E-Mail Campaigns Just Don't Work

Over at Tales From The Crib, Carrie has an interesting post about a recent email campaign by certain LDS members against HBO's Big Love series. Her post reprints the email in its entirety, and is an interesting read.

Now, the Salt Lake Tribune picks up the story (who knew Trib editors read TFTC?) and further publicizes that which the emailer's most likely would not care to have publicized--at least in the media (want to bet whether further media outlets now pickup the Trib's story?):

The unidentified authors of the e-mail hope the campaign will give "Big Love" the ax in the way many conservative groups take credit for canceling NBC's "The Book of Daniel," a controversial drama about a pill-popping Episcopalian priest. (While NBC received more than 600,000 e-mails complaining about "The Book of Daniel," the show was canceled for low ratings, according to the network.) . . .

While HBO has not yet announced whether "Big Love" will be renewed, the ratings make it likely. That won't be good news for Nicki Rime, a 25-year-old project manager from Orem who received the e-mail Monday and instantly forwarded it to 30 of her friends and family, even though she hasn't seen the show . . .

Justin King hasn't seen the show either, but the 24-year-old Brigham Young University student also spread the e-mail to more than a dozen friends and family members.

"Whenever people talk about the Mormon church, there are quite a few negative views that the church still practices polygamy," he said. It's not known where the e-mail campaign originated. LDS spokesman Scott Trotter said the e-mail did not originate with the church. But Mormon leaders had earlier expressed concern that viewers might mistake the fundamentalist family depicted in the show as Mormon, even though a disclaimer shown at the end of the premiere episode described the differences.

Personally I don't think these types of campaigns work. I also think it makes the Church and the members look bad, particularly when many participating freely admit that haven't even seen the show. HBO couldn't have paid for better publicity either leading up to the series or now that it is in full swing. All this hoopla has probably had the exact opposite effect than the original email'ers actually intended.