Save the Venom for the Bad Guys

Sometimes, I imagine, the DMA  (Direct Marketing Association) must wonder what else it can do to convince the public at large that it is on their side. I write this, having just watched a depressingly mis-judged piece on the BBC's 'Watchdog' about a Channel Islands businessman, Nigel Roberts, who took a car rental firm to court for sending him an unsolicited email, and who was subsequently awarded £270. It was an email; on another day, it could just as easily have been a text, hence this rant. Enter stage right, the DMA’s Robert Dirskovski (pictured), or 'Driskovski' as the Beeb christened him, to be greeted with presenter Nicky Campbell’s opening gambit:
“This could be bad news for your members couldn’t it?”
And that just about set the tone for the whole piece. Dirskovski was treated throughout as the bad guy in all this, as if the DMA was somehow responsible for the offending email, rather than a responsible trade body that works tirelessly to promote best practice.
He tried gamely to explain the rules, how the DMA has its own Code of Conduct to prevent member companies doing things like this, but you got the feeling that, given the presenter’s attitude, no one was listening. And when he tried to make the point that the odd court case against legitimate businesses who broke the rules would do nothing to stop the tide of offensive, untraceable Spam that hits most of our inboxes every day, he was shouted down like some politician trying to avoid an awkward question.
Dirskovski, as those who have been reading Mobile Marketing Magazine from day one will know, is such a rogue when it comes to issues of data protection that he wrote a detailed and articulate piece for our launch issue about what you can and cannot legally do in a mobile marketing campaign. Hardly the actions of someone who would condone any form of digital spam.
Watchdog does expose some really unpleasant people, of course, and I normally have a lot of time for Campbell as a hard-hitting interviewer, but they got it wrong here. It's a pity that TV programmes that seek to champion consumer rights sometimes find it so hard to tell the good guys from the bad ones.

David Murphy
Editor, Mobile Marketing Magazine