You postulate that for people who aren’t EAs, this seems spammy. I would love it if that was the case! It would mean they were regularly exposed to such messages.
I don’t think that “spammy” just means “messages that the viewer often sees”. I can’t really put into words what I think it does mean, but if someone had a post like this about how the best Valentine’s Day gift was to donate to a fund that provided good architecture in cities, I would consider that spammy (unless it was really well-written, interesting, and not written by an organisation dedicated to promoting good architecture).
It was just accepted for publication to The Plain Dealer, the 16th largest newspaper in the US. They would be highly unlikely to accept anything their audience would find as spammy.
This is evidence, but my intuition is that it isn’t very strong. I know that some of the largest newspapers in Australia print things which I would think of as low-quality and bordering on spammy. I also find it plausible that the 16th largest newspaper in the US might occasionally have trouble getting content, and would have to accept unusually low quality content.
That being said, I also think it’s probable that different people have different criteria for what strikes them as spammy, and that there’s a significant proportion of people to whom this isn’t spammy.
I also find it plausible that the 16th largest newspaper in the US might occasionally have trouble getting content, and would have to accept unusually low quality content.
As someone who has studied PR quite extensively, I can assure you that the 16th largest newspaper in the US has no trouble getting content :-) It reaches over 400,000 people with its Sunday edition, which is the only venue where editorials are printed, and has 5,000,000 unique visitors online per month. This is a huge impact, and regularly has publications from major national figures. Making a rough Fermi estimate, if even .1% of the Sunday edition readers and .01% of the monthly website visitors try out this strategy, this is 400 50 2 + 500 50 2 money redirected toward charity from consumerism.
I don’t think that “spammy” just means “messages that the viewer often sees”. I can’t really put into words what I think it does mean, but if someone had a post like this about how the best Valentine’s Day gift was to donate to a fund that provided good architecture in cities, I would consider that spammy (unless it was really well-written, interesting, and not written by an organisation dedicated to promoting good architecture).
This is evidence, but my intuition is that it isn’t very strong. I know that some of the largest newspapers in Australia print things which I would think of as low-quality and bordering on spammy. I also find it plausible that the 16th largest newspaper in the US might occasionally have trouble getting content, and would have to accept unusually low quality content.
That being said, I also think it’s probable that different people have different criteria for what strikes them as spammy, and that there’s a significant proportion of people to whom this isn’t spammy.
As someone who has studied PR quite extensively, I can assure you that the 16th largest newspaper in the US has no trouble getting content :-) It reaches over 400,000 people with its Sunday edition, which is the only venue where editorials are printed, and has 5,000,000 unique visitors online per month. This is a huge impact, and regularly has publications from major national figures. Making a rough Fermi estimate, if even .1% of the Sunday edition readers and .01% of the monthly website visitors try out this strategy, this is 400 50 2 + 500 50 2 money redirected toward charity from consumerism.