Service vs marketing
One area of direct marketing that seems to cause companies to fall foul of the rules is sending a marketing message thinking it’s a service one.
The rules don’t stop you from talking to your customers.
They need to know things that impact their relationship with you. How they can contact you, the terms that apply to the services you provide, and when those change, how to make an appointment, the status of their order and a million other questions that arise in relation to you and them.
So there is no problem sending a message about any of this as these are service messages.
And I’m sure you know that at the other end, sending information about your products and services or additional options for them to buy what you sell is a marketing message.
What can be a little greyer is the space where these two meet.
Let’s look at an ICO decision on service vs marketing messages.
Halfords sent nearly half a million emails promoting the Government’s “Fix your Bike” scheme. The scheme gave vouchers of up to £50 to cyclists towards the cost of bike repairs. The vouchers could be used with any bike repairer or mechanic that had registered with the scheme.
The email referenced the voucher scheme and encouraged the recipient to book a free bike assessment and redeem the voucher at their local Halfords store. The email also stated, “This is a service message and does not affect your marketing opt-in status”.
Halfords said they were using legitimate interests as their basis for sending the emails as the customers had bought a bike from them within the previous 3 years and may be eligible for the scheme. They sent 498,062 emails to customers who had not opted into marketing.
The ICO found that the message was direct marketing. The emails directed recipients to the Halfords website and encouraged them to bring their bike and the voucher to their local store for a free assessment. They were fined £30k.
Reading the monetary penalty notice, it is clear that Halfords were promoting themselves as well as the Government scheme, so this was going to be marketing.
Perhaps if they had purely provided the information about the scheme and stated they were participating as a minor part of the email, there would have been a different outcome.
This case followed that of American Express which sent 4 million emails to customers explaining the benefits of using their Amex cards. They argued that customers would be disadvantaged if they were not aware of how to make the best use of the cards.
You are probably not surprised that the ICO didn’t take this as a defence to breaching PECR. Instead, they fined them £90k.
Getting the balance right when you want to send a service message is not always straightforward, but with a little help, you can find the right line.