AM Inbox: Toys 'R' Us in CAN-SPAM gray area

The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:

Toys “R” Us, 7/11 — A Message from Gerald L. Storch, Chairman and CEO, Toys R Us Inc.
Toys “R” Us has sent another email about their child safety campaign. It’s very similar to their email from last November (see Nov. 19 AM Inbox), with a couple of notable differences. First, you’ll notice that at the end of the email there’s no subscribe link. While this particular email is not promotional, it was sent under a permission grant that was for promotional emails—this is, this email is part of a subscription for promotional emails. Given that fact, why should people not be able to opt-out of the email stream at this particular point? Toys “R” Us included an unsubscribe link (as well as a subscribe link for folks who received the email from a friend) in that safety email on Nov. 16, so I wonder what prompted their change in thinking. While mostly likely not a violation of CAN-SPAM, this is certainly not subscriber-friendly.

And second, the subject line is much shorter this time—65 characters vs. 100. While longer subject lines may be much more effective than we previous thought, accord to new research from Alchemy Worx, I argued back in November that there were some empty words in their subject line: “Our Commitment to Safety: A Holiday Message from Toys"R"Us, Inc Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.” While I was happy to see that they abbreviated “CEO” this time around, and adding Storch’s name probably gave it more gravitas, they missed an opportunity to drop some key words in there—namely, “child safety.” What parent isn’t concerned with child safety? So a subject line like “A Child Safety Message from Gerald L. Storch, Chairman and CEO, Toys R Us Inc.” might have done better. And “A Child Safety Message from Toys R Us CEO Gerald L. Storch,” which moves the brand name up and tightens Gerry’s title, might have done better yet. Of course, there’s no way to absolutely without testing, but those are changes worth considering.



REI, 7/11 — Run, Bike, Swim...Triathlon Gear and Advice at REI
This is the first asymmetrical animated gif that I’ve seen. It appears that REI uses one frame each of the “SWIM,” “BIKE” and “RUN” images followed by about 8 frames of the “TRI” image. The extra time that the “TRI” image is displayed gives subscribers time to read the deck on the image. REI couples that animation with boxes promoting swimming, biking and running products, plus a banner highlighting expert advice.



Here’s the animated portion of that email:



Macy’s, 7/13 — Shop our Buy More, Save More Event now!
Just like Bed Bath & Beyond and others provide wedding registry checklists, Macy’s provides a back-to-school checklist. These checklists are not only a nice service piece, but also a good way to get customers to buy things that they might not have thought of.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Dell, 7/11 — Save $369 on Select Systems from Dell to Stay Connected on Campus
MLB, 7/11 — Get Free All-Star Game Text Alerts
Frederick’s of Hollywood, 7/11 — How can you resist? The hottest styles. The lowest prices.
Lands’ End, 7/13 — Summer's End Savings Event: click and save on swimsuits and more
Walgreens, 7/13 — 25% Off Posters thru July 19 at Walgreens
TigerDirect, 7/11 — Over $5000 in Savings for Chad
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