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Call him Spam Yoon
By adamg on Tue, 03/31/2009 - 2:00pm
Sam Yoon's campaign has been making a big push to get people to tonight's city-council budget hearing in Codman Square (chaired by, ta da, Sam Yoon).
Nothing wrong with that, here's your chance to see the Next Mayor of this Great City in action and all, but in addition to the money he's spending on polling ($27,000 to Kiley and Company last month), Yoon might want to throw a few bucks toward somebody who can advise him on how to do a proper e-mail campaign.
Kate Hutchinson reports on the e-mail she got from the Yoon campaign: From the generic "Dear {FIRST NAME}" header to the lack of a way to unsubscribe from mailings she never asked for, she says her only question now is whom can she vote for besides Sam Yoon?
Sam Yoon has, as a city councilor, not made much of a name for himself outside of "the first Asian-American on Boston's City Council." This email doesn't add much to my impression of him. For example, this looks like a news update from a concerned city councilor. What gives this away as an election shill piece is the text at the bottom of the email:
Paid for and Authorized by the Committee to Elect Sam Yoon. ...
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Comments
Robo-Yoon
Yeah, I got a robo-call from him promoting the budget hearing, was struck by the caller ID that came through: "BOSTON, CITY OF". Isn't that, like, illegal or something? Oh that's right, it wasn't a campaign call...
Feminist. Liberal. Progressive. Optimist. Writer. Petty.
Um, Kate/Pandora, as an email intern and MBA candidate, should know that the first name field can turn up the way she describes it for a number of reasons, including acquistion of an email address without a name attached.
As for the unsubscribe link, no argument there, it's a mistake. They happen.
On to the even more petty points...
She claims the email is "revealed" as an "election shill piece" because it says Sam's paying for it with campaign funds.
Submitted for your consideration, if he hadn't paid for it that way, a) it would have been paid for with TAXPAYER FUNDS (so he saved your money, stop complaining) and b) someone, similar in disposition to say a picky concern troll, would accuse Sam of using taxpayer money to send an election shill piece.
And finally, Kate/Pandora says "Needless to say, I'm not voting for Sam Yoon."
I suspect she never was. If that's not the case and this is what turned her, it says more about her than him that she would make her electoral decisions based on essentially minor aesthetic considerations. ("Needless to say, Leni made such nice films I couldn't think of not voting for that gentleman in the parade."
@ anon: There are multiple
@ anon:
There are multiple reasons for the "FIRST NAME" address, but it's still something that should be resolved in testing.
And it is a misleading piece. It's sent with the seeming intent to involve people in public hearing, but really, it's a piece drumming up support for Sam Yoon, a chance to put himself on display as a mayoral candidate. It's somewhat like an ad for a speech tour.
And no, I was never voting for Sam Yoon.
I got the same email "Dear First Name" too
I got the same email too. It said:
Dear {FIRST_NAME},
I wanted to remind you of this evening's public hearing at 6pm at the Great Hall at Codman Square Health Center. This is an official public hearing of the Boston City Council Post-Audit and Oversight Committee to solicit input from residents, and review the recommendations of the Boston Finance Commission Report.
***** Not only was this Bush League, but the fact that the autocalls had the "City of Boston" as the caller id is a violation of OCPF. The only other Councilor that showed up was Charles Yancey who came half-way through. Sam Yoon was clearly trying to use this meeting by claiming it to be an actual official committee meeting, but instead he was politicizing it for his mayoral run.*****
YEah, geez
He doesn't even say if the stenographic records are going to be available...