Marketing has always been an area where it is critical to stay ahead of the curve if you want to be successful but where should one draw the line? Being creative and coming up with new ideas is of course a good thing to do, but when it becomes invasive you run the risk of losing your credibility with the people you are marketing to and that can be a death sentence for any marketing campaign.

Today I was looking over my paypal account and came across a payment that I didn’t recognize, this payment was for one cent. I have received payments like this in the past when verifying my account for one thing or another so that alone wasn’t all that surprising but not recognizing the name that it came from, i opened it up a bit and found this message with it:

I have decided to not “call out” the individual that sent this to me as I was not really all that bothered by it, and I also don’t want to offer up extra rewards for their efforts. What I am a bit concerned about is the thought process that goes along with this, to me its just a bit creepy.. kind of like a strange old man going into a bank and depositing money for some young girl hes been watching through the bushes or something.. Maybe I am old fashioned but fiddling with my accounts that are “financial” in nature just doesn’t sit well with me.

Obviously this is an effective campaign as it got me to read their little pitch and then it got me to post here about it so who knows, the payoff on this will probably be good for them but I’m not going to bite. What do you think of this type of marketing tactic?