CM April 2020

IT’S A FUNNY OLD WORLD…
Taking the Michael
An occasional look at the more absurd side of life
from the credit industry and beyond.
AUTHOR – Sean Feast FCICM
THERE is a famous story in
advertising circles of a bank
some 30 or so years ago who
wanted to target high-net
worth individuals with a
direct marketing campaign.
Rather than opting for the tried, tested
and safe route in early drafts of starting
the latter with ‘Dear (insert name)’
or something similar, the copywriter
opted instead for ‘Dear Rich Bastard’.
Unfortunately for him, and the bank, the
joke was never picked up, and an entire
marketing programme was despatched
to hundreds of rich bastards, addressing
them as such. (Reports that I was said
copywriter have been greatly exaggerated.
Ed).
One would have thought, therefore,
that such a thing could never happen
again. I have no doubt that the insurance
giant Aviva probably thought so too,
but they managed to go one better. Last
month they were obliged to apologise
after sending out thousands of emails
where they addressed all of their clients
as ‘Michael’. They said that a temporary
technical error was behind the blunder
– adding that there had been no wider
privacy issues relating to people’s personal
data.
The official statement read: ‘We
sent out some emails last week to
existing customers, which, as a result
of a temporary technical error in our
mailing template, mistakenly referred to
customers as ‘Michael’. We’ve apologised
to these customers and reassured them
that the only error in the email was the
use of the incorrect name as a greeting.
There was no issue with personal data;
the remainder of the email and its content
was correct.’
The apology prompted several ‘real’
Michaels to take to Twitter, especially
those who had been apologised to
for no apparent reason, thus further
compounding the farce. One newspaper
also decided to helpfully inform us
that there were only 869 babies born in
England and Wales called Michael in
2018. So there you go.
Killing time
VERY occasionally a story reaches the
editor’s ear that is clearly not meant for
publication but is nonetheless so funny
that it deserves special attention. So to
protect the innocent, I have changed the
name of the organisation concerned and
all of the characters involved.
I want you to imagine an important
organisation sitting down to a board
meeting. I want you to imagine also that
this same organisation has decided that
instead of minuting the meeting in the
usual way, they will trial a new voice
recording and transcribing technology
(called Otter.AI) to save time and improve
accuracy of any notetaking.
It all sounds like a genius plan, until
such time as they need to review the
transcript from the meeting. No-one
now knows what was done or said, but
I can confirm that neither Barack
Obama nor Caitlin Jenner were in the
meeting, there is no such thing as ‘an
inscribed pan’, and no-one has ordered
a ‘hit’ on a well-known member of the
credit community. Unless, of course, you
know different.
Advancing the credit profession / www.cicm.com / April 2020 / PAGE 57