The wealthy Nigerian prince
Just received an email from a wealthy Nigerian Prince. He told me that he doesn’t have any fortune to share with me at the moment but he would appreciate if I could let him know before May 25th if I wish to continue receiving emails.
— Ciarán McGonagle (@cpmcgonagle) May 8, 2018
This classic GDPR tweet by Ciarán McGonagle plays on the infamous email scam that involves a user being contacted by a mysterious “Nigerian prince” (or similar), offering to deposit untold amounts of cash into their bank account. All he needs is their financial details.
It’s a great reference, but also recalls the fact that some people will be receiving GDPR opt-in emails from companies they had no idea even held their data. As Parry Malm reminded us in his excellent, no-nonsense piece about GDPR and email marketing: “If you haven’t already been doing your due diligence to obtain positive opt-ins from your subscribers, you’ve simply been doing email marketing wrong.”
Finally, an excuse
to comply with GDPR, as of May 25th, I will no longer be remembering anybody’s name, face or personal details without their explicit consent
…phew, finally a viable excuse
— Jessica (@ticky) May 11, 2018
There’ve been a whole host of great GDPR jokes which satirise the idea of GDPR on an individual level, from your ex contacting you to comply with GDPR, to telling the kids that dinner is on the table.
But this tweet from @ticky cuts right to the heart of the matter – finally, an excuse not to remember anyone’s personal details!
He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice…
Who do we know who systematically retains the personal details of millions of children all over the world, and sorts them into one of two top-secret categories?
Oh, that’s right – Santa Claus.
He’s making a list
He’s checking it twice
He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice
Santa Claus is in contravention of article 4 of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679— joe (@mutablejoe) May 20, 2018
From today, kids all over the European Union will have the power to request that Santa disclose whether he’s holding their personal data on his “Naughty” or “Nice” list – and request to have that data removed.
Of course, this will mean no presents at all if you opt out of Santa’s list – but it might be preferable to getting coal in your stocking.
So long, and thanks for all the spam
Me ignoring my GPDR emails so I can unsubscribe from everything with 0 effort. pic.twitter.com/JKuU2flFco
— bv (@velzzb) May 16, 2018
This tweet from @velzzb says what a lot of us as consumers have, admittedly, been thinking about GDPR: ‘Oh, good, an easy way to unsubscribe from that mailing list’.
From an email marketer’s perspective, this is of course less than ideal. No-one likes to see their email lists dwindling before their eyes, or to be faced with the idea of wiping the slate clean and starting again with a much-reduced list.
However, to quote Parry Malm again,
It’s your job to persuade people to want to hear from you. That’s what marketing is.
If your email marketing is on-point, offers your subscribers value, uses the most engaging language possible (including awesome subject lines, obv), your subscribers will trust your brand, engage with your emails and be glad to hear from you.
Presumably, the consumers who use GDPR as a convenient opportunity to unsubscribe from your mailing list weren’t that engaged with your brand to begin with.
As annoying as it might seem, GDPR can provide an opportunity to weed out the unengaged subscribers from your list – and step up your game to retain the ones who are engaged.
Nego il consenso!
“WARNING. In our butcher’s shop we might ask your name and remember your meat-related preferences. If you are worried about this, please enter the shop while shouting ‘I DO NOT AGREE!’, and we will henceforth pretend we don’t know you.”#GDPR HT @PhRoose cc @bobnease pic.twitter.com/sDhveLiBqj
— Koenfucius (@koenfucius) May 19, 2018
A hilarious example of “offline GDPR” from a butcher’s shop in Italy.
Ridiculous, yes, but it isn’t as far removed as it could be from some of the more panicked knee-jerk reactions to GDPR.
Be careful what you name your mailing lists…
Periodic reminder that we can see your MailChimp list names when we unsubscribe… pic.twitter.com/GEftFXRMvS
— Chris Gaffney (@gaffneyc) May 18, 2018
While not explicitly related to GDPR, this tweet from Chris Gaffney is an excellent reminder that when users do come to unsubscribe from your mailing lists, if you use MailChimp, they will be able to see what you’ve named the list.
MailChimp tells you as much when you create one:
So be careful what you’re calling your – ahem – less profligate customers where they can see it.
Unusual methods of distribution
The award for the funniest GDPR-compliant opt-in form has to go to comedian Daniel Kitson, who has pre-emptively obtained consent for several unusual methods of contacting people “in case [his] business model shifts DRAMATICALLY in the coming years”:
Filling in Daniel Kitson’s email data processing update form has made me hysterical pic.twitter.com/NuVUGT9nVt
— Lauren Laverne (@laurenlaverne) May 18, 2018
It’s always good to be proactive about these things.
Harassment, Actually
Lot of films aren’t GDPR compliant, actually. pic.twitter.com/sXkynSBWRy
— Ian B (@TheAdmiral) May 21, 2018
Ah, Love Actually – the classic Christmas romcom.
Over the years, many people have drawn attention to the fact that the famous (and endlessly parodied) scene with Mark holding up signs outside Juliet’s door to confess his love without her husband hearing is actually pretty dodgy.
As this tweet from @TheAdmiral points out, it’s dodgy from a GDPR perspective, as well.
What are the best tweets that you’ve seen about GDPR? Share your favourite jokes in the comments below.
Here are a couple of good ones…
https://twitter.com/newriverm/status/997424290650906624
https://twitter.com/nicstevenson/status/999725276895612928?s=20
“Updated Terms of Service”
http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/2334
“Formerly the Plain English Group”
http://www.davidfroud.com/free-resource-the-gdpr-in-plain-english/
GDPR may be a bit like the Millenium bug – there is not the resorces to really manage the ful implementation. Update privacy page, send emails re unsubscribe dothe righ thing but dont swet the small things. Thats what we’re doing at https://healthmarketers.org anyways.
There are some brilliant ones aren’t there. One of my favourites was actually all the Spotify playlists that cropped up over the past week – some absolute classics in there to get people into the mood!