Let's say pop-oriented iTunes doesn't quite cater to your avant-garde musical taste, and you've ordered the latest Zarah release from highbrow retailer CD Baby. An email confirming shipment arrives, and it reads: "Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow." But wait! There's more! "Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy." Keep reading and you'll get to the company's Bon Voyage party at the post office. We kid you not.

In a post at MarketingProfs Daily Fix, Ann Handley reprints the tongue-in-cheek confirmation email, sent to actual CD Baby customer Jim Sterne, and extols its virtues before asking, finally, "Is it over the top?"

For those with an ironic or anti-establishment image—say, CD Baby or Urban Outfitters—the smart-ass confirmation email might make sense. But for brands with less edge, the strategy would be disastrous. You can only imagine the stunned disbelief that Tiffany & Co. customers would experience should the venerable firm announce its silver was spit-shined by a Frenchman with the finest pH balance. Or the bemusement Brooks Brothers would generate with assurances that all orders were processed by WASPs who could trace their ancestry to the Mayflower.

But—and this is our Marketing Inspiration—the CD Baby email illustrates how an online confirmation can serve as a free (and guaranteed-to-be-opened) element in your marketing mix.

More Inspiration:
Tangerine Toad: Design Is the New Advertising
Lewis Green: The Art of Listening
Ann Handley: OfficeMax's Viral Hit: Elf Yourself!

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