14 March, 2016

Irritating ignorance

The other day, I received an email from someone marketing an ovulation testing website – or something like that, because, to be honest, I’ve forgotten exactly what it was and I deleted the email in anger.

It annoyed me for a number of reasons.

Clearly, the company had obtained my email address somehow from Resolve, as the email referenced my participation in past Resolve activities (I have sometimes joined their National Infertility Week or whatever they call it, and have linked blog posts to their site). I wonder, did Resolve itself feel it could forward my details to a company which was urging me to “keep trying?” Does this not conflict with the very name and purpose of their organisation?

Or did this company lift our email addresses somehow, and in a major marketing fail, completely misjudge its audience, not understanding that by the time we are engaging with Resolve, we are already experts on ovulation testing and a myriad other reproductive issues, and are often deep into the scientific, and very expensive, methods of trying to conceive or build families.

Or we already accept (or are working towards acceptance) that Resolve, in infertility terms, simply means to end our journey and move forward into our new lives, whether as parents, or as happy, independent adults.

Now that my irritation has dissipated, I can only laugh at their sheer ignorance.


7 comments:

  1. Ugh. I've never been involved with Resolve, but I have to hope that they wouldn't give out emails to companies for the purposes of marketing to a vulnerable population. Who knows though.

    Earlier in the winter I ordered a car seat for my sister (well, nephew) from a large online retailer. Since the order was placed, I've received near weekly emails with all kinds of baby deals. At first I had a similar reaction, but now I can laugh about it too.

    Not nearly as bad as Shutterfly's "Congratulations on your new arrival" email that landed in my inbox on Mother's Day a few years ago(during the worst parts of infertility). Guess what company I'll never order anything from again?

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  2. I would contact RESOLVE about this. I'm hoping that they are completely shocked and horrified to hear about this and offer fast resolution to prevent anything like this happening again.

    How rude of this company! This is the last thing anyone dealing with infertility needs.

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  3. I snorted at this: "Does this not conflict with the very name and purpose of their organisation?" Because yes. Yes it does.

    I went back into my archives to find this email fail. Here's the opening of the post:

    A major airline just sent me an email, with this in the subject line:

    "You can still make a child"

    What!?

    I open it for the full headline:

    "You can still make a child's spirits soar."
    .
    .
    .
    (My spirits most definitely did NOT soar.)

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  4. I know the anger is waned, but that is just awful. I'm glad you can find
    the humor in the situation. Marketing is not an exact science, to say the least. ;-)

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  5. Wow, that is...words honestly fail me. How awful and irritating. Like previous posters, I hope Resolve didn't contribute, but I'd be curious to know.

    And yes to the part about being experts on fertility/ovulation by the time we start engaging with Resolve - I've been surprised at how many doctors/nurses I've had to explain the process of IVF and fertility treatment to over the course of things!

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  6. I would be shocked if Resolve DIDN'T sell or trade their list, which often happens with non-profits. I have a lot of opinions about this, and I keep writing them and erasing them... so I should probably be a lady and zip my lip on this.

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