Interesting marketing strategy

You may not remember, but about this time last year I had a romantic encounter that didn't work out well. I don't even remember if I ever mentioned this, but during that time I sent her a bouquet of flowers for her birthday. Have you ever sent flowers out of town? It's expensive. They say you can't put a price on romance, but the Jackson, MS florists sure exceeded mine. Anyway, I found one of those internet florists that delivered her flowers to her via UPS. She was very impressed, for a little while.

So back to my marketing story, ... Over the past year I've gotten occasional emails from the internet florist, informing me of their wonderful deals for special occasions, etc. For the most part, I delete them unopened. The other day, though, I got one that caught my eye. The subject line read, "Bxxx's Birthday Reminder!" When I opened it, the email reminded me how I had sent Bxxx birthday flowers and asked me if I didn't want to send her some more this year? Now this didn't cast me into a great black funk, but it did get me to thinking. I'm sure there are lots of folks out there who sent flowers to someone in the past year, but they don't want to be reminded of it this year. Relationships that just never took off, true love gone sour, the recipient might even have died between then and now. It just seems to me the emails could reopen some painful wounds.

On the other hand, I figure there are more people who would like to make a repeat order (at least if reminded of the occasion) than those I've described, so I guess maybe it is a good marketing strategy. Regardless I just thought it was an interesting question -- and it gave me another chance to take a shot at A for setting me up last year!