriving at the door to burn our books.

But our lives are increasingly ruled by Google and the like.

So much so that the U.S. government is now trying to curb their power.

I don’t think they are evil people.

But their robots are trying to stop us thinking for ourselves.

Do you think robots are cleverer and wiser than people?

I don’t; and I am suffering from the consequences.

I use Infusionsoft for my e-mails (often dubbed Confusionsoft by users).

It’s always been hard to use, but it has its benefits.

Recently though, it seems to have lost its marbles.

As you can expect from a “marketing platform” we use ours for… marketing.

Infusionsoft seems to have forgotten how marketing works.

They have what’s called a “Spam Check” which flags anything that may be spam in your e-mail.

Here is a recent list of what the robots think is spam:

Mentions of covid, corona, coronavirus and pandemic, “huge sums of money" (like $30,264,000), and never must you utter the reassuring words “money-back guarantee”.

One e-mail was flagged because “Ratio of whitespace to non-whitespace is too large".

In layman’s terms this means that there were too many line breaks in an e-mail - something proven to increase readership and response - and the system accused us of trying to “bury the unsubscribe link”.

Here it’s worth pointing out that the e-mail was just 6 lines long - hardly deep enough to bury anything.

This is yet another example of deeply misunderstanding your customers.

How can a marketing platform that discriminates against the basic rules of communication make sense?

And why do I keep telling you all these things?

Well, I know many of you appreciate informed thinking, because you write and tell me so.

And occasionally you go beyond appreciation - and decide you’d enjoy working with us, drop me a line - [email protected].

Why not do so now, while the idea is fresh in your mind?

Let's talk.

Best,

Drayton

P.S. Know anyone who'd appreciate my Bird Droppings? Tell them to sign up to my mailing list here - dg250.infusionsoft.com/app/form/signup