The Target Market

~ beetleypete

I was busy yesterday, so there was no ‘Thinking Aloud’ post on that Sunday. But I was thinking about something, nonetheless.

Every day without fail, I get one or two ‘sponsored’ emails on Gmail. For a long time now, the most regular one that appears is advertising ‘Funeral Plans by instalments’. This is often accompanied by others suggesting that I ‘Free up the equity’ in the house, so as to be able to give money to my children now, and save them having to wait until we are both dead.

Other favourites include offers of medications to ‘Combat my erectile disfunction’. These are often paired with suggestions to visit online dating services, where East European lovelies will steal my heart, and set my pulse racing with with their sexiness. (Something of a double-whammy there?) More recent email offers are advertising ‘Comfortable Care Homes’, where I can be looked after by trained and caring staff, who will help me see out my remaining (apparently very few) years.

As if these emails of doom were not bad enough, there are others offering me some very unrealistic expectations. ‘A delightful holiday home, close to the beach, and within easy distance of spectacular mountains to enjoy.’ And all that for less than £400,000 too. Perhaps I have long wanted to take up canoeing? Just click on the link, and I will soon be paddling to my heart’s content. Or maybe I would like to own a log cabin, surrounded by unspoilt woodland? A snip at £250,000. Plus fees of course.

These marketing men and women don’t seem to be talking to each other. Half of them think the grim reaper is soon to be knocking on the door of some penniless old goat who can no longer get it up, and is yearning for his coffin. The others see me as a vibrant keep fit fanatic with unlimited funds that enable me to buy luxury properties. Once established in those dream homes, I can climb mountains, then canoe down the rapids, accompanied by my oversexed bride from Belarus.

So much for the ‘Target Market’. They don’t have a clue.

81 thoughts on “The Target Market”

  6. I don’t know if I should laugh or feel your pain about this. I’m sorry you have to deal with all these marketing emails Pete but damn give your kids money now for life insurance and erectile dysfunction?!?! What the freak? I get a lot of mental health ones…😒😒😒 So you know what that says about me…

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  8. I have noticed that since I have entered the ranks of the technically “Geriatric” I too have been deluged with advertising that seems to have obviously been designed to appeal to those courting advancing age. I call them “Old Goat” ads and I ignore most of them. I already have all the Life Insurance I need and if I were to experience anything near a sexual reaction/experience/happening/physical response, I am sure that my next and last action on the face of this earth would be to pitch forward onto the ground stone cold dead from a stroke or a heart attack so I am not interested in the Russian Beauties who desire to meet me and I am not interested in any form of chemical enhancement for my testosterone levels. But the ads keep coming and I keep deleting them and laughing my rear end off. (Virtually, not literally!)

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  9. Although I get some of those, I get many about all these wonderful suggestions I should follow to sell tonnes and tonnes of books… If only! (These are all by people who don’t seem to sell any books themselves, of course).

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    1. Since I published this post, I had had 15 new followers who are all involved in Internet marketing. They either don’t read the content, or just blunder in anyway! 🙂
      I might do another post about how they follow people like me, and how stupid it makes them look.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  10. Had me laughing Pete 🙂 I remember I heard of a case where the father sued the marketing folks who kept sending baby related literature to the house, only to discover that his 17 year daughter was pregnant! Of course it could well be a urban myth 🙂

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  16. Ah, that “combat your erectile disfunction” stuff is very familiar to me, I get this nearly every day. They always tell us that the World Wide Web knows everything, but I think that’s not true because until now they didn’t realize that I am a woman! 😀

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  17. I keep getting spam emails for ‘v1agra free with every order’ at some alleged Canadian pharmacy, because we all know Canada dispenses that stuff freely without prescription (!)–I am not really of a gender to need or want that, but I suppose they get any number of folks suckered in to what may strike them as a good deal–the internet is nicer when it isn’t all gimme gimme, in my opinion.

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  26. These enticing (titillating) offers would not exist, if every once in a while a dumb and wealthy individual was not found to justify the expense. Good thing we are the wrong target, Pete. Thank you for this fine piece of writing this morning!

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  29. Wow: I would seriously laugh about this, if it weren’t for the fact that this is really dumb. It seems that emails such as these just seem to not look at the facts: in other words, they think everyone is the same. Luckily there is always that handy, dandy button called delete lol 😂

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  31. I don’t know. They’re covering all the bases. Young, active, fit people are not immortal unfortunately. And if you are an older gentleman who gets himself a motorbike to travel to his new holiday home, dirty weekend that funeral plan might come in handy if you some careless motorist doesn’t check the blind spot.

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