This is fascinating. Why did 9 million people sign up within a week?
1) to the average consumer, the telemarketers are parasitic ***holes and it just seems like a natural progression that they would move on to mobile phones (like a virus mutating – now it’s airborne!)
2) a lack of faith in the government regulatory bodies (in this case the FCC) to protect consumers from telemarketer harassment. This can be summarized as “well, the FCC has screwed this up so far, so I expect them to screw things up in the future.”
I wish I was more sanguine about the telemarketing industry. As contextual advertising continues to gain momentum (with web and video leading the charge) perhaps the telemarketers will follow by cutting back on their carpet bombing approach and begin to think more carefully about targeting.
Carpet bombing the telemarketers aside, what lessons can be taken from this? What ingredients do you need to mobilize 9 million people to take action?
My (rather pessimistic) guesses are:
1) plays on people’s lack of faith in government
2) plays on people’s lack of faith in the private sector
3) make it an issue people really care about (in this case, privacy)
4) make the “call to action” simple (just click and enter your number)
for reference see Om Malik's post Mobile Do Not Call Hoax
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