It’s the day after Christmas and I woke up with a carb-hangover—which simply means I want to sit on my bum and eat more carbs. Fortunately my kids liked all of the mind-numbing gifts they received yesterday – Xbox games, Disney diva CDs, lots of Angry Bird themed stuff that will find its way into a landfill before summer – so I don’t have to face the chaos of the returns-counter today at Best Buy. Can you hear the angels singing?
This morning as my husband trudged Walking Dead-like to the kitchen to brew a strong pot of coffee, I sat lazily on the sofa and brought my iPhone back from its Christmas vacation. Emails and text messages pinged in one by one: well wishes from family, cocktail toasts from friends, and timely movie quotes from a few of my favorite smarty-pants, “If you see a sign that says ‘peep show’ it doesn’t mean you get to look at presents early.”
One text read, “Thanks for the call from Santa, hilarious!” It was from my business partner Dan. On Christmas Eve I had sent him a voice message by way of SendacallfromSanta.com, in which Santa personally promised him a honey badger because he had been such a PR nightmare all year, then asked him to leave out some Penne a la Vodka instead of cookies. True it was comical, but I felt like I should apologize nonetheless.
That’s because “Send a Call from Santa” was a viral campaign built by Google, which I knew damn well when I willingly filled the deceitful thing with data about my friends, family and colleagues.
On the surface the website seems like a fun, free service and advertising vehicle for Gmail. But peel back the mesmeric folds of holiday paper and Google’s real gift is exposed: an ingenious marketing campaign that can gather personal data and align it with offline call numbers. Of course, in the end the voice message complies with U.S. telemarketing laws, allowing the recipient to opt out of all future calls with the quick press of a button.
But by then the real damage is done: Google has added (or confirmed) valuable facts about people to its ever swelling database—a trove of private information that puts Santa’s Naughty & Nice List to shame. It always brings to my imagination Orwellian horrors of the future, where Google is plugged in to our every thought and action.
As Christmas nears, many people start to behave like anxious, giddy Eloi wearing elf hats and singing “Who Spiked the Eggnog.” It’s terrific, don’t get me wrong. But that’s why goofy media treats like dancing elves and Santa calls are passed so rapidly and without so much as a glimmer of recognition toward their real purpose: marketing.
And I’m the worst this time of year. This season I think I watched Muppets’ “The Ringing of the Bells” at least two hundred times. It was only a matter of minutes after receiving my Santa message from a witty cousin (evidently I’m a great tap-dancer and should remember to leave Santa chicken and waffles instead of cookies) that I had shared it a dozen more times. Now Google has the name, gender, location, general style and religious foundation (presumably) of my friends, along with their phone numbers. As if tapping my Gmail and my clickstream isn’t enough…
Ah, but how often do you type offline phone numbers into your browser for Google to find?
In the end, I’m guilt-ridden given my deep rooted misgivings of Google. I’m a marketer after all, and I know the value of data when you’re trying to make a profit, get a vote, or mind-control the populace. But the sad truth is, my real disappointment with “Send a Call from Santa” was not so much the shameless data-digging—Google is going to figure us all out whether we help them or not because they have a bottomless wallet (thanks to us). My real issue was having such a limited, hygienic selection of jokes for Santa to tell.
Next year I’m hoping for cocktail jokes and subtle innuendo. Come on Google, not everyone is 15 years old, or perpetually dressed in khakis. And I have lots of funny gay cousins to tease. (Hey, they give as much as they get!)
