Today I unsubscribed from marketing emails from a company I used to like and buy from.
Nothing unusual about this - people unsubscribe all the time to such emails. But this one got me thinking for several reasons.
Firstly, why is a pasta company sending me emails about gin subscriptions? Have they checked my age? Am I over 18? There was no age check in my account so the answer I assume is no. Therefore the email should not have been sent.
Secondly, I subscribed to hear about pasta, not gin. How is it okay to assume that someone who enjoys a plate of pasta also enjoys tipping poisonous vehicle fuel into their bodies? The last time I checked, pasta was not classed as poison, and did not need warnings on the packets. In fact, unless you are avoiding carbohydrates in your diet, I believe it to be fairly safe on the scale of things. Gin, however, is ethanol bathed in spices. I could bathe the fuel from my car in spices, but I still would not like to drink it. Because this is effectively what alcohol is. Ethanol - yes, the same stuff that is in your car and used to be used in surgeries to knock people out - this is what gin really is. My son is a young chef. He is 17 years old, and subscribes to a lot of foodie companies. How is it okay for marketers to target him with emails such as the one I received? Is it even ethical, I wonder?
Finally, and this one is the big one...
Thinking themselves rinsed from any wrong-doing, the Pasta company in question added the (alcohol company owned and run) "Drinkaware" logo, and a message to request that I do not forward the email to minors, but also... and this is the laughable part... "drink responsibly".
Drink responsibly, you say? How is it responsible to imbibe a lethal, highly addictive, poison, that slowly kills thousands of people in the UK every single year? A poison that tastes SO bad it is flavoured with sugar and as many different "botanicals" they can in order to make it remotely palatable. A liquid that you can use to run your car, or clean your paint brushes with. A fluid that, once consumed, triggers a huge dopamine rush in the brain, and makes it crave for more of the stuff until you blackout, fall over, or call your boss an idiot at the Christmas party. The very same liquid that makes you feel like hell the following morning, as your body desperately dumps all jobs in order to focus on getting rid of all the poison you have drunk the night before. And then causes you to hit a school child as you drive your car to work because it takes hours for your body to get rid of every single drink.
It is the same liquid that causes fights with your friends and your family, causes child beating and violence against spouses. The same liquid that causes crime and sexual assaults. Are we asked to do heroine responsibly? Or smoke responsibly? No I think not... Let me get the straight. Alcohol is addictive to EVERYBODY on this planet. Not just the homeless guy you see on the street. We are talking everybody. You, me, my 17 year old son too.
So, Pasta Company. Tell us. How do we "drink responsibly"? You seem to be the experts on alcohol. I absolutely loathe the fact that we are all exposed to these marketing tricks of alcohol companies. An addictive substance should never be okay to push in a pasta email, or anywhere else for that matter.
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